Pre-med shooter

Age: 24
Current town: Boston, Massachusetts
In it: 7 years climbing; 3 years photographing
Website: bagleyheavybags.blogspot.com

Patty-cakes, as he was affectionately introduced at a bar in Salt Lake City during the summer Outdoor Retailer show, was as animated a person as I had met amid the repeated gear pitches and edit meetings that whole week. Then an assistant to Tim Kemple, the undeniably chirpy photographer recounted the day without the slightest tinge of industry insider elitism rampant at such shows year after year. It was clear he cared deeply about climbing, photography, and people, but didn’t seem like a guy who took himself too seriously, which is refreshing in a sport often dominated by ego. Bagley, 24, formerly a guide for the International Mountain Climbing School in North Conway, New Hampshire, is now back in school taking premed courses and working as a nurse’s assistant, but still finds time to shoot his passion, rock climbing, in between the piling school work-load.

How did you start shooting climbing?
I’ve always been a huge nerd when it comes to climbing magazines, so I suppose I started by gleaning whatever I could from what I read about. I used to look at an image and try to see what was special or unique about it, and then try to guess who took the picture before looking at the photo credit. But if I had to pin “the start” down to one moment, it was in El Potrero Chico, Mexico. Everyone was talking about El Salto, this amazing, far-away zone, and I really wanted to check it out. Few people had cars down there, and even fewer wanted to navigate the crazy Mexican roads, especially with a random college kid like me. I knew this Canadian guy Ulric with a big 4Runner who had been obsessing over some hard route out there, so I told him I’d take photos of him on his project if he let me hitch a ride. It was inspiring to be around someone really excited to be photographed, so that got me fired up to shoot more.

How was it assisting for the Kemple empire?
Working for Tim was wild. Bawse, baller, whatever you want to call the dude, it’s true—he’s on point. It took me about a year to appreciate all that I saw and learned. There are too many stories to recount, and some are purely random little memories, like watching Iker Pou make a desperate clip off a crazy pinky mono on a 5.14d, eight pitches off the ground. Of all the things to remember… Anyway, Tim was super generous with sharing tips. I was blown away by how making the best images requires a huge team effort, especially for commercial shoots. However, the biggest thing I think anyone would get from watching Kemple work is that he can bank on big risks (like nailing “one take” shots) because he is talented and works harder than most. He seemed to make his own luck, and that was really inspiring.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
Honestly? Working full-time in the medical field and counting the minutes until I get to go back outside.

Who’s your favorite photographer?
I really like Richard Avedon’s portraits from his American West project. He drove around and stopped in random factories, fairs, and freak shows just to photograph interesting-looking people. The catch was that he’d ask everyone to stand in front of the same white background, so just the person’s body, eyes, whatever, told their story—zero background or context. Coming from a climbing standpoint, this blew my mind, because I used to think context and scenery were a huge part of any good image. Getting some random, creepy person to stand at ease while you photograph them—I’m not sure if that requires greater skill than jugging around El Cap to shoot, but it is certainly more daunting to me.

Give me a rundown of the must-haves in your everyday camera bag.
You can do a lot with a basic zoom lens, but eventually you’ll be limited by equipment—especially lenses. Hanging from rope, I am always psyched to have a wide lens, because you can never get far enough away from your subject. However, it’s way too easy to overuse a fisheye. A good alternative is something with a very shallow depth of fi eld, so that you isolate the subject or blur away the ground beneath the climber.

If you had to give up one, which would it be: photography or climbing?
I suppose taking a cool-looking picture does more good for more people than climbing a cool-looking rock.