Seizing the Moment | Director and Photographer, Corey Rich
Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais
Dr. Michael Gervais
4.6 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 16 October 2019
⏱️ 90 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week’s conversation is with Corey Rich, a director and photographer.
Corey has built a life and career around his passions for travel, adventure, and telling stories with his camera.
With a background in rock climbing and photojournalism, Corey’s work spans a range of genres, from iconic still imagery for leading editorial publications, to television spots and films, to directing high-production-value commercial projects for Fortune 100 companies.
Corey recently released “Stories Behind the Images,” a photo essay book about his reflections on becoming a master photographer, working with high profile subjects including Tommy Caldwell, Bear Grylls, Kelly Slater, Ashima Shiraishi, and Alex Honnold.
He was the official photographer for Tommy Caldwell’s The Dawn Wall film and his image of Tommy on the cover of his Stories book was a Time Magazine cover image.
This conversation though, isn’t just about what makes a great photo – it’s about Corey’s process for making the most of opportunities – and – his presence of mind, his ability to string together moments.
And while Corey loves what he does, it doesn’t come without a cost. There are serious risks associated with his craft.
In Corey’s words: The irony of the mountains, of climbing and adventure sports, is that it can give us so much. The greatest joys in my life have been in the mountains, have been in these rad, wild adventures but those same mountains can take it all away instantly.
There is much to learn from people who push right up against that edge.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You know, we've been on the side of El Capitan for six days at this point. |
| 0:03.7 | It's the perfect light at the perfect time of the day with the perfect moment |
| 0:08.1 | of Tommy leaving the portal edge. Kevin, you know, neither of them is paying attention to what I'm doing. |
| 0:13.8 | And the camera was close enough and through muscle memory |
| 0:16.3 | I lifted it made a very, I mean this happens very fast. |
| 0:19.4 | It's kind of, I don't know enough about football |
| 0:21.8 | to liken it to the, you know, the quarterback, like he sees the pocket, he throws, you know, the receiver is ready to grab it. |
| 0:28.0 | But it's a little like that. I mean, it's very fast. I make, it's probably less than 60 seconds from start to finish. See the opportunity, pick up the camera, |
| 0:38.6 | you know make compose, adjust exposure, depress the shutter a few times moments gone. |
| 0:43.3 | All right welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast. |
| 0:55.8 | I'm Michael Jervay. |
| 0:57.1 | And by Trade and Training, I'm a Sport and Performance Psychologist, |
| 1:00.2 | as well as the co-founder of Compete to Create, |
| 1:03.0 | and the whole idea behind these conversations |
| 1:05.0 | behind this podcast |
| 1:06.5 | is to learn from the extraordinary, |
| 1:08.0 | to learn from people who have dedicated their life |
| 1:11.0 | towards mastery, either of self, and craft, or both. |
| 1:15.0 | And what we want to do is understand not only what they've come to understand, |
| 1:20.0 | but how they've organized their life, both their inner life and their external world, to be able to pursue mastery. |
| 1:25.6 | And that involves a psychological framework, it involves mental skills, and it certainly involves |
| 1:30.3 | understanding what they're searching for. |
... |
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