Tommy Caldwell on the Dawn Wall. For a story on photographer Corey Rich, visit
Corey Rich’s Book is Part Memoir, Part Inspiration
Due out on in late September through Mountaineers Books, Rich’s memoir is informative, entertaining reading for climbers, photographers and armchair adventurers alike.
“You met up with the big dog,” Alex Honnold said to me this summer at the Outdoor Retailer show in Denver after I sat down with photographer Corey Rich to learn about his upcoming memoir. Those are tall words from the world’s best free soloist, but Honnold was right. As a visual storyteller Rich, whose work appears in motion pictures, business journals, and with Fortune 100 companies – and on the covers of Climbing and Rock and Ice – is one of today’s top adventure photographers.
After his early days as a fixture in the ’90s Yosemite big wall scene, and as a shoestring budget photographer, he’s since travelled to Patagonia, the Alps, Pakistan, and the Middle East. His viral images from the Dawn Wall film, for example, took his work to the stratosphere, garnering him tens of millions of views. Today his work appears in publications all over the world. In addition to being a business owner and photographer travelling from one assignment to the next, Rich teaches photography and film workshops, is a frequent lecturer – he has a deep passion for sharing – and offers online courses, and he’s an ambassador for Nikon and has several sponsors. “Yvon Chouinard said he was an unintentional business person. That’s like me, you have to be talented and work hard, but also have that passion,” Rich said. The book is reminiscent of the late-great chef Anthony Bordain’s Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, where Rich shares the secrets of his society with the greater public. Having personally traveled and worked closely with Rich for a many projects, including to South America with The North Face, I’m familiar with his tireless work ethic and subtle, fun humor; both make it into Stories Behind the Images: Lessons from a Life in Adventure Photography. Rich pokes fun at himself in the book with self-deprecating lines, once referring to himself as “Being pretty short (and only kind of smart).” The pages also contain his best photos, with images of Tommy Caldwell freeing the Nose, Chris Sharma on his 5.14d Three Degrees of Separation, Alex Honnold