...to another
issue of the MountainWorld Productions E-Newsletter!
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pass this page along
to colleagues, family, friends, and anyone who might
find it helpful and informative. You can read past newsletters
in my archive:
It does not matter how
slow you go, as long as you don't stop.
- Confucius
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of
their dreams.
- Eleanor
Roosevelt
Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all.
- Ernest
Shackleton
Resolutions
It's that time of year again. The New Year - 2007 - is well upon
us, and many of us made our New Year's Resolutions less than a
month ago. What was your resolution? Perhaps it was to make a
major lifestyle change - to quit smoking, lose weight, run a
marathon, or climb a mountain. Perhaps it was to fit more family
time into your schedule, or to bring your business to the next
level.
Well, how are you doing on your resolutions? If you're like many
of us, your resolutions might have gotten lost in the fray of
daily life by now. And perhaps you set the resolutions bar quite
high, making that goal or objective seem out of reach. Well,
fear not...here are some tricks to help get you back on the
resolution track and achieve your goals for 2007:
1. F O C U S: Those of
you who have seen my keynote presentations know that I kept
my childhood dream of climbing Everest alive by a simple
strategy - I kept it in front of me all the time. I had a
poster of Everest which hung above my bed as a kid. That
poster came with me to college, it hung in my room while I
guided on Mount Rainier...It followed me everywhere as a
constant reminder of where I was versus where I hoped to
someday be. You can do the same: write your resolutions
down, cut out a representative picture, make something to
hang where you'll constantly be reminded of those new Year's
resolutions - and not lose sight of them.
2. Break it down: When
I first went to Everest, it was daunting to say the least.
I'll never forget staring up at that summit from 17,000 foot
basecamp and wondering how on earth I would ever get there.
But, of course, I didn't try to go that day from base to
summit - I wasn't ready physically or mentally. Instead, the
task at hand was broken down into manageable parts, allowing
my body to adjust to the rigors of altitude and my mind to
build confidence in my abilities. So, if you resolve to run
a marathon, start by running a mile. Don't try to do it all
at once, or more likely than not you are setting yourself up
for failure.
3. Make a plan: This
dovetails nicely with the previous point - devise and write
down a plan for achieving your goals. Again, on Everest, we
have a detailed plan, a strategy, for climbing the mountain.
If we simply set off for the top, going up when we felt like
it and resting when that felt good, the summit would be
impossible. Instead, to climb Everest, we have a detailed
plan of attack which breaks the objective into manageable
pieces...and we stick to that plan. So, make a plan, commit
it to paper, and follow it religiously. Before you know it,
you'll be on top!
4. Team motivation:
Often, our best motivation comes from without rather than
from within. By telling friends, family, coworkers, etc.,
about your resolutions, you make it a public affair and thus
more difficult to back out of. Your teammates can help you
stay on target, they can check in with you and see if you're
following your plan and making adequate, logical progress.
But, you've got to tell them!
5. Enjoy the process:
Sometimes, our goals are not reachable. On my first two
Everest expeditions I failed to reach the top after making
to within 800 feet of the summit on both occasions. But, I
reveled in the process. I learned that the act of climbing
Everest was enjoyable, and in fact far more so than standing
on the top. I gained confidence in my abilities and learned
to love the challenge of overcoming obstacles. As the author
Robert Pirsig wrote in
Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: "To live
only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the
mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here's where
things grow."
With these tools, and some tenacity, you can follow through on
your New Year's resolutions and make 2007 a success through and
through!
On January 10, 2007, the climbing
community - and the world - lost an inspiration with the passing
of Bradford Washburn. A pioneer in climbing, photography, and
many other fields, Washburn was a driving force of passion in
everything he did - pioneer climber on Mount McKinley, driving
force behind the Boston Museum of Science, innovative mountain
photographer...the list goes on and on. To read more about the
life and accomplishments of this amazing man, please
see this article in the Boston Globe.
Bradford's legacy, however, will
live on here in Colorado (as well as elsewhere). Here in the
American Mountaineering Center in Golden, construction has begun
on the
Bradford Washburn American Mountaineering Museum. The museum
will have a fabulous collection of artifacts, engaging displays
and educational materials, and will focus not just on the
mountains, but on the cultures that inhabit those spectacular
peaks as well. As the
museum blog
aptly puts it:
Through historical
artifacts, visual and tactile experiences, and multimedia
exhibits, the museum will inspire and educate the visitor
about mountaineering, how and why mountaineers climb, and
the mountains themselves. Portions of the exhibit will be
devoted to international themes such as mountain cultures
and sacred mountains, regional themes like Colorado's
climbing history and the 10th Mountain Division, and global
concepts like conservation and safety in mountain
environments. The museum will also serve to honor the
accomplishments of both its namesake, Bradford Washburn, and
the many American mountaineers who followed in his
pioneering footsteps.
It is wonderful that Bradford
Washburn was willing to lend his name to the museum - I can't
think of a more fitting one.
I was honored when recently the
museum director, a talented woman named Niña Johnson, asked me
to be a member of the museum's Advisory Council. It will be a
wonderful opportunity to contribute to an important element of
American mountaineering history!
Photo Tip of the Month...
Outdoor Fill Flash
Phuru Sherpa ascends the Second
Step at 28,300 feet on
Everest's Northeast Ridge, May 30, 2003.
When shooting outdoors, we often
find ourselves in backlit situations - our subject is darkened,
either by a bright sun behind them or a bright background.
Fortunately, there are some simple solutions to this
problem...but they take a little work.
Understandably, most of us think
of using flash only when it's dark - in a poorly lit room or
anywhere after sunset. But, it is not only useful, but often
necessary, in daylight situations. Our eyes will often trick us
- with their amazing ability to process and define huge swings
in the dynamic lighting of a scene - and our cameras (even the
new, fancy DSLR's) cannot do the same. So, to compensate, we
must use flash.
Most cameras today -
point-and-shoot or SLR - have some sort of built in flash. And,
most also give you the ability to step down the flash's output
(flash exposure compensation). This is important because most
flash systems are far too bright on their standard settings to
give us the splash of light we want to balance a scene.
Take, for example, the shot above
of my friend Phuru Sherpa ascending the Second Step on Everest's
Northeast Ridge. Obviously, the background - snowy peaks and a
bright blue sky - was far brighter than the foreground of the
shadowy, steep Second Step. While my eyes had no problem picking
out the detail in both shadow and background, my camera (in this
case a Nikon D100), depending on my choice of metering the
scene, would have produced one of two results:
1. A properly exposed
background with a nearly jet-black foreground
2. OR a properly exposed foreground with a blown out
background
Here's where my fill-flash came in
handy. In this particular situation, I used only the pop-up fill
flash built in to many Nikon DSLR cameras. (I had my SB-800 hot
shoe mounted flash, but was shooting live video feed off of a
helmet cam at the same time and, if used, it would have blocked
the view, so I had to resort to the built in flash.) Knowing in
advance that the flash, on it's standard setting, would throw
off far too much light, rendering the scene unrealistic, I
stopped down my flash's output by 1-1/3 stops. This resulted in
just enough light scattered in the foreground to illuminate
Phuru, the ladder, and give some detail to the rock face of the
Second Step while still maintaining a look of reality in the
image - similar to what our eyes would see and process in the
same situation.
The key here is to experiment. In
general, I find that stopping my flash down by 1 to 1-2/3 stops
works well for 90% of the situations I find myself in. But,
there is always an exception, and the old adage "film is cheap"
still applies, and even better when shooting digitally. Bracket
you exposures with fill flash when in doubt, and try shooting
with various levels of flash compensation until you get the
result you're looking for.
And, if your camera does not allow
you to manually adjust the flash output, it's well worth
considering an upgrade!
Jake's Profile in Professional Speaker Magazine
As I mentioned in my last
newsletter, I was featured in the December issue of
Professional Speaker Magazine in the Welcome Home
section which profiles a new member of the
National Speakers
Association (NSA) each month. It was quite an honor to be
featured in such a prominent publication in the speaking
industry and, of course, to be a member of NSA.
For those of you who are not
familiar with NSA, in order to become a full member, a speaker
has to prove a track record of speaking professionally and agree
to uphold and maintain the
Professional Competencies and the
Professional Code of Ethics, all of which establish a high
level of professionalism within the NSA membership.
Jake featured in Nikon World Magazine & on
NikonNet.com
I was thrilled to receive advance copies of the upcoming feature
article in Nikon
World Magazine, a stunning publication profiling
photographers who use Nikon equipment.
Written by Nikon World
Editor Barry Tannenbaum, the article is very well done, and
covers my photographic career from its beginnings as a kid
leafing through back issues of National Geographic to my
recent assignments on Everest. Barry was especially interested
in the mystery of Mallory & Irvine, and thus went into some
additional detail on that story in the Editor's Note.
In addition to the print edition
of Nikon World, they will run my portfolio in the
Portfolio section of the Nikon World website. The images will be
accompanied by audio of me describing in detail each image, what
inspired me to capture it, the
equipment used, and other
pertinent details.
And, finally, Nikon's education
website,
NikonNet, currently features some of my images in their Inside the Image
section. Again, this section features in-depth descriptions of how I
captured each image, why I took the photo, what equipment was used, etc.
Clients, Presentations, and Travel…
Thanks go out to my recent
clients: MTM International, Rocky Mountain Jewelers
Association, The NCCR, Gyro International, The RMRTA Annual
Conference, The Watershed School, and to all those who
attended our presentations for the launch of the book
Himalaya: Personal Stories of Grandeur, Challenge and Hope
in Golden and Boulder.
Upcoming presentations
include: The NOAA Diversity Conference on March 7 in
Boulder, Colorado. I will also be presenting at a fundraiser
for the Crested Butte Ski Club at the
Center for the Arts in Crested Butte, Colorado, on
February 16th. This event is open to the public, and ticket
revenues go to a great cause...buy yours today!
I will leave for
Mt. Toubkal, Morocco,
on February 18th to lead an ascent of this peak - the
highest in North Africa. Rising out of the Sahara Desert, it
should be an interesting and fun climb! It also looks
promising that I will return to Mount Everest,
Tibet, this spring for another interesting ascent. I cannot
divulge the details at this point, but it will be a
marvelous expedition! Stay tuned on
The MountainWorld Blog for updates!
New Sponsors...
I am proud to be working with the
following companies and organizations, and thanks them for their
support on current and future projects and expeditions:
Contact
Information…
Jake Norton is a
professional speaker, photographer, climber, and guide from
Colorado. He delivers high-impact, multi-media motivational
presentations to audiences worldwide, inspiring them to set
lofty goals in life and giving them the tools to reach them.
Please forward
this newsletter to other people who might find it helpful.
Have a question
about Jake Norton or MountainWorld Productions? Please contact
us at:
Jake Norton
MountainWorld Productions
American Mountaineering Center
710 Tenth Street
Golden, CO 80401
