Photographer Keith Ladzinski took a famous photo of Alex Honnold taking a whipper in Kalymnos 15 years ago. 

And about the famous Honnold whipper, Ladzinski said:

Alex was on vacation but even on vacation he still climbs. It was an in-flight magazine that sent me along to shoot him. Kalymnos is a popular destination for rock-climbers, because of its beautiful weather, the glistening backdrop of the Aegean Sea, and climbs like this one, which is called the Grande Grotta.

We’re both about 30m up, me on an adjacent route. It’s a little tricky taking shots that way, working out of a bag while dangling from a rope that’s attached to the cliff via anchors. I like this shot because, compositionally, it’s very clean. Alex is falling right into the negative space. The light is nice, the Aegean looks amazing and, given the way his legs and arms are, he seems frozen in time. Everything in the shot reads well. Alex didn’t slam down into the wall, though. That part of the climb is so overhung, he just dropped down into air. If he hadn’t had a rope, if he’d been free-soloing, well, that would be a different conversation.

Falling is pretty standard at the top level when you’re pushing yourself. There’s maybe an 80-90% failure rate. You have to rehearse your moves. You learn a tough climb in sections: if you don’t have your hold right here, if you don’t put your foot correctly there, if you don’t bend your knee at this bit, then your body’s not going to have enough tension and you’re going to fall off. So you need a good understanding of your body and an excellent memory for moves.

Ladzinski's Climbing Fall

Ladzinski has been one of the world's best climbing photographers for over 20 years, and it actually all started with a fall while climbing. As he said:

"Yet it wasn’t until 2003 that the real journey would begin. While rock climbing in Aspen, Colorado, Keith sustained a ground fall that resulted in a broken neck, and a long list of catastrophic injuries, an accident that nearly took his life. But this brush with mortality didn't deter him. It became a defining moment. Within six months, he was back at the cliffs, with a camera in hand and a newly defined objective, to document. Over the preceding decades, climbing expeditions would take him across the seven continents multiple times over, and through his lens, Keith would capture the feats of the world's most elite rock climbers for esteemed publications like the Washington Post, New York Times, and National Geographic."

Ladzinski on Versatility