PICTURES by a leading Sheffield-based adventure photographer have gone on show in the city today.
Photographs taken by Alex Ekins during the filming of climbing movie Wide Boyz have gone on display in the Workstation, ahead of its showing at the forthcoming Sheffield Adventure Film Festival.
Wide Boyz records Sheffield-based climber Tom Randall and his climbing partner Pete Whittaker’s ascent of Century Crack, a 160ft-fissure in Utah, USA.
Alex, aged 44, from Nether Edge, said: “It was a tremendous privilege to accompany Pete and Tom on their two-month tour of the Utah and Wyoming.
When they first climbed it, I didn’t go on a rope and I was moving up and down a steep, dangerous gully and then I was taking some shots from the top as well.
“The second time I was hanging in mid-air on an abseil, right over the edge in front of the crack.
“It can be difficult to convey the sport to a non-climbing audience so often I think expression is the best way.
“Tom and Pete often have a look of pain on their faces and that’s often good to convey, that struggle and suffering.
Although born in London, Alex said he loves living in Sheffield.
He said: “My mum was born in Sheffield and my dad grew up in Sheffield, but I was born in London.
“I love Sheffield – it’s close to the Peak District so you’ve got great access to amazing countryside and it’s extremely friendly.
“It doesn’t feel like a big city, it feels like living in a town.
“It was coincidence I ended up studying photojournalism here. There was a little known course at Norton College – the best course in the country that nobody knows about it.”
The Wide Boyz exhibition, longside photographs from leading Peak District-based adventure photographer and filmmaker Lukasz Warzecha. is on at the Workstation, Paternoster Row, Sheffield city centre, until Friday, March 8.
* For details on ShAFF, visit Sheffield Adventure Film Festival
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