March 16, 2025

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Improving Your DSLR Outdoor Adventure Photography With Renan Ozturk

When we caught up with Renan Ozturk this January for photography and filmmaking ideas, the Park Metropolis, Utah resident skipped the brief hacks and technical guiding-the-digital camera techniques. As a substitute, he emphasized the great importance of the broader 1st move to enhanced visible storytelling—that is, zeroing in on fascinating topics, touring gentle, and actively playing the extensive video game.

To get caught up with Ozturk’s function, his award-winning films include things like Meru, Sherpa and The Very last Honey Hunter, it’s greatest to look back.

In the early 2000s, as a recent graduate from Colorado Faculty and survivor of a roll-more than motor vehicle incident down a snowy hillside, Ozturk gave absent his belongings and headed to Indian Creek, southeast Utah’s world-course rock-climbing spot. There he connected with the Stone Monkeys, who, like Ozturk, selected to are living as minimalists—without houses and quite a few even devoid of cars. Alongside one another they turned close mates, following the climbing seasons through the American Southwest for six several years.

Renan Ozturk_portrait
The artist at function in Castle Valley, Utah. Courtesy Renan Ozturk

When I satisfied Ozturk back then in Joshua Tree, he did not even have a tent. As robust winds blew more than the desert, his sleeping bag filled with sand. But even with the harsh solar beating down and sand-filled wind stinging his eyes, he continued to paint landscapes on organic canvases. And he climbed—including absolutely free solo—hard. He shortly turned a world-course photographer and filmmaker, and currently combines his love of climbing, art, and exploration to share it with the world.

Acquiring accomplished more than 25 intercontinental expeditions (like some of the boldest of the very last decade), The North Facial area athlete proceeds to paint. “His canvases are worn, folded, and wrinkled with the dirt of the mountains,” states his website. “The cracked paint, dried from the sweeping alpine winds, is an imprint of the weathering forces of nature that [he] endured on these expeditions.” Ozturk pours that exact same level of grit, determination, and perfection into his films and however photography.

Renan Ozturk_painting
Ozturk’s arms stained with shades, eyes fatigued following performing on a giant piece throughout an organic canvas, deep in the Himalayas. Courtesy Renan Ozturk

Suggestion A single: The exact same ethos of climbing can be applied to photography

Carrying only the bare essentials to shoot The Very last Honey Hunter, Ozturk captured his subject matter climbing a bamboo ladder hundreds off the floor to reach a kind of honeycomb that will get individuals higher. “The faster you can go, the more you can not miss out on a instant,” he states. “Have anything actually pared down and simplified it’s the total Saint-Exupery quote:”

Perfection is realized, not when there is practically nothing more to include, but when there is practically nothing remaining to get absent.

On that be aware, Ozturk shoots with a Sony α7R IV light-weight mirrorless digital camera with a 35mm f/one.4 lens. And even though “I have a thousand lenses with me,” he states exaggerating, “ninety per cent of the time I shoot with just that lens which offers me portraits to landscapes. It’s basic and powerful.”

Renan Ozturk_Honey Hunter
Mauli Dhan, the very last honey hunter, at the 1st of three harvest spots. The crew at the foundation lights fireplace to smoke out the bees and Dhan will make his preliminary climb up the absolutely free-hanging ladder. Right after climbing up it from down below, he must 1st tie himself off to a modest vine tree to get nearer to the hive on this seriously overhanging cliff. The 1st move is to chant a mantra for the bees to leave peacefully and brush them off with a bamboo pole in giant clumps. He pokes cotter pin-like pegs as a result of the 6-foot-huge, half-moon formed hives, then attaches the pegs to a bamboo rope managed by an assistant higher than. The closing move is to sever the hive from the wall. Maule cries out ‘Yuwa ke!’ “(it has fallen!)” This simply call, echoed by the other honey hunters, rings out throughout the jungle, even though the hive is meticulously decreased to the floor. Then he must scrape the greatest honey off from the roof of the overhang. His basket has ropes going to the major for his crew to get the fat as he controls it and communicates. Every single time he communicates with his crew higher than, he must lean back to yell up. It’s an extreme core-wrenching place and the modest rope he has hooked about his armpits for protection cuts his skin to close to the bleeding position. Renan Ozturk

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Suggestion Two: Come across great figures and great tales

Ozturk’s approaching full-duration film Sanctity of House combines an Alaska climbing journey with climbers Zack Smith, Freddie Wilkinson, and the legacy of the late aerial photographer Bradford Washburn, “the Ansel Adams of aerial photography,” Ozturk states. It covers climbers who can make it skillfully]and people that selected not to.

Wilkinson is a experienced alpinist, guideline and author, and Smith is a previous dirtbag climber that rather of pursuing sponsorship operates a holiday getaway lighting business enterprise. “He’s a single of the greatest darkish horse climbers out there,” Ozturk states.

In a tale in The New York Instances, it states of Smith, “he experienced turned down the trappings of experienced climbing, sponsorship and documentation of his climbs.”

Says Ozturk, “The tips I give individuals to do great function is to locate great figures and great tales. They are frequently appropriate beneath your nose.”

Suggestion A few: Know your topics

“The Very last Honey Hunter was 10 several years of going to Nepal,” Ozturk states. “I 1st went there for faculty for a review overseas job. I realized that discovering the lifestyle and language of Nepal would assistance me recognize the spot.”

Renan Ozturk_honey hunter
A however from the Ozturk’s ‘The Very last Honey Hunter.’ Renan Ozturk

Intimately understanding his topics allows Ozturk to obviously notify the two cultural and conservation tales.

In Honey Hunter, “their lifestyle is distinctive because of the beliefs about it and the forest spirit. Which is the center of their universe and they come to feel that that spirit is slipping absent into the mountain.”

THE Very last HONEY HUNTER from FELT SOUL MEDIA on Vimeo.

Suggestion Four: Embrace the journey and participate in the extensive video game

When it arrives to making terrific function, whether it’s with paint or with film, Ozturk believes it’s about following the extensive video game.

When somebody picks up a DSLR and mirrorless digital camera, “it signifies you’re starting off a extensive journey. You may well not know what you’re hunting for. Maybe you just want photos that stand out and want to handle people photos artistically, or capturing night photography. You likely have an intention to enter that area of photography. Check with by yourself what you’re passionate about, do you want to get pictures of your spouse and children? Even if you have a particular selection, it’s great to have that longer-term strategy.

“Don’t be scared to create tales and comply with that route even even though the payoff could be a decade out,” he states. “Sometimes it requires that extensive.”

Renan Ozturk_towers
Very last gentle deep in the desert. Two climbers getting in the check out from the summit of a crumbling tower. Renan Ozturk

 

To comply with Ozturk’s function, test out his website and comply with him on Instagram and Fb

Ozturk_Center of Universe art
Ozturk’s artwork frequently includes wind-blown sand, wherever the texture of the impression tells the tale of wherever the piece has been. Renan Ozturk