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| October 07, 2001 Through the lens of an adventure photographer By Miles Blumhardt MilesBlumhardt@coloradoan.com So, you want to become an outdoor adventure photographer? Yeah, right, doesn't everybody. OK, are you willing to live on $5,600
Are you at age 33 willing to live in the basement apartment of a 90-year-old woman? Didn't think so. Are you willing to have as your most reliable traveling partner a civil engineer who sleeps in his Toyota? Didn't think so. Well, Dan Bailey was and is and now that he's "made it", the only thing that's changed for the Fort Collins photographer is he makes more than $5,600 a year. First time I talked to Dan Bailey on the phone was a few years ago when he was first promoting his annual slide show for the locals at the Aggie Theatre. After I hung up the phone, I passed him off as another adventurer wannabe who had many more aspirations than adventures. "Yeah, Dan. send your stuff in and I'll get it in the paper", or something similarly callous is probably what I said to him. Have to admit, I didn't expect to hear from ol' Dan again after my initial whatever-send-it-in conversation. But every year after
Little did I know until finally meeting Dan face to face a couple weeks ago in a crowded little office at the Coloradoan that Dan wasn't just another ski bum type who didn't have or want a clue how to pursue a real living in the outdoors. The dude's got his shoot together. Now, after a few lean years scratching out an existence akin to a ski bum, Dan's life is spent living a life doing not pursuing. "I define my life as work is play and play is work," said Dan, sporting blue jeans with tears in both knees and a synthetic long-sleeve Patagonia shirt that surely he traded photogs for and indicating he wasn't spending any of his newfound wealth on clothing. "I have one life and that life is spent doing what I want when I want." Wow, did I have this guy pegged wrong. But as I learned, Dan had much more spirit and intellect than I first gave him credit. Bailey grew up in Denver and attended Boston's Berkley School of Music to learn to play the guitar, another fruitless pursuit that lands 99 percent of pursuants on the streets. Fortunately, while
After shooting images around un-outdoorsy Boston, he had a decision to make: Either borrow $5,000 and attend photography school or pay outdoor adventure photographer legend Galen Rowell the money and go with his group to Nepal for a five-week photography tour. It was the start of many wise decisions by Bailey. After following Rowell to Nepal in 1993 and taking a trip to Pakistan in 1994, Bailey was flat broke but photo rich. A year later, he sold his first image, sunrise on K2, to Climbing magazine for $225. A nice start but the rejection letters poured in along with the bills and life as an adventure photographer was truly an adventure. "I think I can live more cheaply than anyone," Bailey said with a sly smile. "I can make $7 go a week for food. It's all about sacrifices to stay on my path, I knew lots of others who quit because they were not ready to make the sacrifices." He finally ended up taking a job with ADI, a digital imagery company in Fort Collins, but was laid off from what he calls "his last real job" on Oct. 4, 1998, a date around which he now plans what he calls his annual Dan Bailey Independence Party. The lay off, by choice not by design, launched his full-time outdoor photography career, if you can call it that. He made $5,600 that first year and $7,800 his second year with no outside income other than from roofing his land lady's house and two
After two years of four-digit W2 forms, 99 percent of adventure photographer wannabes are culled and herd to the safety of the wedding shoot circuit. But Bailey's will, his step-mom calls it selfishness, simply would not allow him to exchange his desire to shoot biking and climbing for weddings and family portraits. "I never thought that I couldn't do it," said Bailey, looking me straight in the eye. "I only wanted to do what I wanted to do and do it only the way I wanted to do it." Then in the summer of 1999, he made his big break. Tourism officials from New Brunswick, Canada, were surfing the Web for a photographer to shoot for their travel brochures. They happened upon Bailey's Web site, loved his shots, liked his price and hired him for two weeks at $1,500 a day. Bailey was on his way to making it. He got out of debt, bought a pickup and some new camera equipment and planned for 2000 his first big adventure since 1994. He and friend Eric Parsons, an on-again-off-again civil engineer, were off to climb Mexico's volcanoes. Then earlier this year, it was off on a six-week mountain biking trip to the remote northern Indian district of Ladakh. The two had never been on a bike tour and had never been to Ladakh, but that was the adventure of it. "We decided to wing it," Bailey said flashing that sly smile once again. "It's 450 miles of the highest continuous road in the world with the world's highest pass in the world at 18,380 feet and we decided to ride it unsupported." Fifty six hours after leaving Fort Collins, the pair was in Manali, ready to ride with their 75-pound trailers up one of the worst partially paved roads in the world. "Their method of paving was guys chipping baseball-size pieces of rock onto the road then pouring tar over it," Bailey said. "The problem was there were pieces of the rocks sticking up above the tar." They labored up one pass after another, with one climb of 6,000 feet in 25 miles taking the seven hours to complete. But the photographic images of the mountains, the valleys, the villagers,
Bailey has been selling those images and others generated from the past two years to corporations, outdoor gear manufacturers, outdoor magazines and even the U.S. Census Bureau to the tune of $30,000 a year. In some ways, the last two years have dramatically changed Bailey's life, yet in other ways it's not changed him a bit. His W2 form now includes five digits, he is seen in the competitive outdoor adventure photography scene as an emerging player and it's almost to the point where he can turn down work. On the other hand, he still rents the tiny basement apartment near Old Town for $350 a month, dresses like he has since high school and still throws a party for those who helped him make it. Oh, and his attitude about his life, his work hasn't changed. "I'll never work for anyone again," he said with that same steely look. "That's sacrificing freedom. I want to get to the point where I can maintain my freedom. I don't want to work so much that it dictates most of my days. "I don't need a lot of money, that just means I'm paying more taxes and working a lot and that means less freedom. I can handle the I-don't-know factor of my future. Besides, if you have your life written out like a laundry list where's the adventure?" Good question. |
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