After a successful surfing trip to Lakshadweep Islands and a brief stopover in Bangalore for the screening of Chris Burkard's movie Under an Arctic Sky, the crew headed towards Hampi, the last leg of prAna trip in India for rock climbing part. Most of us were quite beaten up with surfing in Lakshadweep and our preceding travels still everyone was looking forward to Hampi for the rock climbing part amidst its grandeur and history.
Until this trip, I had very little knowledge about rock climbing scene in India. I knew Ramanagar near Bangalore and Hampi were some of the key climbing spots in the country but didn't know much about local climbing communities, talents etc... I had an acquaintance from the media world, Jyothy Karat whom I had contacted for some information regarding climbing community prior to the trip, it just so happened her partner was Praveen CM, a 6 time National Champion and they agreed to be our guides in Hampi.
We spent about 4 days in Hampi, spending nearly 12- 14 hours outdoors hiking and scouting for photogenic rocks and boulders led by Chris Burkard and climbing talents i.e Paul Robinson, Nathaniel Coleman. We had two separate groups one was the climbing group which I was part of and other was lifestyle group who were getting a lot of shoots done for the prAna 2018 spring catalog.
Those 4 days went like a breeze with super intensity, it was a great learning experience watching how Chris Burkard approached his work and how he pushed his team including climbers to get that one perfect shot was pretty inspiring. Being one of the top-rated adventure photographers in India, I learned a lot from one of the world's best adventure photographer himself.
