The Unglamorous Reality of a Solo Brand Photography Project
as always, the full gallery is at the bottom, so skip there if you don’t care about the words
People see the final photographs and think this job is glamorous. Beautiful mountains. Perfect light. Adventure around every corner. What they do not see is the version of this job that happened during my seven day Mount Lassen and Mount Shasta project. The version where I hiked three miles holding skis on my back because I missed the actual ski route. The version where I had to make two separate trips into camp just to carry all my gear. The version where exhaustion and beauty showed up in the exact same moment, over and over again.
Being a solo adventure photographer means you are everything at once. You are the photographer. You are the producer. You are the gear hauler. You are the person who has to remember the permit, pack the right lenses, and also somehow climb a fourteen thousand foot volcano without dying. There is no assistant handing you a fresh battery. There is no producer scouting the location the day before so you already know where to stand. It is just you, your gear, and whatever mistakes you are about to make along the way.
On day six of this project, I learned this lesson the hard way. I packed my skis thinking they would speed up my approach to Mount Shasta's horse camp. Someone told me the ski route was faster than the hiking trail. Instead I stayed on the hiking trail for over three miles, skis strapped to my back the entire time, sweating and exhausted and wondering why I had not paid closer attention to directions. That mistake cost me time and energy I desperately needed for the days ahead. Nobody plans for the bozo moments. They just happen and you have to laugh about them later.
Then there was the gear problem. I was creating content for several outdoor brands on this trip, which meant I needed product shots in addition to my personal landscape and adventure work. That meant carrying a tripod, a full camera kit, and the actual products themselves up the mountain. None of that fits into one trip when you are also hauling a tent, sleeping gear, food, and climbing equipment for two nights out. So I did what any solo creator does. I made two loads. I skied back down to the van, grabbed everything I had left behind, and hiked it all back up again. My legs were already cooked from the first carry and now I was doing it twice.
Here’s What Lives In My Gear Bag:
Sony a7r4; my work horse
Sony a7s3; mostly for video work like solo-filmmaking documentary
Tamron 16-30; probably my favorite lens right now
Tamron 28-75; I think this is the best all around focal length
Tamron 70-180; I don’t use this a ton, but it’s a great lens
This is the part of adventure photography that never makes it into a thirty second reel. Nobody wants to watch someone struggle with logistics. They want to see the summit shot, the golden light, the dramatic mountain backdrop. But that finished product only exists because someone was willing to do the boring, exhausting, sometimes humiliating work behind it. The double load. The wrong turn. The forgotten piece of gear that costs you an extra hour. All of it happens quietly before the camera ever comes out.
What kept me going through these moments was knowing that the struggle was part of the story, not separate from it. Brands do not just want a pretty photograph anymore. They want to understand the process. They want the behind the scenes reality of what it actually takes to create that image. So even the miserable parts, the double loads and wrong turns, became valuable. They became proof that the work is real and that the final photograph means something because of what it cost to get there.
Solo adventure photography is not glamorous. It is hard, lonely, and physically demanding work disguised as a beautiful Instagram feed. But that unglamorous reality is exactly what makes the final story worth telling.
Thank you for reading this journal entry. If you have enjoyed it and have something to add, send me an email: dj@dalton-johnson.com
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The Day’s Gallery
About Dalton:
Dalton Johnson is a photographer, direcot, and writer (award-winning at all three) based in South Lake Tahoe, CA.
Over the last 10 years, Dalton’s creative work has taken him to every continent, above the arctic circle, and below the antarctic circle.
