Tara Kerzhner

“This lens is adrenaline.”

Sheer determination.

Tara Kerzhner is unstoppable. As a climber and adventure photographer, she needs to be, and that grit defines her elevated perspective.

Her favorite rock climbing routes and her favorite photos have a lot in common: they take patience, learning, and trying over and over again until, one day, all the pieces fall into place, all the work pays off, and *click*—you’ve done something you never thought possible.

Early on I fell in love with bringing the art I’d learned in the darkroom to adventure photography. You're not strictly shooting the action. You're finding art within the movement and within the space.

“Right out of high school, I started reaching into the aspects of my life that I loved. Like I love music, so I would go and shoot live shows. I loved animals, so I tried a pet photography business. Then I fell in love with climbing.”

“Climbing is so addictive because we're always chasing that moment where you achieve something that was hard for you. Photography for me can elicit that same response: When I take a photo that I'm really excited about, I'm just filled to the brim with that exact same adrenaline.”

“If I’m going to spend a lot of time climbing something, it can’t just be for the difficulty—it also has to be because it’s beautiful.”

Tara

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Photos by Andrew Tower, Tara Kerzhner, Yifei Chen, Gemma Evans, Clay Banks, Christina Gottard, and Anders Jilden