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Hamish Frost
I’m an adventure and mountain sports photographer based in Scotland. My journey into photography began by capturing images of the Scottish backcountry skiing scene, however since turning professional three years ago I’ve expanded into shooting climbing, fell running and basically any sports which allow me to spend as much time out in the mountains as possible.
Michéla Griffith
In 2012 I paused by my local river and everything changed. I’ve moved away from what many expect photographs to be: my images deconstruct the literal and reimagine the subjective, reflecting the curiosity that water has inspired in my practice. Water has been my conduit: it has sharpened my vision, given me permission to experiment and continues to introduce me to new ways of seeing.
Usually, our featured photographers concentrate on trying to show a natural-looking and people-less landscape, but so many talk about how outdoor activities got them into photography in the first place that we thought it would be good to show the landscape in a slightly different light. Hamish Frost has taken his passion for the outdoors, added photography to the mix, and developed this to the point where he has managed to build a new career for himself photographing people enjoying the landscape. Hamish has previously said that much of the time in adventure sports photography, getting a perfect photo just isn’t feasible, but that certainly hasn’t stopped him trying.
Spindrift blowing off the summit ridge of the Parrotspitze
Would you like to start by telling readers a little about yourself – where you grew up, your education and early interests, and what that led you to do as a career?
I actually grew up in Cambridge but moved up to Scotland to study Engineering at Glasgow University. Five years of probably not working quite as hard as I perhaps should’ve, followed by one year of actually knuckling down for a Masters degree, eventually led me to a graduate job working for SSE (Scottish and Southern Energy). Whilst I was there, I got caught up in the Scottish backcountry skiing scene, so much of my free time was spent out exploring the Highlands on skis.
For those who don’t know, skiing conditions in Scotland can be quite ephemeral, so I was lucky to have a very understanding boss who would let me take days off at the last minute when good conditions prevailed. Sometimes even this wasn’t enough though, and when the days got longer in spring, I’d often find myself getting up at a stupid time of the morning to fit in a ski before work, or running up a mountain after work to ski a line before sunset. At the same time, I was getting inspired by a lot of the photos I’d see online from established adventure photographers based in places like Chamonix, North America, or even closer to home in the UK, and I’d take my camera out on my ski missions to try and emulate what they were doing. At some point, there was a changeover where, rather than just being something I did whilst out skiing, the photography instead became the main driver behind my mountain days, and I was actively going out and planning my days around trying to take good photos.