Original subtitles

[gusting winds]

[reporter] A very dangerous storm,

you folks need to pay attention and stay alert.

[reporter 2] ...Oklahoma, only as far north as Missouri,

with tornado watches and warnings as well.

And right now, some of the toughest weather is from Dallas,

up towards Oklahoma City,

even south of that pushing down towards Austin.

This line is going to make its push to the east.

So, let's...

-Oh. It's quite pink to our left.

[radio chatter]

-Yeah.

-So where are we in relation?

-We're where that blue dot is.

[emergency alert beeping].

Oh looks like there was a tornado spotted.

-Oh, there's some structure happening.

[gusting winds]

[camera clicking]

-Krystle! -What?

-Get in that!

I think it's going to tornado.

[emergency alert beeping].

[Krystle Wright] Ahh. This is getting good.

Photographing out in the elements,

you are at the mercy of Mother Nature.

[thunder rumbling]

-The lightning activity's really ramping up.

[Krystle Wright] Obviously there's a risk involved but

it's this yin-yang of danger,

and this incredible raw beauty of extreme environments.

[bystander] Krystle Wright is one of the best extreme sports

and adventure photographers out there.

Her unique style and approach to photography has led her to

travel to over 32 countries.

-You have the most elite athletes in the world.

Then you have Krystle being in the right position

and capturing the moment.

[bystander] Testing her own limits.

[bystander 2] Putting herself in peril.

-She continues to push and push and push.

-From climbing to free diving.

From under the water to chasing storms.

-It's on the ground.

Tornado!

[Krystle Wright] Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!

-She makes images that other people on the planet

haven't made before.

-Aw! Look at that!

[♪ theme music plays]

[tires screech]

[Krystle Wright] Well, we're jumping on the road

to Houston yeah?

-Yeah.

-Gotta remember how to drive on the American side.

[laughs]

Nick and I, we just landed maybe an hour ago.

Flew out of Sydney.

I'm here in the US for a month with two passion projects.

I want to make images that excite me.

First, my plan is to storm chase through the American Midwest.

It's been, gosh, like three years

since we've last chased.

[Nick Moir] Yeah it's weird, huh?

[Krystle Wright] It was March 2020,

there's just that one particular week where it all just sunk in,

oh, like we're in a pandemic.

It was hard because all my work was about travel.

[Nick Moir] You want to get onto 35 West to Waco.

[Krystle Wright] I didn't pick up the camera for many months.

Now it's back to my classic ways of taking a gamble on myself and

hoping that these passion projects pay off.

It's just nice to be back storm-chasing

again after so long.

-Yeah, there's an obsession,

you either get storm chasing or you don't.

-For me with storm chasing it's everything.

Dust storms or lightning, it's not just always about tornadoes

even though of course that would be a massive reward.

I used to joke that if I landed in Denver Airport that

I had no reason to ever venture east,

because it was just flat, like nothing.

How wrong was I?

Tornado Alley gets more consistent storms

than anywhere else in the world.

You stand on these rolling plains and

the sky just comes alive,

like its own animal.

Is that rotation there?

[Nick Moir] It's a dust devil.

Essentially the ground's heating up, the air wants to

rise and the most efficient way of doing it is rotating.

A strong dust devil can be as strong as a low-end tornado.

Oh, look there's another one popping out.

-Yeah, yeah. -Look at it, look at it go!

[laughter].

[Krystle Wright] I absolutely love shooting in dust storms

because I think it's some of the most atmospheric,

apocalyptic scenes.

[camera clicks]

[camera clicks]

But it's just...

[sighs]

It's painful like you just can't see.

I think that's why I love being out here in these situations,

because there's beauty in discomfort.

[gusting winds]

[lightning cracks]

Okay, I'm gonna just jump out for a second.

[Nick Moir] Just be prepared to jump back in.

[gusting winds]

[Krystle Wright] I love things out of my control.

That's why I never shoot inside.

I'm a perfectionist, OCD.

I remember as a teenager I spent four [bleep] hours

lighting a wine glass and I still couldn't get it

perfect to what I wanted.

But this is like, I've got no control except for like

perfectly placing myself in the best position possible.

I think to the times that I've been the happiest.

It's always been in nature.

That comes from my childhood.

[gusting winds]

Growing up my brother, sister, and I, we were just

always really adventurous.

I grew up in a really small town in Australia.

On the Sunshine Coast,

called Eudlo.

We relied on ourselves to be our entertainment.

[laughter]

[splashing]

-It was good having them that close,

'cause their bond is really strong.

-We would go to the beach, go surfing,

we'd go swimming in the creek,

always something interesting to do outdoors,

didn't spend a lot of time inside.

She was probably the most strong-willed one.

She just really strived to try and be her best.

[Krystle Wright] The fondest memories I have

involved either art or sport.

That was the era of the Kodak disposable camera.

There was something so beautiful to really think about,

"You know what?

There's only five moments today that I'm going to capture

and that's it."

[camera clicking]

[Ruth Evolute] They always wanted to have

proof of what they'd done.

So I'd buy throwaway cameras, and she always came back with

really good photos.

[Krystle Wright] When I came to the end of high school,

it was actually my mom who said,

"I think you should do photography."

It was like an instant light bulb.

And then when I went to University,

I saw the work of Adam Pretty.

That's what I want to do,

I want to be a sports photographer.

I finished my university degree and moved straight to Sydney,

and I started working for Sunday Telegraph.

One weekend I came in and they go,

"Oh, Krystle, we need you to cover

the horse racing shift today."

And I thought, "Yeah, no worries."

[cheering]

[Krystle Wright] And then next thing you know,

two years I had shot every horse racing shift.

And it's always the same shot.

We just need to see the winning horse.

Are you [bleep] kidding me?

I hated it.

I just wanted to get out there and just do something different.

[cheering]

[Krystle Wright] The forecast this morning,

a lot of the action is going to be in Texas for a few days.

And hopefully, we'll jump on a supercell today.

[Nick Moir] A supercell is a storm that has become organized.

So there's hot moist air

coming in and as that storm develops,

it's able to rotate.

That's when you can get a tornado develop.

[alarm blares].

Hoo-wee,

60 mile-an-hour wind gusts.

Rock and Roll.

[alarm blares].

[Krystle Wright] That's our first tornado warning

of the day.

We're just watching the supercell because

it's acting like a vacuum.

It is just sucking up all the energy around us.

When you look behind, over here is like a massive line of cloud

and that's an inflow band.

[Nick Moir] It's a river, it's a river of energy.

Oh my goodness.

[Krystle Wright] You've sort of got this glowing sky.

You've got this green-blue above us,

which usually that indicates hail.

You've got this beautiful definition.

When it comes to storm chasing,

there is truly an art to how you chase.

A lot of it is just reading the sky and

following your intuition.

[Nick Moir] That's strange storm chasing gear.

[Krystle Wright] I just [bleep] hate wearing shoes.

[lightning cracks]

Woah!

[gusting winds]

[camera clicks]

[lightning crackling]

[Nick Moir] The lightning activity's really ramping up.

I'd come off the ridge.

It's very active.

This is dropping some main bolts in there.

[lightning cracks]

Oh!

[camera clicking]

We're definitely in the strike zone.

-Let's go. -Yeah.

[Nick Moir] Right now. Very quickly.

[thunder rumbling]

We picked the best storm today, but at no point did it really

look like it was going to drop a tornado.

[Krystle Wright] I still don't quite have the skill set

developed that I could just go off and do this by myself.

Nick, my mentor with storm chasing,

he's been doing this for over 20 years,

so he definitely has more intuition.

If I place myself in the wrong part of the storm and

I'm not precise at reading that radar,

I could be in a fatal position.

-Woah. -[bleep], that was close.

[Krystle Wright] That was nerve-wracking.

[Nick Moir] Oof!

[Krystle Wright] You're trying to capture that split-second

shot but then also have

the common sense to know when to pull out.

[Nick Moir] Well, I don't know if we did that.

[laughter].

[Krystle Wright] Had you told my younger self that

I was going to become a stormchaser,

I probably would have laughed it off.

But my career has continued to evolve in ways

that I definitely didn't see coming.

When I worked as a newspaper photographer,

I had a lot of spare time.

I was going out to shoot,

whether it was rock climbing, or surfing,

mountain biking, you name it.

Bit by bit, I would just build this network and

one of those networks was actually

the BASE jumping community.

And it was still very much underground.

And for the next couple years,

like I'd go out and just shoot every BASE jump.

[camera clicking]

You are standing there and watching someone just

leap off the edge of a cliff.

It's a sport where there's no spare parachute.

And then, I became friends with one of the more

experienced jumpers, Jim Mitchell.

He had close to 1,000 BASE jumps behind him.

And so one day, he goes,

"I'm going to go back to Baffin Island

with this expedition like, do you want to come?"

And I was like, "Yes."

Like, "The Arctic?"

Yeah like, I would love to go."

I had to buy all the gear and of course the plane tickets.

Like, I had no support.

So I spent everything that I had.

I was completely spellbound from the first instant.

[bystander] Go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

Go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

[Krystle Wright] It was really nice to have Jim there.

I, I had hiked up to some pretty major peaks

to photograph, and I'm not a BASE jumper,

so there had been like this talk of, "Yeah, we'll always

make sure someone's with Krystle," you know,

as if a BASE jumper is going to give up

a 5,000-foot jump to go babysit a photographer.

[jumper] Woo-hoo!

[Krystle Wright] And at the end of the day, I hiked back,

it took me hours, and there was Jim,

waiting to get me back to base camp.

So I do feel like he was looking out for me.

[gusting winds]

I was just so cold.

I had all the puffies on, all the thermals, you name it,

but man grabbing a metal camera was just

so cold in my hands.

[Krystle Wright] But then, I loved it at the same time.

[gusting winds]

As our trip started to come to a close,

it was just horrendous winds.

So we drove around and they decided to jump off

this other peak that would be sheltered.

[photographer] Yeah buddy.

Yep. Have a fat one brother, enjoy.

[radio beeps]

[Krystle Wright] Everyone jumped.

[jumper] Good luck.

[Krystle Wright] I'm coming down, I was really tired,

and everyone was standing there and they're like, uh,

"Krystle, we've, we've got pretty bad news."

"What, what do you mean?"

And they're like, "Well, um, Jim's gone in."

[Ruth Evolute] I hadn't heard from her for a little while,

and so I was getting a feeling,

and then she rang me about, oh,

1:00 in the morning just hysterical.

I tried to warn her,

BASE jumpers, there's bound to be an accident someday.

[Krystle Wright] He just disappeared.

And we spent the next six days doing everything we could to try

and rescue the body and never could.

There was no choice but to leave him because there was no point

in risking someone else's life to try and rescue a dead body.

[Ken Geiger] If you're a photographer pushing the edge,

you will have, in your lifetime,

people dying.

It happens.

It's, it's a sad thing but,

and it's a, it's a little bit hard to get over.

The first time I met Krystle was at

a adventure photography workshop.

When I looked at Krystle's portfolio,

I was jealous.

Here's a 23-year-old sitting in front of me with the ability to

tell a story with her images.

I took them back to

National Geographic and

one of those images actually

wound up in the magazine.

[Krystle Wright] It's bittersweet.

It was a really nice moment just to see Jim

in such an esteemed publication.

Just this beautiful big spread.

To this day I still think about him.

Being so immersed in this trip, I loved it.

That was the new flame where I realized,

I want to be out in the elements doing this.

[gusting winds]

We've been on the road for five days.

We've covered about two and a half thousand miles.

We've traveled through Texas, Oklahoma,

Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota.

How far is San Angelo away?

-Two and a half hours. -Oh wow. Okay.

[Nick Moir] We may well get there and look back up

here and there's a big, beautiful, dusty tornado.

[Krystle Wright] No, no, we'll commit to this one.

[Nick Moir] Okay. Pull over here.

[bleep].

All right get in the car it's about to get really wet.

Yep, turn around.

Okay, there's another storm coming in behind us.

[Krystle Wright] Today was a bit of a dud.

[Nick Moir] Do you remember when I took you on work experience?

[Krystle Wright] I do remember that.

I was 19.

I was working with three of the sport photographers

at Sydney Morning Herald.

There was one photographer who was just horrible to me.

He was like, "Oh, you may as well give up sports photography

now because you'll never make it."

I don't think I responded to him,

I was just incredibly pissed off the entire way I drove home.

When someone tells me, "Oh you're not good enough,"

I always use that as fuel to the fire,

it's like, "All right, I'll, I'll [bleep]-ing show you.

When I was younger, there was that hunger to be

validated as an artist.

I was definitely one of few photographers who were female.

I would always see this headline,

"Female photographer;"

"Female, female." It's like,

you know, at some point like, I get it.

I would like to be acknowledged as,

"Hey, Krystle's one of the best photographers in

the adventure industry."

[Ruth Evolute] I believe anyone can do anything,

but you gotta want it.

And she wanted it.

[Krystle Wright] But it came with sacrifices.

A lot of the time, I put myself into debt from pursuing

my passion projects.

I was relying on friends to take me into

their spare bedrooms or couches.

We've got my closet.

Usually, you'd have my bed, but currently, it's full of

[bleep] right now.

I was desperate to build the momentum,

and it did build.

You're always taught to say, "yes".

Always say, "yes".

You just don't know that opportunities are

gonna come back.

[Ken Geiger] She has the tenacity to make images

anywhere in the world at any time and in any subject.

[squeaking]

-I was offered this trip to go free diving with sperm whales.

I felt the fin come straight past, and I just,

you know, sucked in my gut.

I'll go to the grave with that memory.

[laughter]

[screams]

[Ken Geiger] Krystle has the willingness to push

the extreme limits to make images,

to show people what they can't see for themselves.

Makes you want to be there and see it in person.

[camera clicks]

[gusting winds]

[reporter] Breaking news, tornado warnings have been

issued across several states.

[reporter 2] You need to be in your place of safety.

-Krystle! -What?

[Nick Moir] Get in that!

I think it's gonna tornado.

There's a hook developing right in front of us.

[emergency alert beeping].

Let's move now.

I think it is, it's on the ground.

All right, let's go, let's [bleep] hit it.

-Coming? -Yes.

[Krystle Wright] While we can, door shut.

Door shut. Door shut.

[reporter] At least six reported tornadoes touching down.

[reporter 2] Don't drive south of Littlefield.

[reporter 3] Tornadoes on the ground.

[Nick Moir] We might be able to get out in front of the storm.

-Oh my. -Do not get too close.

[Krystle Wright] Are you [bleep] kidding me?

[Nick Moir] I really hope that no one's gonna get hit,

because it's a violent tornado.

[Krystle Wright] Oh my God! Look at that thing.

[Nick Moir] Watch out.

[reporter] Devastating twister.

Pay attention and stay alert.

[reporter 2] It's dangerous out there right now.

[screams]

[Nick Moir] Stop here.

[gusting winds]

Tornado!

[screams]

[Nick Moir] Look at it!

[gusting winds]

-Oh!

Look at that! [bleep].

[Nick Moir] Guys, just be at the ready,

I think it might be coming back at us.

[Krystle Wright] Yeah!

-Watch out!

-Oh! Look at that!

[thunder rumbling]

Seeing a tornado form in front of your eyes,

there are no words.

[camera clicks]

Sometimes I call them heart explosions because

your heart just feels so full.

[lightning crackling]

But I definitely put myself in some risky situations.

In Pakistan, I had a very close call.

[♪ rhythmic ambient music]

I wasn't in tune with my gut instinct yet.

Like I needed to prove myself.

I was photographing Red Bull paragliders,

some of the best in the world,

and they wanted to break the world altitude record.

It meant going to a mountain range like the Karakoram.

I was there to simply document what they were doing.

[camera clicks]

[camera clicks]

I don't have that skillset to fly solo,

so I would go up with a tandem pilot.

That day for me, the signs were there.

It wasn't the right takeoff conditions.

Everything went wrong very fast.

We launched the paraglider.

I remember looking down, my feet were off the ground at

this point, and then I look up and I just see this big boulder.

In that split second, it was just this complete succumbing

to the moment of like, "Oh, [bleep]."

[thuds]

And then 10 seconds later,

I'm blacked out.

When I woke up about five minutes later, you know,

I had an array of injuries of course.

Apparently, the doctor in the village took one look at me and

was like, "I wouldn't bother.

She'll be dead before the time you get to the hospital."

There was just blood everywhere.

This eye was swollen shut.

It was a couple hours for them to hike me off the mountain.

It then was another six to eight hours of traveling

in a Jeep and then I was in a military hospital in Skardu.

[beeping]

I had a hematoma in my stomach.

But, thankfully I wasn't internally bleeding.

Oh man, the other thing I found out later,

some of the guards were actually telling doctors,

"Get her to take her clothes off.

Tell her like it's for whatever reason."

Thankfully there were people there to protect me.

I know I could have been dead.

I had time to recover and reflect on what happened

and understand, what decisions did I make?

And I think that really grounded me, that experience.

And over time, I have learned how to walk away.

[distant barking]

[sighs]

It's interesting what the body holds.

When the tornado hit the ground,

it was just an incredible wave of adrenaline.

[exhales]

But then when the adrenaline wears off,

you feel like a train's hit you.

[thunder rumbling]

But I have to rally.

For my next project, I had a very, very specific

vision in my head.

Once an idea comes in my head,

it doesn't go until I find a way to execute it.

[exhales]

[Ken Geiger] Krystle has the thought, the fortitude,

to put herself in the position to make pictures,

not take them, big difference.

She makes pictures.

-So, I have an 80-meter rope.

[Krystle Wright] Oh, sweet. I just bought a hot pink rope.

-It's my favorite rope, I use it for everything.

You're like, "Hey Angela, want to come climb some cracks

in the desert?"

Duh, like when are we going?

As far as the approaches go.

[Krystle Wright] Here in Moab, I have a very specific shot

in mind that I wanna capture.

Definitely is gonna take quite a bit of a setup.

It's [bleep] hot.

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] It was 104 when I last checked.

I think it was like supposed to be 106 this week.

[Krystle Wright] That looks like it.

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] It looks like a concrete slab of death.

-If this heat's too much, I don't want to push it.

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] We will get it done.

Oh, it's a little twisty.

[Krystle Wright] It's happened a few times now where I bring

a passion project to a certain group of friends and

it is either met with excitement,

because they think, "Oh my God, this idea sounds great,"

or dread, because they go, "Oh, [bleep].

It's another Krystle project.

It's probably going to be a bit of an epic again."

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] In classic Krystle fashion,

I just got a rogue call.

She wanted to shoot the sandstone cracks of Moab under

the full moon with artificial light.

I think it started off with,

"How are your rock climbing skills?"

All right, I'm on.

[Krystle Wright] One day this idea hit me,

I want to light up a crack from within.

It's going to look like a vein in the earth.

And then the rest of this landscape shot will be under

a full moon, in that beautiful blue tones.

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] Hey, watch me.

[Krystle Wright] And a climber in a beautiful position

on the route.

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] Ahh, I'm so hot.

[grunting]

[Krystle Wright] Nice work.

It's exciting to actually do this.

Eight months I've been thinking about it.

Thought about it almost every day since.

[bird squawks]

First, Angela and I, we need to scout the climb,

and from there rig it and start placing my L.E.D. light tape and

batteries into the crack.

[grunts]

-Yeah, you feeling okay? -Just one more.

[Krystle Wright] Nice, Angela. You got it.

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] I am so dizzy.

Oh, it is hot.

[Krystle Wright] The sun is just beating down on the side.

A serious concern at this time of the year is the heat stroke.

[sighs]

-I didn't feel dizzy when I was climbing,

and now that I've stopped I'm like so dizzy.

-Do you want me to lower you?

[sighs]

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] No, it's coming back.

[Krystle Wright] Just as long as you're feeling okay.

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] Love the desert in

the middle of the summer.

-I don't want to put too much pressure on the connection.

Just a bit paranoid about that.

I'm so nervous right now because if I drop

one of these batteries, well,

basically I'm [bleep].

[groans]

I get very tunnel-visioned sometimes.

But I guess I came into this shoot with this clear idea,

like no, it's going to be under the full moon,

but now I realize we're in the shadow.

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] Nice Krystle, speedy Gonzalez.

So, what do you think?

[Krystle Wright] Well the problem is that this cliff is in

the shade of the moonlight and makes it [bleep] challenging.

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] Yeah I could see that.

[Krystle Wright] All right, I am sort of still processing it all.

As cool as the climb is, it's just,

it's not quite the right setup for

the whole thing to come together.

I can be a bit of a perfectionist.

But it can be fire to the belly to work harder,

to you know, improve, and hopefully evolve.

Perhaps it's the way I've been brought up is,

nothing comes easy.

I do romanticize the way I grew up.

And I guess as kids you don't really understand

what's going on.

A lot of my memories are with my mom.

My father was always on the road, always away.

And as I got older,

the illusion really started to disappear.

[Ruth Evolute] He put you down all the time.

And then I keep putting up with it because I didn't think

the kids had picked up on anything.

[Krystle Wright] When I was 18, it was just me and him at home,

and he'd obviously had a few drinks,

and he basically just turns to me, he's like,

"You know, having kids, like it just ruined my perfect life.

You know you get that, don't you?"

And I'm sitting there completely just like,

what am I supposed to say?

Like I'm your daughter.

I haven't talked to him since that day.

-I remember him coming across the room at me.

I just turned and said, "You can get out."

[Krystle Wright] We found out he was cheating,

basically the entire marriage with multiple women.

The family business all just fell apart.

We lost the family home and property.

-Krystle looked up to Dad,

but then I think he just let her down.

So I think that's why she took it a lot harder

than anybody else.

[Krystle Wright] At the time, I don't think I really had

coping mechanisms, but I was very good about throwing myself

into the photography.

I just thought I need to be financially viable so

I can take care of myself.

It just helped steer my path as a photographer.

[Ruth Evolute] She didn't need nobody to write the story

for her, she'll do it herself.

That's what makes me proud of her.

[grunts]

[Krystle Wright] With Seventh Serpent,

I'm just thinking, say we're up there by 3:30?

[Lance Lemkau] Yeah, that would probably be enough

time for sure.

And we'll be a little more in the shade.

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] I'm just gonna take you everywhere

with me Lance, you're such a great belayer,

thank you so much.

[Krystle Wright] Today's definitely the day for us

to nail this project.

We're all here on a time-sensitive schedule.

Thankfully we found the perfect climb.

[squawking]

Angela has never climbed Seventh Serpent before,

but she's definitely a phenomenal climber.

You can throw Angela into almost any situation

and she knows what to do.

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] There's a lot less pressure on

the other climb.

I had already done Little Miss Kitty,

so it felt kind of like not a big deal to get on it.

I'm through both. Okay.

This one's a little more of a question mark.

Krystle's vision is to photograph this

really beautiful zigzag portion of the climb,

and then she shoots from across the canyon.

-Hey Angela. -What's up?

[Krystle Wright] So at the top there's like a little pod...

-Mm-hmm.

-And that will basically be the top for me of lighting.

-Yeah, like at the anchor you'll see,

there's just like a bunch of loose rocks,

you'll wanna put your foot on them but you can't.

-Yeah.

-So I was able to back up your anchor.

-Oh, that's good.

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] Yeah. I just need a minute.

-5:49.

-Yeah, we should have time.

-We should. 2.5 hours before shooting.

-All right and then just hold pink,

I'm gonna pull myself in.

[Lance Lemkau] Yep.

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] Okay, Krystle, I'm going to

wait for your command.

[Krystle Wright] Yeah, wait for me.

I'm taking too [bleep] long, but I am OCD.

If you're gonna go to all this effort,

there's no point in half-assing it.

The last hurdle.

Much more involved than I was expecting.

Let's have a quick look.

Light her up.

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] All right.

[laughs].

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] What do you think?

[Krystle Wright] Wow.

I think I got my balance.

-You ready? -I'm ready.

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] All right, I'm climbing.

[camera clicking]

I'll put in a piece and I'll get rid of that foot.

[camera clicking]

All right. Take.

[Lance Lemkau] Yep!

[Krystle Wright] Ready when you are.

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] All right. I'm on lead.

[camera clicking rapidly]

[Krystle Wright] Nice.

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] Oh, I'm struggling.

[camera clicking]

Let me just think of that sequence.

[Krystle Wright] Man, the light is just...

[laughs]

Bueno.

[Lance Lemkau] What do we got for time?

[Angela Vanwiemeersch] 7:23.

[Krystle Wright] Oh, gosh. I need to get in position.

[Ken Geiger] Photography is extreme.

When you're pushing yourself to the limits and

you're doing things that most people don't do.

-The next move is where the shot is.

[Ken Geiger] You have to be careful.

You really have to know when you've reached your limit.

The higher you go, the farther you fall.

[Krystle Wright] Year after year,

the travel just seemed to ramp up.

I would wake up in the night and

I wouldn't have a clue where I was.

I would actually have to backtrack and go right,

what country are you in, what state are you in,

how did you get here?

I had no home.

And I get a call from my doctor and all she tells me is,

"We found a lump."

She's like, "We do need to operate on it."

[Ruth Evolute] I said to her, "Something had to stop you.

Because you can just burn yourself completely.

It's a wakeup call."

[Krystle Wright] I realized I can't keep living the way

that I did.

It wasn't until my health forced me to stop.

And then followed by a pandemic.

I actually don't have to say yes to everything.

I questioned, how much do I want to push myself?

What stories do I want to capture?

And that's when I came up with Moab.

It was just like a lightning bolt.

The original vision is to shoot this wide.

We're in go mode.

Keys.

[Krystle Wright] If she can get into that position,

and I will shoot away.

[Lance Lemkau] Copy.

[Krystle Wright] Woohoo-ho-hoo.

Wooo!

One of my earliest inspirations, honestly,

was Caravaggio.

He's an Italian Renaissance painter.

That single source of light.

His highlights would be this beautiful detail,

and then it would just fall off into this mysterious darkness.

[camera clicking]

To her right again.

Yeah. There it is.

And looking to her right just a little bit.

Down a bit more.

[camera clicking]

Yeah, that's perfect.

Yeah, I think I've got, I've got the shot.

Let's wrap it.

[Lance Lemkau] Copy.

[Krystle Wright] Yee!

Not too shabby, eh?

Moab and storm chasing,

it's just a total different process.

I appreciate them both.

I miss home, but in a couple of weeks, I'll start to miss here.

This lifestyle, it has its challenges,

and I'm trying to do it in a new way,

with more restraint, and more of a grounding.

And it was about time that I got my own place.

[sighs]

I still get excited by print.

I see it as a beautiful compliment to my work.

I invest so much of my own time,

money, blood, sweat, and tears.

[Ken Geiger] To take the chance on your own ideas,

that's a special kind of risk.

That's what she did on that shoot.

It makes an exceptional image.

One that I'm not sure anybody's ever done before.

[Krystle Wright] Ultimately if you do this

kind of creative work,

you have to be comfortable with unknowns and risk.

I believe any great art is created purely out of passion.

It wasn't funded, it wasn't dictated by a client,

and I think when art is created with such a freedom,

then people connect with it.

I'll continue down this path wherever it leads me because

what a joy to experience life in such extreme environments.

[♪ closing theme music]