Explorer and photographer Robbie Shone takes a breath between a rock and a hard place during one of his spelunking adventures. Park City Performing Arts will present Shone, who will discuss his career and assignments as a cave photographer on Saturday at the Eccles Center for the Performing Arts. C redit: Photo courtesy of Robbie Shone Photography On Valentine’s Day, explorer Robbie Shone will show his love of caves when Park City Performing Arts hosts “National Geographic LIVE with Robbie Shone at the Eccles Center for the Performing Arts. Shone, who will show photographs and talk about his adventures that take place thousands of feet below the earth’s surface, looks forward to coming to town. “Through these talks, I get to open those hidden worlds up to thousands of people at once,” he said during an email interview. “I love watching an audience react when they realise the scale of a cave, or when an image suddenly makes sense of how fragile and extraordinary these environments are.” Shone’s passion for spelunking and cave photography came about through visual art classes. “I was studying ‘fine art’ at University in Sheffield, and at the time I was painting giant canvases, (where) I would push around the paints on the floor with brushes,” he said. “At university I largely focused on works about ‘vertigo’ and that sense of free-falling.”Those concepts were born out of a trip up The Empire State Building New York. And while he loved painting, it wasn’t a practical way of painting pictures of caves, Shone said. “My love for my new passion of caving had completely taken hold of me and my heart,” he said. “My passion for the cave photography as a whole quickly turned to an obsession, and it was so strong, I simply had to make it my life and not just my job. So, I kind of put down the paint brush and picked up the camera and began teaching myself cave photography because there was nobody on the course, or even in the art school, who could tell me anything about cave photography.” Shone secretly taught himself how to photograph caves.  “I would go downstairs in the art school and borrow old film cameras from the technicians who had a rental store, where students could borrow photo gear if you were a photography student (I wasn’t!),” he said. “I never told the technicians where I was taking their cameras and flashes because I was afraid they’d stop me and no longer give me the gear.” In addition, Shone would always clean the gear thoroughly before taking it back on Monday after the weekend in a cave, and he would develop the photographs in the school’s darkroom. “I was a fine art student (from) upstairs and not supposed to be in the wet and dry darkrooms,” he said. Eventually, after a few months, one of the technicians came into the wet darkroom to see what Shone was doing. “I showed him some of my photographs hanging up drying, (and) he was very surprised and couldn’t believe it,” Shone said. “He had so many questions, mostly regarding lighting.” Photographer and explorer Robbie Shone is dwarfed by ice crystals in Full Moon Hall, part of the Dark Star cave system in Uzbekistan. Shone looks forward to talking about this and his other spelunking excursions when Park City Performing Arts brings him to town on Saturday at the Eccles Center for the Performing Arts. Credit: Photo courtesy of Robbie Shone Photography Many of those questions Shone answered on his own through trial and error. “There were many many failed images,” he said. “Out of a roll of 36 frames on a 35mm film, I’d be happy with four to six well-exposed images. And (from a) medium format Mamiya C330 6×6 Twin Lens Reflex or Mamiya 6×4.5cm, I’d be happy with just one!” But Shone was hooked on cave photography. “I wanted to get to the top and be as successful as I could be, so I made a point of meeting the right people in the British caving scene,” he said. “I joined up with incredible ‘digging’ projects and helped people discover new caves in the U.K.” Shortly afterward, Shone found he needed a job that could pay for his passion/obsession. So he worked as and industrial abseiler with the IRATA — Industrial Roped Access Trade Association. “We basically swing around on ropes inspecting bridges, tower blocks, cleaning windows etc, etc,” he said. “This job paid well and allowed me to have time off and return and take up the same job again on the Monday. The owners of all these rope access companies were either cavers or rock climbers themselves and understood our needs.” The first cave Shone visited was Long Churn. “It’s a classic cave for beginners, and it’s in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, U.K.,” he said. “Immediately, I was hooked! The rush of adrenaline and adventure surged through my body like nothing I’ve ever experienced when rock climbing.” Parts of the thrill was “the darkness,” “the sense of exploration” and “the sense of the unknown,” Shone said. “This was on another level,” he said. “Where did the water go that was racing past my feet through the canyon passage below. It was all so exciting!” Shone embarked on his first big caving expedition in 2003 to the Mecca of the caving world — Mulu National Park in Sarawak, Malaysia, where, the British in 1977 discovered the largest cave chamber, the largest cave passage and arguably the largest cave in the work by volume. “We lived in the jungle and caved every day,” he said. “We even camped underground on two- to three-day long trips to explore deeper in the cave system.” After this, Shone was hooked on expedition caving abroad in far flung corners of the world. “And of course, I was always the team’s photographer, documenting all the new discoveries,” he said. Shone was with his fiancé Professor Gina Moseley, fellow National Geographic Explorer and 2021 Rolex Laureate, when they explored a cave system that changed their lives forever. “(It) was Gina’s first Greenland expedition in 2015 because getting her Greenland Caves Project off the ground was very important,” he said. “The expedition itself was a true adventure. Gina spent years and years planning and preparing for this expedition where so many other teams had failed  — over decades since 1958 really. There was a lot riding on it, (and) I’ve never been on an expedition which carried so much weight of expectation. It’s quite remarkable what she’s achieved, and ultimately this project will continue long after we’re dead and gone.” The most unusual expedition for Shone was exploring the secret quartzite caves on top of Sarisarnama and Auyan Tepui in Venezuela, which he documented in GEO magazine with explorer and writer Lars Abromeit back in 2016. Explorer and photographer Robbie Shone, left, crawls through a crevasse with fellow explorer and author Lars Abromeit in the Robbie Shone and Lars Abromeit posing in a narrow passage of the San Wang Dong cave system in China. The two have explored many caves and cave systems throughout the world. Credit: Photo courtesy of Robbie Shone Photography “This ‘Lost World,’ as Arthur Conan Doyle penned it, is a true unique wilderness, and the caves up there are so special and unlike any other cave on earth — simply magical,” he said. Over the years, Shone has come to realize there are three things he will always need during his excursions — a helmet, light and backup light. “(Those are) very important when exploring a cave,” he said. “(I also take) some spare batteries and memory cards for my camera (and) a second or third spare camera body.” That extra baggage also proves to be challenging when hauling them around in the “most arduous and unforgiving environment on earth,” Shone said. “Humans are not designed to navigate such rocky tight spaces or dangle like a tiny spider above hundreds of feet of empty space and then climb back up them in the dark,” he said. “On top of all that, imagine carrying a bag, two bags, sometimes more than two bags (at) 35 pound each. It’s kinda like fun, but different!” Shone said being a lifetime art student and painting watercolors like his idol, William Heaton Cooper, has helped hone his craft for composing photographs. “A beautiful painting of a rolling landscape scene is pleasing on the eye and one that we often hang on our walls in our home, but why?” he said. “Well, as a photographer, we know why, and we compose our photographs with all these necessary … factors that make this true. I do exactly the same in a cave. I’m no different. Some scenes require only five to 10 minutes of time to get right, whereas others can take 10 hours.” One photograph took Shone years to get. It was of a cave called Titan in Peak Cavern in Castleton in Derbyshire, England.  “I spent every weekend inside for maybe four years,” he said. Exploring caves always comes with danger, Shone said. “My experience at the bottom of Veryovkina; the deepest-known cave on earth was by far the scariest experience I have ever had in my life,” he said. “We had to quickly escape a flood pulse that filled the room we were in. It was a race against time in order to climb the rope one by one and away from the rising water beneath us.” Shone left all his equipment behind because the flood hit and he didn’t have time to pack it all away.  “It would have slowed me down anyway,” he said. “It was terrifying. Our team of eight cavers spent 16 hours on a ledge where we had to sit out then raging flood, thundering through the walls. Luckily, we all escaped with our lives — but only just!” Three years ago, Shone published his book, “Hidden World,” which he had been thinking about for 20 years. “It’s another dream come true,” he said. “As a true student of art, ever since (I was) a child, it pleased me no end to see my work as a physical form, be a painting, a photographic print. So to publish a coffee-table book is the best way to see these photographs. It’s just a shame it was a limited edition of only a 1,000.” Shone would like to publish another book in due course. “I need to build up a true portfolio worthy of ‘Hidden Worlds’ Volume 2,” he said. “It took me 20 years to build up Volume 1.” In the meanwhile, Shone is happy exploring caves and giving presentations around the world. “What I enjoy most is the moment when the lights go down and I can take people somewhere they’d never otherwise get to,” he said. “Most of the places I work in are deep underground, often days from the nearest entrance, and only a handful of humans will ever stand there in person. Nat Geo Live presentations let me combine exploration, science and storytelling in an immediate way. If someone walks out feeling a sense of awe, and a responsibility to protect these places, then I feel like I’ve done my job. I especially enjoy receiving questions of children or younger adults who have come to the show and really engaged. I just to hope to inspire and trigger a little something.” ‘National Geographic Live with Robbie Stone: Adventures in Caving’ When: 7 p.m. Saturday Where: Eccles Center for the Performing Arts, 1750 Kearns Blvd. Tickets: parkcityinstitute.org/main-stage Web: parkcityinstitute.org and shonephotography.com The post Photographer and explorer’s presentation emerges from caves and caverns appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less