Jim Bailey’s black and white images from the series Respect take viewers to the extremes of climbing and ski mountaineering while merging artistry with a passion for adventure and science. The images were taken at a variety of locations including Washington and Alaska; Norway; the French, Swiss and Italian Alps; and Canada. The images portray the grand scale of the landscape in sharp contrast to the small scale of the mountaineers reiterating how vast, expansive and sometimes treacherous these remote landscapes can be.

Jim Bailey began making black and white images in 1980 when he learned basic darkroom skills as part of his graduate studies in experimental physics. Bailey works at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico conducting laboratory astrophysics experiments with the Z machine. “The Z Facility is the largest pulsed electromagnetic wave generator in the world and he tackles a host of fascinating questions such as how the sun works and what the properties of matter are in the vicinity of a black hole. He says, ‘Photography and science are intertwined in my life and I don’t regard them as separate activities. They both tap the same creative necessity.’” – excerpt from Issue 271 ‘Black and White Photography Magazine’ by Susan Burnstine.