Rocking in Banff – an interview with Jim Herrington

Photographer Jim Herrington first came to the Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival in 2017 wearing his black leather jacket and dark sunglasses, looking more like a rock star walking around campus at Banff Centre than someone who would end up being so deeply connected for years to come with a ‘mountain’ genre Festival!

Before coming to Banff, Jim’s career as a photographer included portraits of celebrities – Benny Goodman, Willie Nelson, the Rolling Stones, Morgan Freeman, and Dolly Parton – to name just a few, who have graced the covers of magazines and albums around the world for over three decades. That might explain the leather jacket. 

For almost 20 years, Jim had also been working on a portrait series of 20th century mountain-climbing legends. He had entered The Climbers, a stunning book of 60 black and white portraits of mountaineering icons, into the Banff Mountain Book Competition. So that fall day in Banff, Jim was arriving to be presented with the 2017 Mountain History Award. Little did he know, he would also go on to win the Grand Prize that same year (announced live on stage at the Festival). And, as if winning two awards that year wasn’t enough, he was coerced (how could he have said no?) into being a guest speaker with two days’ notice. The Festival had to contend with a last-minute cancellation by a mainstage speaker – so to a full house in the Jenny Belzberg Theatre, Jim presented a behind-the-scenes talk on the making of The Climbers. He clearly aced the short-notice presentation and has been involved with the Festival in a mountain of ways ever since. 

The following year, Jim was invited back to Banff as a member of the 2018 Film Competition jury and returned in 2021 to be part of the esteemed jury to present the award to the winner of the Photo Essay Competition. He was also the recipient of a Fleck Fellowship in 2018 to focus on a new project while in residence at Banff Centre.

Jim has had a profound effect on the Festival, and it seems the Festival has had a profound effect on him. I caught up with him to find out more about his journey.

Were you a climber yourself when you embarked on ’The Climbers’ project? Did you find yourself switching from photographing musicians to focusing on climbers?
I first tied into a rope in 1976 and have been climbing ever since, with varying degrees of intensity through the years. As far as photographing musicians and climbers, I was doing both (as well as other photographic endeavors) simultaneously over the course of the project. The musicians that I leaned towards documenting were active during the early/mid-20th century, which happens to be a similar approach I took with the climbers.

After you won the Book Competition Grand Prize, what transpired for you in the years that followed?
As much as I personally thought The Climbers was an interesting project, I really didn’t think more than seven people would buy my book. Winning the Grand Prize at Banff most certainly opened up doors and in fact, another world for me. I didn’t quite anticipate the longevity and breadth of the “Endless Book Tour,” as I call it. I’ve been invited to speak about the book and exhibit photos from it, in China, Spain, England, Italy, Canada, Poland, and around the US, and it continues, including being on several film juries at film festivals. I attribute all of this to winning the Grand Prize at Banff… The prize seems to hold a lot of weight around the world, and it most certainly got the ball rolling in a big way. I’m honored, flattered, and very fortunate that things transpired the way they did at Banff.

Tell me about your experience as a member of the film jury (and being sequestered in a dark room for 8 days straight). Had you ever been on a film/book jury before? 
Once again, Banff opened that up to me as well. Banff was my first film jury, but not the last. We judges got along well together, and with the foreman*. We worked hard and took it seriously. I enjoyed getting to know these people, who were other creative types, and collectively discussing in detail, not our own work, but the work of others. It was a deep dive into the trenches, it’s hard work… and by the end of the week, we were standing or laying on the floor, stretching… anything but more sitting! Of course, it’s a great lesson in creativity to see and talk about so many films in one week, it’s impossible not to learn a lot in the process. I’ve stayed in touch with some that were on the jury, it was a rewarding experience and a good lesson. Since Banff I’ve been on several other juries in Europe with two more upcoming.

 *Note – Jim is referring here to the position we nickname as the ‘Jury Wrangler’ at the Festival, who helps keep the jury all on track watching films and being in the right place at the right time. That year it was Jamie Carpenter.

You were the recipient of a Banff Centre Fleck Fellowship in 2018. What project did you work on in Banff, and how did your residency go?  
The support that Banff gives to artists of all stripes is so commendable. The residency provided by the Fleck Fellowship was an excellent kick-start for “the next project” after The Climbers, and allowed me the time, space, facilities, and, importantly, undistracted headspace, to start hatching the plan. Also, to spend free time with other artists who were there developing their own projects allowed for incredible exchanges of ideas across disciplines. I was there working on my next book, ‘my music book’, and that idea has grown some limbs and has branched out into something I’m quite excited about. The fellowship month at Banff planted serious roots.

Tell us about any recent adventures and what’s on the horizon for you?
In a significant way, the Banff prize that I won has led to what is now an intense deep dive into my favorite place, Italy, where I’ve been spending a few months a year for the last few years. I’ve been on the jury of several film festivals there, exhibited my work, and taught several workshops. I’ve been going to Italy for decades, but the seed of this new relationship with the country was sown in Banff. And now, the Italian edition/translation of The Climbers is currently underway and will hopefully be out before Christmas 2023.

Alex Honnold wrote the foreword in your book – is there anything fun you’d like to tell us about Alex or any other climbers you’ve photographed?
I had my fingers crossed about Alex. It was 2014 when I first asked him to write something, and I’m not sure he’d ever written much back then, at least I’d not seen anything. I hoped it wouldn’t suck! My intentions were on one hand hopeful – I thought in a book about so many old people it would be nice to hear from the young and current generation of climbers and in my opinion he represented the best of – but I’ll admit that I also did it for a bit of marquee value. His fame was spreading, it wouldn’t hurt to have him write a foreword… unless his writing was terrible. But the gamble paid off, and he wrote a very astute and poignant piece.

I’ve never been a fan of the word ‘serendipity’, but it seems appropriate with your connections with the Festival, or is ‘domino effect’ a better term for your Festival trajectory?
I’ll take either… and I think it’s both. There’s a great story about The Beatles, when they were very young and still broke. Their van broke down beside the road, and it was getting dark and cold. One of them wondered what they’d do next, and either John or Paul said, “Well, something will happen…” And it’s true, something always does. But honestly, without Banff’s divine intervention in my life in 2017, I’m just not exactly sure what it would have looked like. Thanks again Banff.

And thanks again Jim!

Find out more about Jim's work here. 

Author: Nicky Lynch