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Welcome to Marathon TV. I am your host, Richard Ramsey. We're here in Mammoth Lakes, California,

with Christian Pondella. Hi, Christian. How did you get into extreme sports photography?

Basically, what got me into photography was my love for sports, especially skiing and

rock climbing. Well, I just grew up playing a lot of team sports, like football, basketball,

etc. But more importantly, even when I was a little kid, my parents used to take me up

to Mammoth, California, three or four times a year on ski trips, and we spent all our

holiday skiing. That's why I have always loved skiing almost more than anything else.

And a lucky meeting with an editor of a magazine turns into a profession for you. What do

you say? Yeah, as an adrenaline junkie, you got to the hills and occasionally you

run into somebody. So I met that editor at some point, and I told him I had been kind

of into photography and had always thought about sending photos to them. He was super encouraging

and told me what to do. Then I started sending photos to them to future in the magazine. Now

I'm here. And you worked for a well -known photography company from 2002 to 2012, right?

Yeah, we took many photos. Can you imagine that? I shot almost every adventure sport including

the extreme sports. For example, I shot motorcycles like MotoGP. These guys go around 300 kilometers

per hour, and you should be as fast as them. Otherwise, you can't shoot photographs. You

love adventure and you love photography. As much as I know, you especially like taking photos

of extreme winter sports, such as underground ice climbing. Oh, yes, cool adventure photoshoots

around ice. What is the most extreme thing you photographed? It was when we went underground

ice climbing in Sweden. We went around 150 meters underground, and we experienced really challenging

climbs under the earth. It was one of the craziest things ever. What other sports did you shoot?

I shot bass jumping, downhill mountain biking, mountaineering, rock climbing, kite surfing,

and a variety of other sports. Amazing. Thank you, Christian, for your time and good luck

with your new adventures.