Jerry Stenger met Minnesota polar explorer Will Steger at a somewhat inopportune time. Steger was loading his cargo plane at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in 1989 for what became his historic International Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Back then, Stenger was supervisor of the University of St. Thomas television studio and he knew that Steger, like himself, was a St. Thomas alum. He hoped to interview Steger for a video broadcast. Steger had to decline, but encouraged Stenger to contact him when he returned.
Seven months later that encounter led not only to the interview, but Stenger eventually became Steger's videographer for every expedition, training expedition and educational program thereafter.
"When Will says, 'We're going to do a training expedition,' it's 3,000 miles. To me, that is an expedition," Stenger said.
Their relationship grew, and Stenger became a founding board member for the Steger Wilderness Center in Ely, Minn., and Steger's foundation, now called Climate Generation.
As a communications student at St. Thomas, Stenger said his professors would assign 10-page essays. But sometimes he'd convince them that a video of the subject matter was a more effective way to display his knowledge. "I'm not a confident writer. I learned when I was in school that I could use these [photography] tools to help tell a story."
Stenger, 56, lives in St. Paul, where he owns In Tandem Inc., a media development firm. He recently offered some thoughts on photographic storytelling from the outdoors. Here are edited excerpts:
On extreme photography
Batteries. Keeping them warm, keeping them charged, recharging them, is the hardest thing. My lenses would completely freeze to where I couldn't zoom in or zoom out because their lubrication would gel. I slept with them. It was a lumpy night's sleep. Everything was inside the sleeping bag. I had a vest made with pockets around like an artillery vest so my body heat would keep my batteries warm through the day.
On capturing the shot
As a photographer, I like when teams are struggling because that's the most dramatic footage. When I say struggling, I don't mean in a bad way. On Baffin Island, we were traveling up a frozen river and frozen waterfalls. Because the teams are going so slow, it gives me an opportunity to run around, get different angles and see the struggling in their faces.