another good adventure biography, although breashears himself seems a little arrogant

High Exposure: An Enduring Passion for Everest and Unforgiving Places by David Breashears (Simon & Shuster 2000)(Biography). This is the long-awaited biography of legendary mountaineer David Breashears. He is arguably the best high-altitude climber in the world today. This is the story of what drives his success; it includes a frank dissection of the 1996 tragedy on Everest and the subsequent rescue in which he was fully engaged. My rating: 7.5/10, finished 2010. I purchased a HB copy from McKay's in good condition for $3.00 on 6/17/15. HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Super interesting story of the life of David Breashers, and the fateful 1996 Everest disaster. Really good read following Jon Krakauer’s book, and I highly recommend watching the IMAX movie that Breashers filmed in 96, that provides the backbone of the book!

High Exposure is a book about a man and his team to film a IMAX about the climb up and the top of the legendary Mt. Everest. A IMAX movie is a movie in where you sit in a large theater like room and the screen wraps around you half way in sort of a dome shape so you need special equipment to shoot it. That was one of the reason i liked the book was that not only they had to climb the Mountain but also lug up heavy camera gear. A reader may not like the book because of the way it sort of rambles on about the same thing the whole way threw the book about scenery and such. one unique feature of the book was when the climax occurred and they reached the top they had about 12 pictures of the view, it was cool but it looked cold! I do have to give the guys props thou that looks like it would be hard to do and it would probably be on my bucket list!!!

Incredible read. Really honest, direct, good to see one more testimony of a life dedicated to a higher goal paying good dividends in terms of truth, reality acceptance and humility. The descriptions of his climbs, as well as his working experiences, of his photography and also filming present one person that is interested in learning and accepting that he was not born knowing everything. Climbing has this lesson for us. Respect the nature and know your place... you are minor. Absolutely honest as well in terms of description of feelings and some aspects of life that became secondary due to other focus areas. Mountain calls are quite demanding. Definitely recommend, especially with movies afterwards.

Breashears is inspirational--focused, mission-oriented, full of good sense, steady. It's great to see someone like him succeed. The writing is not terribly compelling, but his story more than compensates for any gaps in the telling of it.

Ended kind of abruptly... this autobiographical piece initially won me over to the author as a sympathetic character, but by the end of the book I found him to be self-important, passive-agressive, and in love with his own story. This is the second book I have read about the 1996 Everest disaster; both have extolled the importance of humility in the face of the mountain and bemoaned the crowds of novices that try to conquer its slopes without giving it due respect. Nevertheless, I find it ironic that someone can complain about the lack of humility within the covers of a national best-selling authbiography, written before the author has even attained his golden years.

David Breashears is legendary for his combination of climbing and film making skills. This book chronicles his development as a rock and then mountain climber, and also his career in adventure film. It was Breshears who, among other things, accompanied Dick Bass to the top of Everest in 1983 as Bass sought to be the first person to summit the highest peak on each continent. It was also Breshears who was on Everest in 1996 to shoot an IMAX film, when the well-known events associated with Krakauer's "Into Thin Air." Breshears' account of that disaster is candid and heart wrenching. The book is well written and compelling, a great read.

This was another good book about the Everest disaster of 1996. It now marks the third book on the topic that I have read. Similar to my polygomy kick, I think if I let this go, it could become my next obsession. However, I am going to cut myself off and not read any more Everest books. Unless I could find an account of a polygomous family who all climbed Everest together....now that could be an interesting read!!! :-)

This is a solid and thoughtful biography from a man whose given his life over to climbing and to mountain photography - the latter initially as a way to make it possible for him to climb. Starting with his early life, and the use of climbing and the outdoors as an escape from a violent and unpredictable father, there's many detailed descriptions of how he developed his skills as a climber before moving to his fascination, almost obsession, with Everest, focussing in particular on this descriptions of the tragedies of 1996.

Reading other reviews there are mixed feelings about this book and particularly about his treatment of '96. I've not many of the other books on the same theme so don't feel too qualified to judge.

Elsewhere, the author is brutally honest in his depiction of how his marriage drifted and fell apart because of his obsession with climbing. And he is equally honest in talking about, and describing, the awful price that some people pay because of the lure of the high and wild places of the world.

I have a fashionation of Mt. Everest and I was given this book on my birthday 11.14.10 and so I have only just started it on New Years Eve so I will add more when I get further into the book. I finsihed this book on 1.13.11, it was a very wonderful book.

Fantastic autobiography of David Breashears the best cinematographer for high altitude climbing. He almost never did a high altitude climb without a movie camera and he was in charge of the IMAX Everest film that was filmed during the famous 1996 Everest season. In this autobiography, you get to learn many sides to his life in addition to the first-hand description of many fascinating high-altitude climbs. He was always driven to be a climber even as a child and was inspired by a picture of Tensing Norgay on the first ever summit expedition to Everest in 1953. As a teenager, he worked in an oil field and it lets you know what it is like to work in such a place and how the guy with the lowest status has to risk his life every day with the type of tasks he had to perform. He befriended a undercover policeman looking for drug dealers who posed as an oil field worker. The way he first made it to Everest was interesting because he tried as hard as humanly possible to get invited to work on climbing expeditions even fronting his own airfare and working at the status of a low-level sherpa carrying bags. But due to his passion and talent he was able to rise up through the ranks of workers within the expedition and become an essential climber breaking trail at the front of the group. There were so many interesting high altitude expeditions early in his career that you would never read about elsewhere. But the details are so interesting and in one early expedition he actually climbed with Sir Edmund Hillary when he was in his 60s. The climax of the book comes with the filming of IMAX Everest and the difficulty of bringing the heavy IMAX equipment to the summit was mind boggling. This all happened just a week after the 1996 disaster discussed in Into Thin Air. Climbing above the death zone is ridiculously difficult and dangerous and the IMAX crew had to bring the heavy pieces of the 60mm camera to the same spot and the parts had to be assembled each time any filming took place. The film was eaten up at 5 feet per second and so the takes had to be perfect every time. Often the climber to be filmed would arrive before the camera and the climber had to move on before the scene could be filmed in order to stay warm and reduce time on the mountain. This is a fantastic book about high altitude climbing and it is an alternative to the stories of single climbs of particular mountains like in Into Thin Air. This book covers an entire lifetime and many different adventures. The book is well-written and as an autobiography is not particularly egotistical like many climbing autobiographies.