Sometimes you come across a Photo in Fotolia’s catalog which literally makes your jaw drop. Fredrik Schlyter’s image ‘Man making a base jump‘ did just that. So we had to speak with him to find out the story behind it:

“Lysefjorden in Norway has been a favourite place for me for many years not only for me as a passionate photographer, but also as a climber. I have spent many days here climbing up these nearly 900m vertical walls. Almost every time I have been up here climbing I saw many so called base-jumpers passing me. Sometimes they were so close that I could see their faces and here them say “Helllloooo”to me when they passed. In 1998 I did my first solo climb of these walls. I spent 52 hours to climb alone up this Wall. I talked a lot to myself to keep me mentally in balance and once or twice a day said hello to some “crazy ” base-jumpers. I have had a lot of discussions with base-jumpers about risk taking. The jumpers do not understand me how I want to spend 52 two hours alone climbing up this wall. For them it only takes 15-40 seconds to get down! Here on Kjerag in Lysefjorden is one of the few places in the world where you’re allowed to jump. Now in year 2016 over 40,000 jumps have been made from these walls. It’s now a huge tourist attraction. Often the ferry from Stavanger stop under the walls of Kjerag to let their passengers see the base-jumpers jumping. If you don’t want to climb up this 900m wall to get to the point where from I took this photo of the jumpers, you can drive up to a parking lot and then walk for about 2-2.5 hours. There are about 10 different exit points here for base-jumpers. This photo is taken on exit number seven which is one of the most popular exit points. It has to be good weather with not too much wind. On this day there were perfect conditions so there were many focused jumpers waiting in line. One day after this photo was taken I filmed a world record. It was 24 jumpers that jumped out here at the same time. Lysefjorden is a place I defiantly recommend for everyone to visit someday.”

A big thanks to Fredrik for taking the time to speak with us! You can discover more of his images here.