He has filmed the wonder of the white-water caves of Papua New Guinea, the Eiger’s North Face, a stormbound Arctic winter, a toxic fume-filled Indonesian volcano and hunted with eagles in Mongolia.

He has captured the raw terrors of mountaineering in Touching The Void, shot the gripping opening sequence of Alien vs Predator and has filmed several hair-raising adventure series with Steve Backshall.

And this week Emmy award-winning Keith Partridge has been braving the wilds of Northumberland with University of Cumbria students.

The acclaimed and in-demand cameraman lectures at the university when he is not risking life and limb in some far-off and distinctly dangerous part of the planet.

He runs a film school in Canada every year as part of the Banff Mountain Festival and this summer he is aiming to run a summer school at the university’s Ambleside campus.

He linked up with the university a year ago and says: “I work with the university as often as I can. It is very very flexible and it has to be. It is great fun and hopefully the students can benefit rapidly from us spending time together.

“They have 28 years of experience handed to them on a plate. If you can get students and film-makers up to speed and fully understanding what they are up against before they are confronted by a situation, and panic or feel out of their depth and can’t perform, to get this training is vital for them, their career, safety and wellbeing.

“Forewarned is forearmed.”

He started as an 18-year-old trainee with the BBC in Newcastle but, after six years, decided to try and mix film and programme making with his hobby of climbing.

Keith had only climbed in the Lakes, Scotland and Wales, but answered a job ad in an Ambleside climbing shop for someone to go on expedition to Iceland.

“It was just the two of us, in winter, it was bonkers!” he recalls.

“The weather was appalling. Our tent was totally buried by snow, we were crossing glaciers and towing our gear on sledges, it was a bit different to what you find in this country.”

When he returned to Newcastle, he bumped into a producer and told him about his experiences and he was immediately signed up to film Chris Bonington in the Himalayas. That was followed by of commissions for series on hillwalking and climbing expeditions in the UK and across the world.

He’s lost at least two of his nine lives narrowly avoiding disaster.

Probably more than two, though he doesn’t want to think about it too much. He calls them “a spicy moment” .

One of them came when filming the opening sequence of Alien vs Predator in the Swiss Alps.

A 450ft frozen waterfall had formed from water spilling over the top of a giant holding tank. Keith and a colleague were on a rope 120ft from the top when water from the tank was released, covering him and a colleague, their ropes and equipment with ice and leaving them trapped.

An emergency rope had to be lowered and the pair clip onto it so they could be hoisted up.

He says: “Things can run away from you and conditions change. There are times when things get a bit sticky.

“It can be a question of comfort and safety versus getting the shot and when things get sketchy, you switch to automatic mode. That is when the most interesting stuff happens on camera.

“You don’t necessarily take risks. You do everything to mitigate those risks. I’m not gung-ho. I don’t want to die tomorrow.

In 2012, he and mountaineer Kenton Cool delivered an Olympic Gold medal to the summit in the run up to the London 2012 Games. Footage of the deed needed to be got back to base camp quickly and Keith didn’t think he could make it in one day, so the two decided to descend separately.

“That was a big one, when you are so exhausted and on your own. That was not a technical or weather-based issue.

“It was a mental and physical thing. I knew that if I fell asleep I would never get up again. I was on my own and fighting off total exhaustion.”

Just last year he was filming on the Isle of Skye when one of his team caused a terrifying rockslide.

“I could hear this loud thundering coming down the gully and knew it was going to be really bad,” he explains.

“I had nowhere to run and dived behind a pinnacle. Boulders the size of TVs were were coming over the top of me and I was hit with glancing blows.

He has filmed around the world - in all conditions - to make TV series with Steve Backshall - Alaska, the Amazon, Papua New Guinea and Venezuela to name a few.

He insists that the sometimes terrifying situation they find themselves in are genuine and are not ‘set-ups’.

“He is great, a really good lad to be with,” says Keith. “He is a consummate professional and knows when it is going to get sticky.

“We tighten up and look after each other. We are a solid team and I hope that comes across. Everything I have done with Steve has been a proper adventure. Proper.

“Last January we were in Greenland working on a series that is coming out soon on the BBC and we had a blast, but there were moments when you thought ‘This is a bit spicy’.

“It is about where you pit yourself on that line between filming versus the safety of yourself and others. It is only a TV show, it ain’t worth dying for.”

He was also responsible for recreating the life or death moments of climbers Joe Simpson and Cumbria’s Simon Yates for the movie Touching The Void.

He flew out with Simpson to Siula Grande, the mountain in the Andes which almost cost both climbers’ lives in 1985, and worked at 18,500 ft, with no helicopter or medical facilities nearby, while battling against ferocious weather conditions, minus 20 temperatures, frostbite, altitude sickness and hypothermia.

Some of the more difficult scenes were filmed in Switzerland, but even here, the weather was so extreme that the camera lens and viewfinder would fill up with snow in a just a few seconds and sometimes visibility was less than six feet.

Whether it is a spine-tingling scene in Hollywood movie, hair-raising adventures up a mountain or in a cave for a TV show or sweeping snowstorm vistas for documentaries, Keith has captured the tension and terror through a lens.

He won the Emmy for his filmwork in BBC’s Human Planet series. He claimed a BAFTA for Best British Film for Touching the Void in 2004 and his book about filming in some of the the most dangerous places on earth, The Adventure Game, won a special mention in the prestigious BANFF Mountain Book Competition.

The 52-year-old lives in Dunblane with wife Andrea and children Erin, 11, and Jamie, 13. He may have filmed adventure and danger around the planet, from frozen mountain-tops to steamy tropical forests and the confines of deep caves, but he is just as happy to be adventuring in deepest Northumberland with a group of film students from the University of Cumbria.

He insists that you don’t need to travel the world or suffer extreme temperatures to have an adventure or capture thrilling images.

“It is not where you are, it is what you are doing and who you are with,” he explains.

Learning the skills isn’t just about making sure you get the right shot at the right time. According to Keith, the skills used in adventure filming feed into normal life.

“It goes into awareness, problem-solving and being safe. It feeds into everything you do now and in the future - and who knows

“It is about the lessons learned. You are not going on the north face of the Eiger or climbing Everest on day one. It is about how you get to the position where you think you can do it.

“You have to develop the mindset, you have to develop the technical skills and you have to develop the physicality to do it.”

Next Thursday he will relive some of his experiences and lessons in a talk at Stanwix Theatre. e will give an insight into how he has made almost 70 films over the past 30 years, stretching the limits of extreme film-making, the lessons learned, why he gets involved and why he keeps returning.

To book for Keith’s lecture, ‘Life behind the lens: Keith Partridge in conversation’ or for more details, email karen.jones@cumbria.ac.uk or call 01228 400301.