How musk risk / danger have you taken for a photograph or access to shoot? [Archive]

Cletus

1-Sep-2012, 11:09

This may have been asked before, but what's the riskiest, or most dangerous situation you've encountered, or would be willing to encounter in order to make a special photograph?

For example, trespassing, heights, alligators and snakes, "faking it" i.e., fake press passes or other docs to gain access.

When I was a big 35mm shooter I had a fake press pass (and 2 Pro looking Nikon F100s with big lenses) and successfully gained unique access to rodeos, circuses and some other events. I never used it at a big news event where there were other bona-fide press photogs, but several 'informal', plausible events such as above. Fortunately I never got caught doing this, I'm not sure what the penalty would have been if I had.

Once, at a big Hispanic Dance Festival, I even planned ahead and had a fake "assignment spec sheet" and shot list in addition to my press pass and got some wonderful photos. These were among the small batch that were destroyed in a flood - I guess that's what I get for that!

I've climbed on top of a billboard once and also stopped on a busy freeway overpass for a cityscape - probabl the most dangerous thing I ever did!

I also risked MANY alligators once, to climb aboard a derelict shrimp boat in S. Louisiana. I think the boat was more dangerous than the 'gators!

I haven't done much stuff like this with LF as it's obviously too slow and conspicuous by nature and I dont think anyone would ever believe you were on some "official business" with a big wood feld camera! I have done a little "mild trespassing" however, for a good shot. I guess in W. Texas and New Mexico, there's sme danger of buckshot, but I've been pretty careful not to go places where that would be likely.

What's the most risk you would take, or have taken for a unique or unusual photograph?

Jody_S

1-Sep-2012, 11:23

I spent weeks in New Orleans, post-Katrina, early hours of the morning in cemeteries and the Lower 9th Ward. Alone and unarmed. I've also tried to get Cree guides to take me to an island in Hudson Bay to photograph polar bears, but they refused. As did the helicopter pilot. Probably just as well. But my single most dangerous exploit was photographing from a car window in Kinshasa, Zaire (Congo). If I'd been caught, a mob would have pulled me from the car and beaten me to death.

Heroique

1-Sep-2012, 11:26

Me, I’ve put life & limb at risk w/o a corresponding challenge to my soul.

Other shots have tried my soul, but presented no physical danger.

I’ve come to learn that if only I could see better, exceptional shots w/o physical risk are everywhere.

Gerry Meekins

1-Sep-2012, 11:45

I used to use Metol, does that count?

Richard Wasserman

1-Sep-2012, 13:15

I have photographed hanging over the edge of the roof of the 99th floor of Willis Tower in Chicago. Although I was wearing a safety harness and if I had fallen I wouldn't have dropped more than about 15 feet (which would have been more than enough!)

Vaughn

1-Sep-2012, 13:15

I have set up in some interesting and risky places in the landscape -- edge of cliffs, etc. Usually more of a risk getting to those places than taking the actual image. But it is all about risk-management. I have been a lot of places where it would have been easy to break a leg or fall and get a head injury -- and no one knew where I was nor would there be anyone passing by in the next few weeks...sort of makes one 'be here now' which I enjoy and learn from.

I set up on a rock on a slope looking over Franz Josef Glacier in New Zealand once (1987). It was in an area relatively recently uncovered by the retreat of the glacier, so the slope was not very stable. I kept an ear open for the sound of rocks coming down the slope. But I got the image -- a nice one -- and then moved laterally and down to the side of the glacier. Heard some noise and looked up to see a couple nice sized rocks coming down the slope and right over the rock I had been set-up on. So I escaped serious injury and/or death by about 15 minutes.

C. D. Keth

1-Sep-2012, 15:17

I used to use Metol, does that count?

Don't lots of PMK users still do that regularly?

My most dangerous moment was dangling several meters down on an improvised rope harness into the caldera of a live, currently erupting volcano. Below me was a hundred foot drop into a boiling slurry of ash and hydrochloric acid.

dsphotog

1-Sep-2012, 19:53

don't lots of pmk users still do that regularly?

My most dangerous moment was dangling several meters down on an improvised rope harness into the caldera of a live, currently erupting volcano. Below me was a hundred foot drop into a boiling slurry of ash and hydrochloric acid.

winner!

Vaughn

1-Sep-2012, 20:01

winner!

Only if he was using LF! ;)

lenser

1-Sep-2012, 20:31

Two come to mind, both involving trains. When I was in my late teens, I climbed down a small cliff on the Mississippi River to shoot close ups of some rock formations alongside a train track. This was on a strong curve so the track was tilted and the noise of the oncoming train was muted by the curved rock face. Suddenly, me, the Calumet CC-400 and the big Quick Set tripod were literally overhung by the leaning train as it passed only a couple of feet behind me.

The second occurred about 25 years ago when a historian friend and I were out shooting images on the 100 plus year old Thebes, Ill. railroad bridge. We were about 1/2 mile out on the two track bridge when we saw one train approaching from the Illinois side and realized there was no room to stand between the two sets of tracks if one also came from Missouri. There was a nearby very spindly escape platform that we were able to get on, but the next five minutes or so were spent sitting about three feet away from the passing cars being shaken like crazy on the 100 foot high platform and watching the completely loose rail joint in front of us slam up and down each time a wheel passed.

C. D. Keth

1-Sep-2012, 20:42

Only if he was using LF! ;)

Is it large format if you expose the same large area of film a little at a time? It was a S16mm motion picture camera.

Vaughn

1-Sep-2012, 20:54

No, but I'll let you slide...:cool:

C. D. Keth

1-Sep-2012, 21:30

No, but I'll let you slide...:cool:

OK. Thank God the guys spotting me on that rope didn't.

Really it sounds nuttier than it was. I felt very safe the whole time.

ic-racer

2-Sep-2012, 07:03

Like this?79792
Photo: Musk-ox in snow hole.(c)National Geographic

Kav

2-Sep-2012, 07:42

I got thrown out the back of a cargo aircraft that was refueling some helicopters. It was pitch black and there were no lights on. No one saw me go because they were all wearing night vision goggles. NVGs severity limit your side vision. Lucky I had a harness and used that to haul myself back into the plane. I didn't drop my camera and I got the shots I wanted.

I also spend a lot of time hanging out the side of helicopters for photos like this one:

http://kavanaughmp.smugmug.com/Category/Film/35mm/i-68XKXnV/0/XL/08410003-XL.jpg

C. D. Keth

2-Sep-2012, 08:51

I got thrown out the back of a cargo aircraft that was refueling some helicopters. It was pitch black and there were no lights on. No one saw me go because they were all wearing night vision goggles. NVGs severity limit your side vision. Lucky I had a harness and used that to haul myself back into the plane. I didn't drop my camera and I got the shots I wanted.

That's pretty harrowing. I did a shoot recently for a large video game company where we did lots of rigged cameras on a C130 while some SEALs did night jumps. We also had lots of cameras rigged on their helmets and rifles. I was in the back harnessed in with a camera and I was still pretty nervous. Heights and I are not friends.

Kirk Gittings

2-Sep-2012, 09:05

Not LF but......I got a call 15 years ago or so from Forbes magazine about doing a shoot on Superfund sites at Los Alamos National Laboratories. "Only problem is we don't have permission-in fact they denied us permission". Hmmm...........I ask "cover any and all legal expenses I incur in writing, double the offered fees and I'll do it". Any way I snuck around LANL for two days shooting with long lenses from the woods and from the windows in my truck and got what they needed. A few times security vehicles drove right past my truck as I was shooting but I was never stopped or questioned. Forbes was thrilled with the results. When the article came out I got a call from head of security asking me how in the hell I got those images-he said he was in deep shit. When I told him he simply said "shit I'm toast" and hung up the phone. That was the last I heard anything related to it. The following year was the Wen Ho Lee scandal and I thought maybe the press would dig it up, but nothing happened.

Vaughn

2-Sep-2012, 13:10

Heights and I are not friends.

Okay, you definitely win! Not liking heights but hanging by ropes over lava and now this! :cool:

Steve Smith

2-Sep-2012, 13:25

Heights and I are not friends.

An old work colleague used to say "I don't mind heights... as long as I'm at the bottom of them".

Steve.

al olson

2-Sep-2012, 15:32

Years ago I was driving through Yellowstone Park when I encountered a traffic jam. You could just barely see the head of a moose who was grazing in the meadow above the embankment. I tried getting on the roof of my Vanagon, but even that was insufficient height.

So I decided to climb up the embankment. I quit climbing when the elevation of the embankment was at knee level. With the moose about 20 yards away I started shooting frames while the bull moose was in profile. Then he turned and I got this shot with Nikon F2 and Vivitar 35-85 zoom.

http://www.photo-artiste.com/largeformatforum/bullmoose.jpg

I then scrambled back down the embankment. I didn't stick around to bracket.

With regard to press passes, I think I related this story elsewhere in the forum. In 1962 while I was stationed in Northern Virginia in the Army they decided to initiate hydroplane races on the Potomac to include the Unlimiteds. Unfortunately, they had both shores of the Potomac cordoned off so in order to get close it was necessary to pay for seating. I was an E-3 GI and the time so the tickets were a month's salary.

I wanted to get photos of the Unlimiteds so with my wife carrying a bag of film holders and I with my Super Graphic and with an expired press pass in my hat, we walked up to an usher. I asked if there were a place where I could get photographs. He walked us into the VIP section and seated us in the front row next to the pits.

Not that we were in danger, but in those days, anyone with a press camera was important.

austin granger

2-Sep-2012, 16:50

As far as physically precarious large format shots, this one comes to mind:
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5131/5475911334_e3564a3b12_b.jpg

My mother would have been horrified to see where I was standing.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/austingranger/

Cletus

2-Sep-2012, 17:01

Al -

Nice! This is exactly what I mean with the 'press passes'. There's really no harm done to anyone, or any serious laws broken (I don't think anyway - maybe misrepresenting yourself as a photographer?) and you can sometimes gain access to stuff that you would never be able to photograph otherwise.

One of the most interesting shoots I did this way was a rodeo. I had called ahead and asked if I could be allowed some access to the "back stage" areas (I don't now what they're called) and was told unequivocally not. I went anyway and brought my press pass and then told the security manager - lucky for me it was too small an event to have a press/PR manager - that I was working freelance for a journalist who was doing a story on the rodeo for the local paper. This was in Amarillo, so I guess this isn't the first time this happened. Fortunately no one asked me where the writer was, or any other of the many questions I would not be able to answer and blow my gig! I was allowed unrestricted access to anywhere I wanted to go. I ran out of film before the rodeo was even over. That was just fun!

It's a little different, I think, than Kirk's story of the Los Alamos superfund project, where some could have really gotten i trouble, or possibly even tossed in jail. But then I guess he wasn't bearing the burden of responsibility and hopefully not any consequences if he was caught. The client was, but that's their problem! I love stuff like that though. I guess I watched too much "Rockford Files" when I was a kid!

austin granger

2-Sep-2012, 17:04

I was almost eaten by dogs here (Salton Sea):
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5055/5477710717_eab058572c_z.jpg

Here (Sauvie Island):
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5066/5744456332_187172f9f4_z.jpg

And here, at Kurt Cobain's house in Aberdeen, Washington:
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5018/5483793927_ebf151f15d_z.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/austingranger/

Vaughn

2-Sep-2012, 17:38

I set up the 8x10 in the redwoods, framed the image and was about to put the holder in the camera when a herd of lovely ladies moved in and had some lunch in front of the camera. I took the photo anyway, but the elk were moving enough that none of them actually showed up in the image -- a few minutes long. Then the alpha bull showed up and started to make unpleasant noises. Breaking my all-time record for taking down my 8x10 and stowing it in the pack, I hurried off in the least threatening direction I could find. I climbed over a couple fallen redwoods and that satisfied the bully dude. I believe I forgot to make my usual post-exposure notes.

Scott Walker

5-Sep-2012, 14:52

Broke through the ice @ -30 with my right leg in the water up to about the top of my thigh.
Good quality winter wear and my truck being within about 30 minutes of me made the results much less severe than they could have been.

I regularly photograph in areas that you will not get a second chance if you make a major mistake or if mother nature has just had enough of you.
Probably the biggest risk is avalanche, I understand snow well, test it myself, and take in any snow condition reports, but conditions can change so rapidly and drastically within just a few hundred feet of elevation you never really know what is in store for you crossing any chute.

Rick Rycroft

6-Sep-2012, 20:03

C. D. Keth

6-Sep-2012, 21:14

During a coup in Fiji in 2000 I found myself a little too close for comfort. First image is coup supporters trying to disarm some soldiers. Then in the second photo, taken by my friend and colleague, armed coup perpetrators out of the picture frame opened fire, and that's me at right reacting to a haircut I got from a bullet wizzing overhead. Unseen to the left is TV guy that was hit in the arm by the bullet.8002980030

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner. I'm cool with natural dangers. When bullets fly I want out.

jnantz

7-Sep-2012, 06:35

on the roof's edge of a 30+ story building to document a gas holder
( was on the hvac system above the parapet )
on a quarry's edge 300+feet up documenting the walls of a granite quarry
before it was filled ...
and documenting a factory building while people were trying to break in and steal copper.

Kirk Gittings

7-Sep-2012, 06:48

During a coup in Fiji in 2000 I found myself a little too close for comfort. First image is coup supporters trying to disarm some soldiers. Then in the second photo, taken by my friend and colleague, armed coup perpetrators out of the picture frame opened fire, and that's me at right reacting to a haircut I got from a bullet wizzing overhead. Unseen to the left is TV guy that was hit in the arm by the bullet.8002980030

I have been shot at twice while doing photography. Once someone put a bullet hole in my truck door while driving slowly on a public dirt road above Abiquiu-looking for images. The other was a bullet through my windshield in the South Valley of Albuquerque while on a commercial shoot-waiting in my car for twilight.

Jim Shanesy

7-Sep-2012, 07:43

I have been shot at twice while doing photography. Once someone put a bullet hole in my truck door while driving slowly on a public dirt road above Abiquiu-looking for images. The other was a bullet through my windshield in the South Valley of Albuquerque while on a commercial shoot-waiting in my car for twilight.
Too bad Paletti wasn't with you. He would have shot back.

Kirk Gittings

7-Sep-2012, 07:44

and or Eddie!

ROL

7-Sep-2012, 08:25

As far as physically precarious large format shots, this one comes to mind:

My mother would have been horrified to see where I was standing.

Well, we can see by the proximity of your avatar that that was quite a difficult task from the "playa" ;). BTW, I very much like the image.

Drew Bedo

12-Sep-2012, 16:18

Got a shot of the moon setting behind a windmill at ~3AM standing in a road side ditch in the middle of god-forsaken-nowhere. If I had any adverse experience, no-one would have seen me till the county mowed the shoulder.

tgtaylor

12-Sep-2012, 20:00

Back in '67 - '67 I spent a year photographing the landscape of South Vietnam while serving as an Infantryman with the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). One day the army decided to transport our backpacks by Chinook and I watched as the sling carrying the packs, mine included, broke about 2-3 miles out and dumped our packs into dense jungle canopy. In my pack were a Pitre and Canon (I think the AE1 of something like that) 35mm cameras as well as film both exposed and unexposed. I wanted to go out and retrieve the packs but the army wouldn't listen to me.

Thomas

Noah A

13-Sep-2012, 07:05

Before I went to Iraq in 2003 the newspaper I worked for at the time sent me here: http://www.centurionsafety.net/

I had never realized there were so many ways to bite it. Seriously, it's a great course on working in hostile environments and while it's expensive, I recommend it for anyone working in war zones, etc. They cover how not to get maimed or killed, and emergency first aid in case things don't go as well as planned.

Thankfully, while I often work in somewhat hostile and difficult places, I've only gotten shot at a few times and mostly have been able to avoid (best case) or defuse tense situations.

Iraq in 2003--just being there as a non-embedded journalist--was probably the most risk I've taken. But we never took stupid risks and it's all in a day's work, after all...

Thom Bennett

13-Sep-2012, 14:00

I photographed a wedding.

Scott Walker

13-Sep-2012, 14:47

I photographed a wedding.

We have a new winner! :p

Roger Thoms

13-Sep-2012, 16:52

Use to skydive with a video and still camera. Mainly photographed tandem jumpers. Looked dangerous but really wasn't any worse that driving a car. That said I did manage to almost die, was photographing a sky surfer and we both lost track of altitude, opened at 800 feet, another few seconds and it would of been all over. Got kicked off the dropzone for that stunt.

Roger

David Lobato

13-Sep-2012, 18:02

Out on a back road in Utah one day in the mid 1980's, with my old 4x5 monorail camera and '86 Toyota 4x4 truck. Saw a nice scene to photograph off to the side, so pulled the truck onto the right side shoulder. The county had mowed the roadside and the cutoff tops of the thick grass and weeds concealed a sharp drop from the road. The truck immediately canted over. I froze, slowly scooted up on the seat, and gingerly opened the door. Stepped out, being careful the truck wouldn't then roll over without my weight. It was tenuous to say the least. A very slight push with a finger caused the uphill tires on the right to gently lift off the ground, surreal. It's easy in Utah to be in the middle of nowhere so any hope of help driving by was remote. My Toyo 45E was on the front seat and I wasn't the least bit worried about it. I was on my own.

Anyway, after much head scratching and brainstorming I had a plan. I manually locked the front hubs, being extremely careful on the down hill side in case it went over on me. Then slid inside the truck with my left leg out the open door, ready to jump out. Reached down and put her into 4 Wheel Low. Shifted the transmission to neutral, pushed the dash button to enable engine starting without the clutch, and started the engine. Stepped on the clutch, shifted her into reverse and slowly turned the steering wheel all the way left, to quickly swing the front end downhill when the truck would start to move. Slowly let out the clutch, gave a little gas, and swung the front end as planned, ending up perpendicular to the road. She was now stabilized, no longer in danger of tipping. Being already in 4-Low I simply straightened the wheel and backed up onto the road, all in one piece. Writing this still makes me nervous, whew, I need a drink.

Vaughn

13-Sep-2012, 21:27

Before they fixed up the road -- tourists would sometimes pull over a little too far off the road at El Capitan Meadow in Yosemite Valley to watch the climbers -- I remember seeing a sedan laying on its drivers side on my way out of the Valley.

Vaughn

13-Sep-2012, 21:29

I photographed a wedding.

Oh, yeah! I photographed a friend's wedding (and I was a half-hour late showing up...got the times wrong...I thought I was a half-hour early!)

Joseph O'Neil

14-Sep-2012, 07:14

80472

Nothing as scary as a war zone or wedding, but I did once have a homeless man, who looked high on something and just possibly suffering some kind of mental illness, threaten to grab my 4x5 and bash my head in with it. I was photographing a church, and he was behind me, not in front, but he later walked in front of me and "he knew" that my camera shot the gamma rays (or whatever, cannot quite remember now) could shot the rays form behind. Maybe something about the dark cloth I was using, dunno. Took him seriously, finished my shot and got out. shot turned out pretty good too.

Also have inadvertently come across impromtu campsites along the river, inside the city, where in the warmer months some of the homeless live in. Some are fine to get along with, but some of the ex-psych patients can be a bit scary. Sad, because may of them are actually "released" against their will under the guise of human rights when, IMO, it is all about shutting down beds and saving money. Anyhow, they have no skills to survive in regular society - likely why many of them were tehre to begin, and the troubles just multiply.

Came acorss a couple of sites empty, and photographed them. One kinda reminded me of a scene from that mini-series "The Stand" by Stephen King.

Not as dangerous, but I was up very high the other day on an old railway bridge that has been abandoned by the railroad company. We are trying to save it and turn it into a park. The saftey railings are functional but minimal at this point. See photo below. Could say that's the most dangerous spit I've been in for the past couple of months.

Kimberly Anderson

14-Sep-2012, 07:21

Taken into police custody (once in Korea), detained by Korean special police (once more in Korea), tear gassed multiple dozens of times (again, Korea).

Chased by a very mean dog (beat off with Gitzo monopod).

Faced wrath of wife (fended off with a hug and a kiss...and a promise).

Joseph O'Neil

14-Sep-2012, 07:33

Faced wrath of wife (fended off with a hug and a kiss...and a promise).

I think that's the winner, even over having to shoot a wedding.

:D

trog

14-Sep-2012, 10:32

I just ordered a new Ebony 45SU. My wife is going to kill me!

Michael_4514

12-Oct-2012, 09:16

Saw this pic and thought of this thread.

81931

Jody_S

12-Oct-2012, 09:53

Faced wrath of wife (fended off with a hug and a kiss...and a promise).

I believe we have a winner. I don't know if I've managed to get mine angry yet, with anything photo-related. Merely 'disappointed'. And I aim to keep it that way. Wait, I should re-think that.

Cletus

12-Oct-2012, 10:55

Jody - What kind of wife do YOU have?? And does she have a sister? ...Never gotten her angry over photo related stuff?

I almost threw my Hasselblad out the window once, fighting over spending too much money on cameras! And I only paid $400 bucks for it. Sometimes wives don't understand, or don't care about, the meaning of "A really great deal"! (Unless it's a really great deal they've found on something. That's another matter altogether.)

Now that I think about it, WAF and Spousal relations with regard to photography could probably be the topic of a whole new thread! Nay, a whole new FORUM! Wouldn't it be nice to have a place to bitch and vent about getting over marital obstacles on the path to photographic bliss?

Drew Bedo

14-Oct-2012, 18:03

Think about it—most of the images from WW-II were done by some GI with a Speed Grafic. Is that dangerous enough?

jonreid

15-Oct-2012, 02:22

Shame the guy rear far left wasn't hit huh Rick?
J

During a coup in Fiji in 2000 I found myself a little too close for comfort. First image is coup supporters trying to disarm some soldiers. Then in the second photo, taken by my friend and colleague, armed coup perpetrators out of the picture frame opened fire, and that's me at right reacting to a haircut I got from a bullet wizzing overhead. Unseen to the left is TV guy that was hit in the arm by the bullet.8002980030

Heroique

15-Oct-2012, 12:41

Sure, war photographers dodge bullets, landscapers risk face-to-face encounters w/ ferocious beasts, and portraitists brave haughty subjects, but let’s not forget about our intrepid architecture shooters – they’re often just one step away from certain injury or death. (Say, that looks like Norman McGrath wobbling up there, from Photographing Buildings Inside and Out.)

Vaughn

15-Oct-2012, 16:02

At least he has a LF camera to break his fall! I have gone up a ladder like that to photograph a church with a roll film camera...was not enjoyable!

polyglot

15-Oct-2012, 23:43

I think I nearly got my shoes wet (http://brodie-tyrrell.org/pad/index.php?id=2009/07/25) once. Does that count?

alexn

16-Oct-2012, 04:06

I have walked 23miles through snake infested bushland to get to a waterfall, some of the trail is only 1ft wide with a good 100ft sheer drop off on the left and a cliff wall on the right.. when you're carrying 40lbs on your back.. that is dangerous!!

Vaughn

16-Oct-2012, 06:25

C. D. Keth

16-Oct-2012, 16:21

Think about it—most of the images from WW-II were done by some GI with a Speed Grafic. Is that dangerous enough?

You've done that?

Ed Bray

19-Oct-2012, 11:29

I haven't actually taken the image yet that I have put my life in danger to take, but when my wife finds out that yesterday on a whim I spent circa £800 on a 8x10 camera, reducing back and 4x 8x10 film holders I may well not survive the sh*tstorm that is about to hit.

Michael E

19-Oct-2012, 15:34

I once photographed an abandoned ball room from a very dark balcony. As I waited during the five minute exposure, I looked around in the darkness and found out that the floor had collapsed about two feet away from my tripod.

In 1999, I photographed in remote areas of Croatia. Abandoned villages, bullet-ridden houses, turned over buses, burned-out tanks, bullet casings - an exciting and beautiful place to photograph. But the local folks confirmed my suspicion that there were a lot of undetected land mines left over from the war that ended only four years earlier. I always made sure I'd check the ground for every step, keeping on paved roads or solid rock.

Michael

rich815

19-Oct-2012, 20:55

Don Dudenbostel

20-Oct-2012, 20:20

Part of what I do is documentary photography. I completed an exhibition that is touring museums with 94 B&W images of the vanishing culture in Appalachia. I've shot during cock fights, with a moonshiner photographing the making of illegal whiskey with the stills being heated with high pressure automotive gasoline an propane running through rubber hoses and the burners teetering on a stack of stones where one wrong step would be catastrophic. Actually disaster struck one and a half hours after leaving the still house. The funeral failed and the entire shack was destroyed when fire engulfed it and ignited 250 gallons of gasoline, seven cylinders of propane and 1800 gallons of high proof whiskey.

Another topic in the show is serpent handling in church services. I've been to about forty five of these and on one occasion was standing in the middle of three men handling rattlers. They were three to four feet away with six foot rattlesnakes in their hands. I watched as the man to my right lowered the snake from above his head and stroked it's belly. Like a bolt of lightning the rattler bit his left hand. Within seconds I watched his breathing become labored and his life drain from him. I was easy within striking distance of two of the rattlers.

On one other occasion in a serpent hanging church my sound engineer kept me from ring bitten in the face by a copperhead. I was a little too close and the snake started to strike as I was found a close shot. It came quite close to getting me in the face.

I've been to five KKK rallies and one nazi rally as the only outsider allowed in. You never know what might happen at these.

You can see some of these on my website under the documentary section.

www.x-rayarts.com

David_Senesac

25-Oct-2012, 19:56

82586
larger
http://www.davidsenesac.com/Gallery_B/09-C1-4.jpg

A large format friend of mine who has climbed most of the Yosemite Valley icons and I billy goated up to this landscape in the unprecdented March 2009 California poppy bloom in the Merced Canyon below Yosemite. Thus easily nabbing the strongest landscape any photographers captured that spring. Slipping many spots would likely have resulted in a tumbling fall then an air then splat over steeps below. I'm one of the rare backpackers regularly lugging a 4x5 system and that is often crosscountry high in the Sierra Nevada across dangers like talus. Regardless, I do NOT like taking risks and is a reason why this small old thin wiry guy is still at.

Proteus617

26-Oct-2012, 03:16

A digisnap of me at Bellows Falls this summer. First outing with a Crown Graphic. That's about the steepest rockface I will scramble around on with a 4x5 and tripod in one hand.

82596

DSkorupka

21-Oct-2016, 07:52

As a teenager I would go to Halibut Point in Massachusetts. Outgoing tide. In the recently wetted zone.
Small format camera handheld with both hands. No safety ropes. Unguarded zone. During the work week.

Drew Wiley

21-Oct-2016, 10:27

Oh gosh - I can hardly count the times I've been standing on some little ledge barely big enough for the tripod and felt queezy leaning forward over five hundred or a thousand feet of thin air in order to set the shutter. But David - one of my nephews has a spread near your shot, and hikes in that canyon quite a bit. There was an incredible poppy bloom on the canyons of the lower Kings that same year, and also on the lower San Joaquin. Some of those side canyons are so damn steep I had to crab-walk them, then would end up with a stiff neck for the next week, since I routinely toted about 80 lbs of 8x10 gear. Once on the lower Kings I noted an old mining mule trail on the opposite side of the canyon and counted 120 switchbacks on it, just on that one segment. Both the Kings and San Joaquin are twice the depth of the Grand Canyon. But such gorgeous country in those gorges. I grew up next to one of those canyons which was my routine Saturday exercise if I had nothing else to do. Only met one other person in my life who had done that stretch of the river, a local Indian who swore he'd never try it again.

Larry the Sailor

21-Oct-2016, 12:49

I once bought a camera and didn't tell my wife, she was home when the brown truck of happiness showed up.

Drew Wiley

21-Oct-2016, 13:10

So how long a hike did you have to take after that, until things were safe again? I'll always have a place to sleep, at least out on the porch with the cats. So now
I'm trying to be revenue neutral - if I want a new lens, I try to sell something of equal value around the same time. Life is short, and I don't want it any shorter!

John Layton

21-Oct-2016, 13:23

Lots of wilderness related stuff (getting lost, freezing, stuck in storms, rockslides, etc.)...then trips to Ethiopia photographing in conflict zones - hmmm. Shooting movie stills for a deranged and dangerous director?

Ah yes! Leaning into a street with my 20mm mounted Nikon F - I motioned for my friend in his GTO to gun it towards me...having planned to snap the shutter as he drove past. Long story short - he must've had it up to about 45mph when the edge of the car grazed the knuckles of my right hand as I continued to gaze dumbly through my camera. The problem? My use of the 20mm - as in: "objects in the mirror may be much closer than they appear."

Leszek Vogt

21-Oct-2016, 15:11

Can't even recall the year, but I was camping (@Zion) next to this dude, who studied law from Raleigh, NC. We got along well, talked and the following morning we decided to hike Angels Landing. Heights never bothered me, but seeing a drop of 1500-2000 ft on one side and 500ft drop on the other side....certainly had my attention. Well, there was another dimension to this hike....some ice was still on the trail (this was in May, afterall) and holding onto that rock-embedded chain didn't feel all that comfy.

Still have some slides from that encounter.

Les

Jody_S

21-Oct-2016, 15:32

Back when I was doing 35mm animal photography, I once saw a brown bear cub on the side of the road in a rainstorm. I stopped the truck, grabbed the camera that was on the passenger seat, and chased it into the woods for a photo. I got about 20 yards before coming to my senses and turning around, I'm sure mama bear saw the whole thing.

Drew Wiley

21-Oct-2016, 15:37

Had a similar experience on a snowy day in Zion. My pack was so big with a full Sinar system that on one section I had to go on the outside edge of the cable and edge along, holding the cable with feet barely on the path, but my body and pack fully overhanging the void. Oddly, I've always been afraid of heights; but at times ya just gotta not think about it and do what ya gotta do. What has changed now is that I've gotten farsighted, so it's harder to judge close distances accurately, so I'm more conservative about this kind of nonsense. It's a wonder I ever survived growing up. I still have guilt feelings about not taking my mother rock scrambling
one last time when she wanted to go to her favorite hill in her mid-70's. She was strong enough; but I was starting to worry about her bones getting a bit brittle.
She was scared of heights too, so would never look down. So downclimbing, she'd always ask where to place her foot, step by step, so she didn't have to look
down.

David_Senesac

22-Oct-2016, 08:25

Noticed this is a resurrected 2012 thread haha. DW are you referring to my Merced canyon poppy shot or someone else's post? Noticed my link to the larger image was stale so just fixed that. Just to reach where I climbed up the canyon slopes was on the side of the Merced opposite the highway. There is a disintegrating old dirt mining road on that side above the river used by a few mountain bikers but very few hikers because it is relatively unknown except by locals. We had to start hiking at dawn in order to reach the goods when morning light was still optimal and went several miles on the road with our usual 20>30 pounds of gear each. I've since gone back there during another spring to the opposite ravine side in the pic and explored way back over into the next canyon. Very tricky and moderately dangerous places with a fair amount of poison oak to avoid.

I've set my tripod down in a lot of dangerous spots in the Sierra Nevada high country but not nearly as much as you have DW. Far more times the real danger was to my Wisner Expedition on the big Gitzo setting up in places the contraption was on the brink of falling somewhere sure to smash it to pieces or end up floating down some whitewater torrent. Looking through my Gallery_B sub page found another good one that was at the end of an epic adventure with a long story I'll summarize below:

http://www.davidsenesac.com/Gallery_B/05-L-96.jpg

That is a shot in Capitol Reef National Park of famous Golden Throne but a long ways from where visitors view the tower. The same friend Doug that was with me for the poppy shot, in 2005 went on a 3 week Utah Colorado Plateau road trip with me visiting a bunch of pristine locations no other people much less photographers have since probably stepped on. Capitol Reef in particular has vast areas of dangerous to access landscapes with cliffs all about and unstable sandstone geologies to climb through. Real topographic map puzzles. One morning we started off early dawn from the lonely Notom area across miles of weird water less landscapes without any trails or use paths with several cliff bands en-route to figure out that we managed to work through. The above shot was on the brink of one and the one below nearby.

http://www.davidsenesac.com/Gallery_B/05-L-104.jpg

Drew Wiley

24-Oct-2016, 13:47

Oh I've peered into the void at Capitol Reef too. One of my favorite places. But David, I was referring to your Merced Riv canyon poppies. For quite a few years I hauled the 8x10 up some very steep places on both the lower San Joaquin and lower Kings, when there was often quite a poppy show too. But somewhat earlier in the Spring you can get some stunning stairstep waterfalls over the metamorphic rocks typical of the lower canyons, slippery and strenuous to be sure. Then atop
the bends of the San Joaquin there are steep-sided columnar basaltic "tables" with unbelievable flower shows in the vernal ponds in March.