Acrophobia.

Mike Kennedy · Oct 3, 2008

Anyone else suffer from fear of heights? What a cruddy malady to plague a photographer.
So many lost shots when vertigo sets in and I'm about to be pitched into the void.Dang!!

Jeff Kubach · Oct 3, 2008

Not usually, but I do have stage fright.

Jeff

Steve Smith · Oct 3, 2008

I quite like heights myself but a someone at work who doesn't once said "I don't mind heights so long as I am at the bottom of them".

.... and I never get stage fright!

Steve.

eddym · Oct 3, 2008

I am not afraid of heights as long as I have something to hold onto; a guard rail, handhold, anything. But if I have to go up on a roof or other unprotected area, I cannot walk to the edge. I have no problem inside airplanes.

gr82bart · Oct 3, 2008

I'm quite lucky, as I have no phobias. Since I was a kid, someone has had to restrain me. Plus I love the stage.

Regards, Art.

cdholden · Oct 3, 2008

Acrophobia should not to be confused with Acrosphobia: the fear of Fuji b/w film.

tim_walls · Oct 3, 2008

Mike Kennedy said:
Anyone else suffer from fear of heights? What a cruddy malady to plague a photographer.
So many lost shots when vertigo sets in and I'm about to be pitched into the void.Dang!!

Sadly, yes :-(. Although I'd refine my phobia slightly to be 'fear of falling' rather than fear of heights as such - I could be 5,000 feet up on a cliff edge and I'd be fine if there was a railing at waist height. (Hell, I used to fly gliders and never had a problem.)

I think my worst episode to date was on a walking trip in Iceland with RB67 over shoulder. Came up to a horrifically narrow ledge going around a corner with about a 600 foot drop into the bottom of the valley. On the outward trip I coped because I couldn't actually see around the corner how far I had to go - on the way back though I knew exactly how far it was going to take me and wound up having a full blown panic attack, with me on the ground clinging onto the Earth for dear life.

To add insult to injury, I later saw a bunch of kids on a pony treck succesfully navigating the same ledge on horseback. Sigh.

jp80874 · Oct 3, 2008

I also have the dreaded fear of falling and heights. These may have come naturally and then been reinforced by a couple of falls. One was with a large car battery while going up a ladder to a boat in storage. The boat whose bottom I had just painted was now less stable than before. As I climbed aboard, the boat shifted, and battery and I were thrown. The battery survived the fall, but I was knocked out and woke up as they were loading me in into an ambulance.

One thing that has helped, and came as a surprise to Peter Spangenberg, is that I carry an assortment of old dock lines in the car. When wishing to photograph a waterfall while looking down from a cliff edge, Peter was quite surprised when I returned from the car with a heavy line for me and another for the camera. Once we were tied off to a tree I felt much better about the situation. The panoramic scene filled the 7x17 frame and was dramatic. My shorts however were not filled. My body, brain and camera survived the event unscathed. Once I knew I could not fall beyond the length of the tether I was okay. Try it near a very short drop to see if it works for you. If it works there, increase the drop distance, until you know what the limits are for you. Be sure that you know how to tie good sailor knots.

John Powers

Jeff Bannow · Oct 3, 2008

I hate heights too. Recently, a group of us were on the roof of a 20 story building. They were dangling over the edge, shooting and such - I couldn't even watch them and had to leave.

John, do you suppose the rope trick would work for helicopters as well? I don't know how I would carry those miles of rope though!

Jerry Basierbe · Oct 3, 2008

Yes. I have a problem standing close to the edge of a building or cliff, but oddly enough I can sit in an airplane 30,000 feet in the air and look out the window no problem.

Jerry

jp80874 · Oct 3, 2008

jbannow said:
John, do you suppose the rope trick would work for helicopters as well? I don't know how I would carry those miles of rope though!

First you need a very large sky hook that will travel above the helicopter. Then you need to figure out how to pass the rope around the cutting blades of the chopper. After that rope storage is a piece of cake.

JP

Richard Wasserman · Oct 3, 2008

Maybe it's not a phobia, but a sign of intelligence? After all,not falling over precipices does allow one to pass their genes on to the next generation. This is what it's all about after all, isn't it?

Richard Wasserman

IloveTLRs · Oct 3, 2008

I don't think so. More of flying, which a lot of times keeps me from getting good out the window shots

rmolson · Oct 3, 2008

I use to shoot pictures hanging out of the side of aircraft. Now in my old age I freaked out riding my bike across a bridge when I realized I was sitting higher than the guard rail .Needless to say now I walk across bridges if I am shooting anything.

Jim Jones · Oct 3, 2008

To get the right photo of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, an acrophoboc friend had to climb up on a railing and lean over the chasm. She was able to get the shot when I held her by the legs and said, "I won't let you fall. That's my camera you're using."

naeroscatu · Oct 3, 2008

In my childhood I took swimming lessons so one day the coach asked the kids to jump from the platform. The pool had 1m, 3m, 5m and 10m high platforms. I could not pass the 3m for anything in the world. I had to back-up from the 5m and 10m because I could not even look down; kids laughed I felt bad but life goes on. I hike, went to over 2000m in the mountains but I do not get close to cliffs. I also have a problem when spinning as in going into rides at Wonderland and this kind of activities; It is not fear but rather sickness. I almost faint couple of times in the past so I stay away. Are these phobias connected (at the brain level...)?

Vaughn · Oct 3, 2008

Not normally a problem here...but for a short time period (a couple years or so) I could not walk on a log over any great height. It was not fear...it was something tied to the visual imput, my inner ear and my brain. I would lose all sense of balance.

I am not very clausicphobic(sp)...I can hang out in elevators, caves and deep into lava tubes, etc -- but the even the idea of being in a very narrow space where I can not turn around starts a panic response. I can even pinpoint the experience as a young boy that probably was the trigger for this phobia -- but the mind is a strange beast. Now, if one of my boys was stuck in a cave and I had to crawl through a narrow place to rescue him, I wonder if my parentual instincts would over power the phobia. Hope I don't have to give it that test!

Vaughn

AgX · Oct 3, 2008

I guess famous is that photo of that photographer with his huge reflex camera on a rod of a skyscraper in construction.

But I must admit I could not even do this…:

http://www.tzuid.eu/evenementen/fomu/plissart

dbonamo · Oct 3, 2008

eddym said:
I am not afraid of heights as long as I have something to hold onto; a guard rail, handhold, anything. But if I have to go up on a roof or other unprotected area, I cannot walk to the edge. I have no problem inside airplanes.

Same here, I used to climb radio towers a few hundred feet and have flown a small helo Robinson r22 with no fear, however put me 10-20 feet on a roof my palms sweat.

Thomas Bertilsson · Oct 3, 2008

I start shaking when I go near a steep long drop. Even when I look up on a very tall building I can get jittery and start losing my balance. It's not a fear as I'm not afraid. I just start losing my balance.
- Thomas

Ken22485 · Oct 7, 2008

I, too, have the fear of heights, or rather, the fear of falling. Like others here, I won't get near the edge of any precipice.

Airplanes don't bother me, though, for some reason. A few years ago, I took an acrobatic ride in an open cockpit biplane - complete with loops, rolls, etc., and the only thing holding me in the biplane when it was inverted were the shoulder straps. As they were strapping a parachute on me, they gave me thorough instructions... "If the pilot yells 'GET OUT,' jump and pull this..."

Here's a video of the acrobatic ride. I didn't shoot the video, but it's the same plane and the same pilot.

JBrunner · Oct 8, 2008

I used to be afraid of some things, but now I just don't care enough to get worked up over much at all.

Andy K · Oct 8, 2008

I have no fear of heights or falling... its the sudden stop at the bottom that terrifies me.

haris · Oct 8, 2008

Jerry Basierbe said:
Yes. I have a problem standing close to the edge of a building or cliff, but oddly enough I can sit in an airplane 30,000 feet in the air and look out the window no problem.

Jerry

Same here.

winger · Oct 8, 2008

It seems to be pretty common here to not like falling. I'm the same. I can't go near big drops without a railing or rope. Yet I like to rock climb (with belay, etc..).

Acrophobia.

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