Most Dangerous Photo Shoot

[MurrayMinchin]

Murray, Love to see the pictures. Any available?

Have a few in the media section here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/media/users/murrayminchin.4262/

I posted those 17 years ago...self promotion has been low on my agenda since day one. Had several local one man shows and a recent show with my wife's photos, but that's about it. Don't have many finished prints left.

Looking to reinterpret old work (and produce new stuff) as polymer photogravures which should keep me busy in retirement.

 

[Jim Jones]

While on a photo expedition in the Great American West, I wanted a shot of me on this jutting rock over a deep canyon in (as I recall) Arches National Park. My photo buddy didn't like heights, but after taking my billfold and the car keys for safe keeping, she volunteered to take the shot. I never told her that there was a crack across that rock behind me with vegetation that showed no recent widening of that gap.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

You are really a hero!

After about 3 weeks it just becomes your new normal life. The hard part was getting ready/organizing for the trip and committing to push off the beach on day one.

 

[guangong]

Didn;t the handlers know?

If so, I definitely would have known.
My technique also included cultivating a nervous habit of fiddling with the advance lever all the time, so I was able to discreetly advance film.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

If so, I definitely would have known.
My technique also included cultivating a nervous habit of fiddling with the advance lever all the time, so I was able to discreetly advance film.

Handsdown the most dangerous story so far.

Humans are waaaaay scarier than animals in wilderness settings.

A friend who did clandestine human rights research in Asia & Africa once asked me to go with him to take photos.

I declined.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

Nice shot.

Thanks.

I was a weenie and went home to change right after taking it.

 

[BryanFlnt]

If so, I definitely would have known.
My technique also included cultivating a nervous habit of fiddling with the advance lever all the time, so I was able to discreetly advance film.

I wondered how you advanced the film. Did you cough to cover the click of the shutter?

 

[snusmumriken]

Surreptitiously photographing in North Korea in early 1970s with handlers at my side. Used M4 with long release cable running through jacket, jacket sleeve, into jacket pocket. 28mm lense.

Amazing! What became of the photos? Can we see them somewhere?

 

[guangong]

I wondered how you advanced the film. Did you cough to cover the click of the shutter?

No cough. Camera was M4, half casualty resting against body under jacket, which probably muffled click. Also, people were showing and talking. Using 28 or 21mm lens, I turned chest to point camera in general direction. Of course resulting pics had to be cropped. Keep in mind this took place a half century ago.

 

[Mr Flibble]

What was your most dangerous photo shoot? Not as a professional, but for your passion. I mean the one where you hanging off an ice cliff and you have the voice of your spouse/partner/parent/children when they said to you "be safe." Where the inner dialogue is "Is this photo worth it if I fall/get shot/end up in a hospital in a strange land?" (Bonus if you think the photo was worth it.) (Double bonus if you share the photo.)

Here is mine (yes the question was an excuse to tell my story). I was traveling by myself on the Aran Islands off the West coast of Ireland. No one in my life knew I was on the Island, let alone that I was walking out to the 300-foot cliffs on the edge of the Island. The folks at the hostel, and the bike rental had no idea I was out there. As I stood at the edge of the cliff, with a strong upwind ready to blow me off I kept saying to myself "Do one thing at a time". Plant feet; take the lens cap off; take meter reading; compose shot; look down at where your standing; take shot....

The photo is no much to right home about.
View attachment 349811

I had pretty much the same experience up there at Dun Ducathair back in 2010.

 

[BryanFlnt]

I had pretty much the same experience up there at Dun Ducathair back in 2010.

It’s an exhilarating and outer worldly experience. Walking out and stepping over stone fences that are thousands of years old. I really felt like I had reached the end of the world.

Is that what get us in these situations - to experience and photograph unique places/events?

 

[Snoop]

Most dangerous? late 1970s when I was 5 years old and I started playing paparazzi with my first camera, a Polaroid.
It gained me a beating from my sister and the seizure of the camera
That day I was a real photojournalist: telling uncomfortable truths and paying the consequences for it!

 

[CMoore]

Most dangerous? late 1970s when I was 5 years old and I started playing paparazzi with my first camera, a Polaroid.
It gained me a beating from my sister and the seizure of the camera
That day I was a real photojournalist: telling uncomfortable truths and paying the consequences for it!

By any chance........ do you still have the photos.?

 

[Snoop]

By any chance........ do you still have the photos.?

jeez man... was just waxing her legs...

I learned that girls don't have a sense of humor about that, when I was older enough to have hair on my own legs I had to go to soccer practice with an hairless strip on my thigh because I didnt keep enough distance while joking

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Eating leopard, 5 meters, shot from the open car window, self drive in Etosha National Park, Namibia. Really not so dangerous as one can think
Much more dangerous were 2 rhinoceroses, which we locked in a chalk pit with a car, and which ran accelerating towards the car. I learned the Police reverse U-turn in a moment!

Well, the leopard already had something to eat.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Have a few in the media section here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/media/users/murrayminchin.4262/

I posted those 17 years ago...self promotion has been low on my agenda since day one. Had several local one man shows and a recent show with my wife's photos, but that's about it. Don't have many finished prints left.

Looking to reinterpret old work (and produce new stuff) as polymer photogravures which should keep me busy in retirement.

Nice shots. The cute young blonde toddler must be all grown up now.

Playing

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[Alan Edward Klein]

jeez man... was just waxing her legs...

I learned that girls don't have a sense of humor about that, when I was older enough to have hair on my own legs I had to go to soccer practice with an hairless strip on my thigh because I didnt keep enough distance while joking

You have to watch out for sisters. My sister who's five year older than me was made responsible to take care of me when our mother was working. As a little kid, she would take me out on her friends bicycle to be with her friends doing whatever. She would leave me in spots and tell me to wait there and not return for hours. I dutifully waited. Then she'd ride me home and warn me not to tell our parents where we were or what happened. I never did.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

Nice shots. The cute young blonde toddler must be all grown up now.

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While i’d probably like to take credit for the photo’s you looked at, most of them weren’t mine! That one sure isn’t.

If you click on a photo in a members ‘media’, it takes you to the ‘Latest Gallery’ for the day that member uploaded a photo. Basically, it drops you mid-stream for the gallery section on that day.

To keep it only to my photo’s, you’ll have to keep hitting the back button, then clicking the next photo on the first page that pops up when you first click ‘media’.

Kinda weird, but that’s the way it works.

 

[pentaxuser]

Jim, her photo looks out of focus on my screen Was this her nervousness showing

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[pentaxuser]

Then there was the time I was photographing way up in the Highlands of Scotland. I had to navigate my way through a bog. I jumped over a wet spot, then sunk up to my waste. Finally pulled myself out, losing my shorts in the process. I had to walk back to the car in my underwear.

I presume that while in Scotland's capital you avoided any issues with the Lothian and Borders Police similar to what some U.S. members have described by saying you were "Trainspotting" and just "Choosing Life" No point in trying to get away by running down Princes Street like Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy, Tommy or Spud. Not with an 8x10

pentaxuser

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

I presume that while in Scotland's capital you avoided any issues with the Lothian and Borders Police similar to what some U.S. members have described by saying you were "Trainspotting" and just "Choosing Life" No point in trying to get away by running down Princes Street like Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy, Tommy or Spud. Not with an 8x10

pentaxuser

Luckily I just had my very light 4x5 Linhof IV, so escape was pretty easy... and I was 20 years younger!

 

[BryanFlnt]

Timely YouTube video on this subject from Thomas Heaton. Starts about 4:00 in


Imagine you’re most dangerous photo shoot while having a video camera on another tripod and narrating YouTube video!

 

[DREW WILEY]

Quite a few times I've had a view camera set up on some tiny slice of rock barely big enough for the tripod, overhanging hundreds of feet of thin air. The worst part is having to manually close and cock the shutter, and reset the lens aperture way out there. Eventually I learned to bring along an inspection mirror with a telescoping handle. Add random hard gusts of wind, and it can get real interesting.

 

[Jim Peterson]

Nearly took a 80-100 foot fall over a ledge on this shot. There is a scratch trail down there and it was uneven and gravelly and couldn't get good traction. Thought I was a goner. Mamiya 7ii, Velvia 50

 

[Philippe-Georges]

Photographing this aero condenser of a (experimental-) power plant.
It was just tested and turned off, but when I was in that huge 'thing', an engineer decided tot have it run again for an other test but the guard forgot to warn the man that I was up there.
This photo was shot just before the huge fans started running!
On the second photo you can see what a aero condenser is, it is a substitute for a traditional cool tower which is used to cool down the condensed steam at the end of the production line.
I had to be freed by the power plant's fire brigade.

Linhof Kardan GT 4"x5" on Fujichrome.