Nobody would ever put photography in the list of dangerous pastimes, but let me tell you, I have had some dangers to overcome to get the image the client wanted. I have been called upon to do some dangerous photography. No, not in a tiger’s den, but an aerial shot taken from a helicopter. This flying device had been modified for aerial photography by removing both doors, making it an even more unsafe and uncomfortable mode of transport than they usually are.
The brief was to photograph a particular building site from around 200 meters up, and the direction had to be from the north. It was a windy day and when we got to the shoot, the helicopter pilot was unable to hover in a position where either of the door apertures would give me the shot from the north. Since the hire of helicopters is not cheap, and we only had one hour to get the shot, there was only one answer – climb out on the landing struts and hang over the edge!
Since I get vertigo standing on a chair, this was not going to be easy. Fortunately the helicopter was set up with a harness for me to wear, with a rope leading back inside the cabin. You should try stepping out into space at 200 meters up, no parachute, and a piece of ‘string’ attaching you to a helicopter. It was not a case of just standing on the landing struts, but I had to lean out, with the harness taking the strain as I moved even further out (like a crew member on a yacht). The buffeting from the rotors and the cold day all added to the problems I was having with camera shake (compounded by fear).
Eventually I managed to get the shot I needed, using hand signals to the pilot to indicate more or less height. Then I had to get back in. Since I was already well past the point of no return, I had to get the assistant to pull me in. But the assistant was a woman and not strong enough. Fortunately the pilot saw what was the problem went on auto-pilot and dragged me in. I have not done a helicopter shoot since that day.
However, much more dangerous was the following shoot, done in my studio. The brief was an advertising shot for a bottle of vodka. The final shot was to be the bottle sitting beside a dish of strawberries. Now while that sounds simple, it is not all that easy.
The first item I had to get was the strawberries. Since the client will complain if any strawberry is even slightly less than perfect, this means you buy a huge amount of strawberries and spend the next hour picking only the best ones. After that you paint them with vegetable oil so they look all shiny and juicy. That was the easy bit.
Now to make a bowl of strawberries, and the bottle of vodka ‘jump off’ the page, you have to light them from underneath. So I used a sheet of glass supported at each end, about one meter from the floor, pulled some meters of black paper from the background paper on a roll hanging from the back wall of the studio, cut two holes in it where the bowl and the bottle would sit and we were starting to look good.
While getting flash heads ready and the 5×4 plate camera focused, I had the lights under the glass going. After several minutes of fiddling and fussing I was ready to pull the first Polaroid. While peering at the ground glass focusing screen I suddenly heard this loud cracking noise. I looked up, just in time to be hit on the head by the roll of black background paper!
What had happened was the lights had heated the glass too much and it had broken. As it fell in two pieces, it dragged the black background paper down too, and the roll came off the hooks on the back wall, neatly landing on my head.
And you thought still life photography wasn’t dangerous?
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