Fear, and getting the shot anyway
This week we did one of our more unusual jobs for a longstanding client, who clean and maintain gutters (find them here if you need them: they’re great!). The precise details of the work aren’t too important, but what we needed to do was - get into a cherry picker and take photographs of guttering and the team working at the top of a building in the wilds of Buckinghamshire.
Fairly simple, you might think; unless, perhaps, you suffer from vertigo. Not a fear of heights per se, but proper world-spinning vertigo. (If you don’t suffer, you can recreate the effect to a degree by drinking so much that the room spins or by having labyrinthitis. Neither of which we recommend…)
“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training”
It turns out that Dan’s tolerance for heights without major symptoms is about two stories. After which, the world becomes a little unstable. Which poses a little problem if your only job is to stay still and take photographs.
Here’s the thing: we got the job done. And it led us to consider a maxim often attributed to the US Navy Seals, but more likely from the ancient Greek poet Archilochus - “we don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.” When we were four stories up, stomach in throat, training kicked in.
What shot do we need? Mental checklist: focal length, shutter speed, aperture, composition, light, focus. Click. Repeat. Do we have everything we need? Yes. Then please can we go down now?
So while it might not be something we’ll rush back to do, we’re confident that we can compartmentalise our training to get the shot. And the fear can top and tail that.