I took something like 450 pictures of a sponsored bungee jump on Saturday, which sounds a bit excessive until you realise that I was there in a semi-official capacity at the request of the organiser. It felt strange and quite nice to be referred to as 'Martin the photographer' but it reminded me of my early days as a newspaper reporter when my toes used to curl with embarrassment whenever anyone referred to me as a journalist. Eventually that became as natural as breathing. Perhaps the photographer thing will too eventually.
I was never going to do a jump myself, obviously (sometimes a dodgy back makes life nice and simple) but I did go up in the crane to watch a few brave souls hurl themselves into oblivion at close quarters - like the one pictured. It's a very brave thing to do I reckon - there's a moment where you just have to swallow the madness and the fear and do the most counter-intuitive thing in the world... Except I'm not sure it is. I was talking to the chap in the basket who does the encouraging and, ultimately, if people agree, the pushing, and he reckons there's something in us that really wants to hurl ourselves off tall things. It's the same impulse that makes vertigo so sickeningly irresistible. And I know what he means...kind of.
By the way, yesterday's craziness was all in aid of an interesting initiative. The Thinking Men's Project is a charity geared towards helping men who need help, in a nutshell. There's a much more sensible explanation on this web page.
3 comments:
Fab photo. Well done. The charity sounds interesting too - alas the website is currently a bit short on specifics. I'll be keeping tabs though possibly with a few to offering some voluntary assistance.
I'll tell you more when I see you (at the weekend? still up for that?) but in a nutshell, yes it's a splendid initiative and I think I might be up for a bit of voluntary chipping in too.
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