from Hacker News

Photographing people on the edge of a skyscraper in San Francisco

by karenxcheng on 2/24/15, 7:16 PM with 75 comments

  • by stevecalifornia on 2/24/15, 8:03 PM

    The final pictures are so heavily over-produced that they look incredibly fake-- which is a shame and leaves me totally baffled. It looks like someone literally painted the figure on the picture.

    The only time anxiety kicked in was the picture of the whole team posing for a shot at the corner.

  • by ChuckFrank on 2/24/15, 8:06 PM

    That rigging looked outrageous. All I saw was one guy holding onto the models. If a model slipped and fell, that guy won't have stood a chance in holding them back.

    Hopefully the person was themselves hooked into the roof, and the rigging was hooked into the roof, with him acting on belay. But I certainly didn't see that.

    I'm so glad nothing bad happened, but this seemed irresponsible from a safety and technical standpoint.

    (I mean even the camera rig looked flimsy.)

  • by shostack on 2/24/15, 10:07 PM

    Being a part of these sorts of shoots is one of my favorite perks of working at SmugMug, hands down. Reminds me of art school when my friends would try to convince me to be a part of their crazy photo shoots, except this time the photographers are quite a bit better.

    To date, Ben has...

    - Lit my head on fire

    - Taught me to breathe fire[1]

    - Stuck me under a rain machine[2] while I lifted a giant tire infested with spiders

    - Popped a balloon full of curdled green milk over my head

    Never a dull moment, and there's always an amazing photo afterwards to immortalize the moment (for better or worse).

    [1] - Photo of me breathing fire courtesy of Subversive Photography who grabbed this shot while I attempted to spin in a circle. http://shostack.smugmug.com/SmugMug-Office-Hijinks/n-NGr8t/i...

    [2] - Me lifting a giant spider-infested tire while I have freezing "rain" pour on me. Amazing how it turned out. http://shostack.smugmug.com/SmugMug-Office-Hijinks/n-NGr8t/i...

    [EDIT] The links are just to individual photos of me on my personal SmugMug site because I think they're incredibly cool--nothing promotional.

  • by mootothemax on 2/24/15, 7:49 PM

    What it is about our minds that make it so easy to imagine being up there, on the ledge, looking down, maybe with one foot over... and my palms are sweating heavily already.

    It's a bit like having a child; I now spend nights worrying about the most ridiculous events that could happen to my daughter.

    Why do our brains like to torture us like this?

  • by goshx on 2/24/15, 8:16 PM

    If those are real pictures, why did you make them look like if they were created in 3D? Doesn't that defeat the purpose?

  • by gtCameron on 2/24/15, 7:44 PM

    I get the chills just looking at those photos, no way you could get me within 20ft of that ledge. Really cool pictures though, congrats on pulling it off.

  • by redindian75 on 2/24/15, 8:28 PM

    Quote: "I wanted to capture the fearlessness of superheroes – without a green screen or cheap special effects."

    But they were all tethered with safety harness and then evidence was removed in photoshop. How is that "magical, one mis-step would mean end"?

    Sorry, but I thought the premise of this was daredevil stunts from ordinary people, but this is no different than greenscreen or cheap special effect which u seem to deride.

  • by startupfounder on 2/24/15, 10:21 PM

    Professional Rigger here (SPRAT & IRATA Certified) & logged thousands of hours as a safety supervisor around the world mostly on wind turbines, but also on bridges & buildings (Guggenheim, MetLife Stadium, etc.).

    Photos of my team and friends: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/09/07/arts/artsspec... http://news.auroraphotos.com/wp-content/uploads/petzl.jpg

    I have a bone to pick with the safety setup for this photoshoot. SmugMug staff should be concerned...

    There are 2 types of fall protection rigging setups for this corner of the building scenario - Fall Arrest & Fall Restraint. Both have to do with the ability of the person to go "over the edge" in the case of a fall.

    Fall Arrest is when the person has fallen over the edge of the building and they are arrested with the rigging equipment from falling and hitting the pavement 1,000 feet below.

    Fall Restraint is a rigging system that restrains the person from falling over the edge in the first place.

    From the video and photos it looks like Von Wong is a bit of a wahoo adrenalin nut[0] and though he and the team had good safety intentions, there are some serious safety issues I would like to point out. And next time please contact me so we can do this safely.

    I am going to use this photo[1] and this photo[2] to point out safety flaws.

    In these photos I see an Anchor on the I-beam (photo[1] left image red friction protection), a rock climbing harness for Body Ware, I see the connector with webbing, but I don't see a deceleration device. A fall arrest system consists of 4 items ABCD: Anchor, Body Ware, Connector & Deceleration Device. From this setup i'll assume the rigging plan was to build a fall restraint system to prevent their subjects from falling over the edge because there is no deceleration device.

    There are just a few problems with this logic that lead to serious safety concerns. As we can see in photo[2] there is:

    a) a hand holding the webbing "preventing" a fall, this is not a fall restraint system, it adds slack to the system that increases forces in the case of a fall (this is more apparent in the .gif: http://www.vonwong.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/1-VbF... You can see the black rope coiled up and moving, not cool. EDIT: It looks like the subject is attached via lanyard to the "safety" guy. In the case of a fall he is in the system preventing himself from performing a rescue.

    b) the subject could fall off either side of the "point" of the building as the anchor is not around the I-beam in the frame, but out of frame to the right (making the length of the lanyard longer and increasing the force of the fall especially if she fell to the right)

    c) that granite edge acts as a knife and webbing doesn't stand a chance being dragged across it if they fall over the edge,

    d) because this is a fall arrest scenario there are serious forces on the system if the subject falls over the edge, especially if they are standing up! (the higher they are above the anchor the more potential energy they have).

    These are really interesting photos, just when you do them be smart and rig it correctly.

    [0]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/content_link/O32BWH3s0qkaA...

    [1]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/content_link/CG8GkzYscTabC...

    [2]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/content_link/8NXYjfzC6a5RV...

  • by state on 2/24/15, 8:02 PM

  • by vonwong on 2/24/15, 8:06 PM

    If anyone has access to cranes in san francisco, I'd love to do a round #2 and take things even further haha :)

    This rooftop took quite a bit of scouting around to get but man was it worth it. Love SFO, wish I could visit again!

  • by Springtime on 2/24/15, 7:51 PM

    Reminds me of Li Wei's famous skyscraper photo sessions [1] in which the artist is seen being kicked off the top and suspended outside a window, amongst other similarly daring photographs. Only a minimal use of post-processing to simply remove the fine wires attached.

    [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stMg-DxhHCA

  • by seccess on 2/25/15, 2:31 AM

    Seeing these pictures reminds me of this video of workers climbing a 1700ft TV tower [0]. Its pretty intense even to just watch, that is some real-world superhero courage right there!

    [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k4Xk1mEwmI

  • by edw519 on 2/24/15, 8:47 PM

    2 things made me sick today, the code I have to maintain and looking at these pictures.

    I never thought I'd say it, but I think I'll stick with the code.

    (Great job, OP!)

  • by jedisct1 on 2/24/15, 9:50 PM

    This is awesome.

    I'm a huge huge huge fan of Von Wong's work. He takes things to the extreme and produces unique and mindblowing images.

    And I had the opportunity to meet him in person, the guy is fascinating and very humble.

  • by davidw on 2/24/15, 8:57 PM

    Yikes. I don't like going beyond about the 6th story of a building, let alone something like that. I have a wicked strong fear of heights.

  • by bstar77 on 2/24/15, 8:12 PM

    I'm sure I could handle challenging heights if I had to in an emergency, but looking at those pics is giving me vertigo in my chair.

  • by BorisMelnik on 2/24/15, 8:30 PM

    something about this makes me incredibly nervous and provokes a lot of anxiety, I can't even look at these photos. that said, I'm sure that is the sort of emotion they are looking to elicit, well done!

  • by CyberDildonics on 2/24/15, 10:57 PM

    Pretentious Photoshopped bullshit with no reason anyone couldn't do the same thing. A harness and a camera on a pole. Truly the Davinci of our time.