Vicarious photography

In my head I am this adventuring, outdoorsy, fearless kind of photographer. However, in reality, I am much more interested in making good photos of the adventuring, outdoorsy and fearless people doing their thing. My philosophy is, you risk your body and I will document it. I like to call it "Vicarious Photography".

One of the extreme events that I enjoy the most is the Royal Gorge Go Fast Games. This is an event where B.A.S.E. jumpers gather at the Royal Gorge Bridge to hurtle themselves into the 1,000 foot gorge from the bridge. They also have managed to get the owners of the park to allow them to jump from the tram that tourists regularly ride across the gorge.

While standing on the bridge I noticed that the tram had moved out above the gorge and stopped. Having had seen this event before I could guess what was going to happen next. I grabbed my gear and started heading to a better position on the bridge to get an image of jumpers exiting the tram.

The door opened and then one by one (and a couple of pairs) the jumpers stood at the opening and stepped out. If I hadn't been photographing the event I would have been shaking my head and saying to myself "...some people's kids..."

I shot this frame with a Nikon D2Xs and a 300mm f4.0. I photographed the jumpers frozen in air just after clearing the tram. I enjoy this kind of image, but most of all I enjoy standing on a perfectly good bridge to make it.