Photographing people on the edge of a skyscraper in San Francisco

Seeing a super-hero in a dangerous position is not really impactful--that's what superheros do.

Seeing a regular person who is trying to look like a superhero (but subtly failing) in a dangerous situation tells all sorts of stories about the roles we each imagine and hope for ourselves--and the fronts we put up for other people.

I figure, if you are going to process the image so heavily, why bother even using a real rooftop. These images don't look real. They are, so why shouldn't they?

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bqtxeldmqiacm9y/AACk0lp0tl9ncGvzl... <- wow!!

All are awesome though, great work.

This is art. And it's not art of the kind where I decide to strip down to my underwear, decide to throw spaghetti and sauce at a large white canvas and say, "hey look at what I created".

What you've done is impressive and I'm willing to bet unlike anything anyone else commenting on this post has ever done.

It's cool. It's edgy. It's different.

Sure he's got an opinion, and that's fine. He likes RAW better than your final shots but so what? He might also like my spaghetti splattered canvas.

Your shit is cool--cool enough that you think it's worth showing and therefore, cool enough for you to be proud of it the way it is.

Great job!

Of course, these things have a way of going full-circle, and—today—digital pictorialism is the big thing. It'll pass in a few years.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictorialism (some images below the fold are NSFW'ish)

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Stieglitz#O.27Keeffe_and...

[3] http://www.ishootfilm.org/blog/2014/10/20/11-the-incredibly-...

Had that happened in this case, the arm and the camera would have been traveling at >100mph when it hit the ground, on the busiest streets in the city. When you rig something that could put someone else at risk, rather than just what's attached to the rig, you build with the assumption that each individual component may catastrophically fail.

At the very least, you should have had a second stand farther back with an arm clamped to the near end of your working arm, plus you should have one person on each stand whose only job is to watch the stand. What you have here is OK for the height of a garden shed or the deck of a low-rise apartment building. It's absolutely not OK for the roof of a skyscraper, man.

And that's with the thing just bearing the camera load. You had the models using your load-bearing stand, which you are holding with only one hand, to steady themselves as they step up on the edge wall. They're gripping it well above your point of contact. If one of them lost it, s/he would have pulled the whole rig down, exponentially increasing the chances of the arm coming free. Or the camera coming off its mount. Or the ballast bag on the arm vaulting over the side.

Fort that matter, at the start of the video you're leaning out videotaping yourself with a camcorder that isn't visibly secured to anything and that doesn't have any gaffer's tape securing the battery to the camera. At this height anything that falls presents a deadly danger to the people in the street below. A camcorder battery is certainly heavy enough to kill someone. Sure, you're a careful guy, you've probably never dropped your camera. But even though nobody means to drop a heavy light or an expensive lens or a c-stand or a camera or a sandbag, I've seen it happen many many times in the middle of film production. Shooting without permits is one thing, disregarding well-established safety practices is quite another.

- As this appears to be a photoshoot for SmugMug, of SmugMug employees, does Smugmug carry the proper class of insurance on their employees to allow this sort of work? In most cases, unless additional coverage was purchased from the insurer, your general "office worker" insurance will not cover this type of work.

- Was the building owner aware of the photoshoot, and did they have the insurance to cover this sort of work?

- Does Von Wong's liability insurance cover this sort of work (especially since he's not tied off when jumping around on the ledges)?

- I don't see a shock absorber attached to the harness, whcih is necessary to limit the forces on the person to 900lbs (body belt) or 1800lbs (harness) in the even of a fall. I also note that the harness looks like it's a climbing harness NOT a proepr fall-arrest harness (the exception I saw was Hell-girl). Generally you must wear a full body harness rated for fall-arrest and be attached using the back D-ring when doing this type of work.

- The tie-off point, while not visible in the video/photos, (generally) must be a certified tie-off anchor or rated to 5000lbs arresting strength. Using a travel limiting device _may_ have been acceptable, but there doesn't appear to be one.

- The webbing making a sharp angle across the roof flashing is also not ideal, as you should be anchored from above in almost all cases.

- Was there a rescue plan in place? Had someone fallen, what would have happened?

If all of these things were taken into consideration and properly addressed, then thank you for doing your due diligence, otherwise I feel like this has OSHA violation written all over it.

I imagine the city of San Francisco also has regulations when suspending equipment beyond a buildings footprint over an active street.

People die regularly from improper fall arrest systems. You were not just doing a fun photo-shoot, YOU were responsible for these people's lives, as well as the lives of anyone walking below.

I will acknowledge that my knowledge relates to the Canadian labour code, but the US regulations appear to be similar.

https://www.osha.gov/Region7/fallprotection/fall_protection_... https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/construction/falls/fallarre...

[1] e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itIRdx1pJ2I

Yeah. It's like the old joke: what are every true redneck's last words?

"Hey y'all, watch this!"

Von, I'd be curious to know how you reached that level of comfort? Is it just the way you are, do you have training or experience in stunt work, something else?

If he falls or drops any equipment, he puts the people below him at risk of fatal injury. This isn't just a question of showing off for an audience, it's a question of the safety of bystanders.

As others have said, the level of safety demonstrated here appears negligently insufficient to match the risk to the photographic subjects and to bystanders below, machismo aside.

Darwin awards, making fun of people who have died. Never really got how that became cool.

More often than not a combination of drug addiction, poverty and mental illness that lead to there demise.