Gimme a break...

Oooh, you can't go up there!

I'm just back from a PR shoot in an office in Manchester. Nothing too fancy, just six people around a desk. I stood on a chair to give myself a bit of height, set up my lights, and waited for the group to assemble. Just then, a lady came up to me - Mrs Health and Safety! "You can't stand on that!.." she said, pointing at the chair "You'll have to use a ladder.." "I haven't got a ladder with me.." I replied "Can I use one of yours?" "No.." she said "You're not trained!.."

Well, that put me in mind of a shoot I did in about 1980. A 300 foot chimney was being demolished at Tetley Walker's brewery in Warrington. My boss had a fancy Russian Panoramic camera, and the idea came about that we used it to photograph the demolition gang, who were knocking the chimney in on itself, dropping the bricks down inside as there wasn't enough space to simply blow the chimney up.
I got the shoot! I seem to remember it was on a Saturday morning, and it was just written down as another one of my jobs for the day, a nice change from the summer fairs and dominos tournaments of a typical weekly newspaper. The thing was, there was no other way up than by climbing a set of ladders, which were tied around the chimney all the way up to a platform of planks around the rim. Once you reached the planks, you had to let go of the ladder and haul yourself over the planks until you could stand up! (And then, of course, you had to do the same thing in reverse!!) However, as you can see, I survived and the camera allowed me to get the whole of the chimney top in the shot. Now, here's the fun shot! Yours truly on the top, with my trusty FM and my fantastic glasses!

Harnesses? Helmets? Ha! Gimme a break....