Don't Look Down

I had a good day today. Little bit football manager, little bit housework (just a little bit) and caught up with my blips from Monday & Tuesday. Then... off to Morlais Quarry near Merthyr Tydfil to photograph my first event!

My work have a charity committee, and they'd organised a sponsored abseil for today. As mentioned in Tuesday's blip, I'd been asked to photograph the event because I have a camera. Mathew agreed to come with me, and took up driving duties. The less said about the journey there the better - lets just say it's not well sign-posted and neither of us are the best navigators. We drove all around the area we needed to be before calling for help and directions a few times. Eventually one of the instructors met us and led us to where we needed to be. Annoyingly, we'd passed within 100 yards of the parking point, and missed it... which is what then prompted us to drive all the way AROUND the area.

I expected to be standing at the bottom snapping away, which I dutifully and happily did. Until the main instructor dude suggested getting me up to a ledge halfway up the face. This is the vantage point from which this blip was captured. It's not as death-defying as it sounds, it was pretty easy to get to. I was harnessed and tethered to a tree though, but probably more for their insurance than any real danger to me. Got some cracking shots, of which this is my favourite. The difficulty was that, with the sun setting (and behind the fund-raisers) although the shots were aesthetically pleasing and perfect for MY purposes, it was becoming increasingly more difficult to tell who was who. The Charity Committee wanted pics to put on the LCD screens at work, so I thought it was important to get images where the individual people were clearly discernible, so...

... I freaked out said main instructor dude by untying myself from the tree and joining the other instructors at the top of the... well I dunno what it's called, drop zone is definitely NOT the right phrase... starting point maybe? The idea being to get pics of people as they began their descent. Having been re-tethered to a big pole (of the metal, not human, variety) I managed this task, but I have to say the photos are nowhere near as pleasing as this.

My colleague, John, got some good shots from ground level, and some cracking portraits to boot. I hope he reads this, because he deserves a foot up the ar$e for one particularly unflattering shot of me on my ledge.

A special mention to Mathew who waited on his own down below for about two hours, without a single grumble! He likes to voice his opinion, so this is a great feat, for which I am very grateful.

First event done. The results weren't amazing, but I enjoyed it and look forward to trying more in the future... shakes things up a bit :-D