Ken Cravillion at work, Lake of the Clouds Overlook

This is awesome!!!

About 6 inches in front of the tripod it drops about 300 feet!

Here is the image being composed when Kerry took this shot (I think).

Kerry, excellent shot!

Ken, I hope you had a safety cable on you and/or the camera. 300 feet is a long way down. it also looks like your pack was hanging on the tripod for addtional weight. One sneeze or quick turn and its bye bye equipment.

Ken had no restraints. What you see hanging down isn't his pack (which was safely away from the edge); it's part of the dark cloth needed to focus an image on the 4x5's ground glass (unless you have a waist-level viewer).

An interesting, related story. The above image was made on the late afternoon of Saturday, Oct. 4. Ken, Danny Burk, Danny's father Larry and I were the only ones there. We returned to this spot before sunrise the next morning with a group roughly twice this size. There's a retaining wall at this overlook--I was in front of it when I took the above picture of Ken (and obviously he was in front of it as well ). The next morning, three of us were in front of the wall. Mark Peterson and I were set up pretty close to one another and were fine tuning compositions when suddenly we heard a THUMP and a somewhat panicked shout ("Stop it!"). Danny had propped one of his several bags--full of costly camera equipment and accessories on the top of the wall. The bag was zipped up, but somehow it had been bumped or something because it came tumbling down the rock ledge that we were standing on, headed for a several hundred foot plunge over the edge. There were no natural objects which would have stopped it. Mark and I both went flying over to the spot; Mark had the inside position and speared the bag, thereby averting disaster. Whew.

--Kerry

P.S. Ken, if you want a digi-copy of this image, feel free to pluck this one, or let me know and I'll e-mail one to you.

Thanks Kerry. So I have your permission to use it on my site (you credited of course).

The thing hanging down from the tripod is actually the little sack that holds the Fuji Quickload holder and 40 sheets of film (home made by fiance).

Ken Cravillion wrote:Thanks Kerry. So I have your permission to use it on my site (you credited of course).

You do.

The thing hanging down from the tripod is actually the little sack that holds the Fuji Quickload holder and 40 sheets of film (home made by fiance).

I stand corrected.

--Kerry

Don't lean too far forward! Nice portrait - it'll look great on your website, Ken.
-matt

Nice shot of a photographer in his habitat!