Do you ever get so lost in taking a shot that you (nearly) injure yourself

[prolesunited]

I was taking some shots yesterday in a field and had shorts on. As I'm positioning myself, I feel some discomfort and notice thorny weeds and a prickly vine but am not paying to much attention. When I emerge from the field, I have little scratches all over my legs — a few spots deep enough to draw a little blood.

I seem to lose all sense of where I am and will climb on anything if I think it's a good angle. Thankfully, nothing bad has ever happened but I have put myself on a few precarious positions.

So, what have you done to get "the shot"? What's the worst damage you've done to yourself?

[Touchdown]

1. ALmost got hit by a car.

The only way to get the angle was to be in the middle of the street. He honked, and I threw my hand back and said "Just wait!" He rolled my windows down, and called me an asshole. So my feelings were injured I guess.;)

Mostly, I just get grass stains on my knees.

[BamaGirl]

2. Does poison ivy count?

Luckily I'm not allergic to it, so crawling through it wasn't a big deal.

There's a cotton field across the street from my kid's school, and they were out with the combines today. I would have been out in the middle of the street but I had the kids with me, and my 4yo would have followed me right on out there.

[F.Gordon]

3. No, but it's just a matter ot time

I don't exactly move with the grace and fluid motion of a Gazelle when I'm out and about. My day is near. "Hello 911.... yea I just..."

I do get in trouble trespassing though. Does that count?
:evilgrin:

[ET Awful]

4. Yup, and it usually happens when I change lenses and then shoot

the same subject because it throws my perception of where I am all off. :). I've basically shot a picture, looked down while changing lenses, not reoriented myself and just gone straight back to the viewfinder :).

I ended up walking backwards into a low stone wall and falling on my ass. Oddly, the viewfinder never left my eye until I hit the ground. :)

[prolesunited]

5. The mark of a true photographer!

:-)

[intheflow]

6. Yeah, when I was doing wedding photography.

I was sitting on an altar rail and leaned back to get the best angle... and just flipped over on my back! :spray: Feet up in the air, the whole 9 yards. The bride laughed so hard she got the hiccups! Thank God it wasn't during the ceremony, it was staged re-enactment photos afterwards.

Since then, I've been a lot more careful. That fall hurt!

[Robb]

7. Constantly.

It's no small miracle I haven't been hit by a car. I tend to wander into the street like some kind of tourist. All in the line of duty, y'know. :)

The worst I did to myself was when I was out following the police scanner during some spring flooding we had a few months ago. Waded into a washed-out country road and got nailed in the shins by some kind of debris, I think a log or something.

Just about flattened me right there in the "river"... got the shot I wanted, though, of the local mountain rescue guys pretending they know diddly about water. ;)

On edit: the shot:

[DS1]

8. I've been on a lot of rooftops recently, and that's my number one

concern. These rooftops are only meant to have workers on them, and there's zero protection from falling off, not even a lip to kick while walking. So I take a shot, put the camera against my chest, move, take another shot. Repeat. It's really quite unnerving actually, I don't want to do it for much longer

[Ms. Toad]

9. I did that routine last spring

to get these:






Fortunately I didn't fall. If I had, though, I guess could have opened the shutter to see if a falling photographer produces as interesting photographs as a camera toss.... I'll keep that in mind for next spring.

[catnhatnh]

11. Did'ya know churches have both steeples.....

and good-hearted people controlling them???I found this out while amateur shooting in my town....often,with just a little smoozing you can wrangle some time in them and almost all will have some opening amenable to photographers,even though originally meant for the egress of workers and steeplejacks!!!The promise of a set of prints can do wonders.Many steeples are over 100 years old with wonderful post and beam construction and a burnished warm glow on the ancient wood if worked near sunset....and interior shots are just the appetizer.Once you find an opening to shoot one you will find yourself 50,75, even 100 feet in the air with vistas imitating a low flying airplane but with a much more forgiving and stable platform....and FREE..just sayin'...Oh yeah,they make it much harder to fall off.

[Maestro]

10. Oh yeah!

I was taking some pics of some animals at the zoo and ran right into a cement bench. It hurt so bad I thought I had broken my leg. I took a pic of the lump it left. It's pretty impressive. :)

[catnhatnh]

12. Damage wise, bumps and bruises....

...though once, during a November Nor'easter I stood hip deep in Long Island Sound while it was snowing to take pictures of devastated cottages and DOWNED POWER LINES....I did question whether I was suffering mental damage that night.....