A run, a jump, and a dive into chest-deep water, more jumps from rocks lower down, and a climb back to the top of the ramparts of the Dutch Fort in Galle, Sri Lanka.
First, I thought it was a crazy idea to pay $ 20 for an attraction that would risk someone’s life for a photo. I have been doing this since I was 15, says Asanka, 26, who could almost be Bob Marley’s son. Other jobs are hard to come by, he says, while showing me his portfolio with the details of his jumps. And many people just try to sneak an image without paying.
After checking out the viewpoint and lighting, I took several portrait shots of Asanka and made an appointment for the next morning. No one had yet obstructed the jumper’s start-up track to the edge of the rampart, so I had prepared myself to calculate the flight time and check the camera’s buffer depth.
The viewpoint was obvious, and after a quick test for focus and exposure, Asanka took off his slippers, sped up, and took off like an eagle. SR
joao pedro a bastos
22 Jun 2020Hi Stephan, beautiful picture having artistic and technical approaches. I imagine that you had your camera on a tripod and took several pictures, which were assembled on the final one. Quite successfully, since it gives a real idea of what was going on. Cheers, Joao Pedro
Stephan Russenschuck
30 Jun 2020Hi Joao Pedro,
exactly, a bit a photoshop involved. You load all images into a stack, auto-align the layers, create a layer mask for each layer and then brush
the object through the masks (it helps if you put the opacity to about 50% so you can see where to brush).
We are allowed to travel again within Europe, so I have just dusted off the cameras. But if you thought that people have learnt the hard lessons
from hard-hit places; it doesn’t seem to be the case.
Stephan