Dead Mans Bend – 2008 Club Marine Southern 80
I have been asked to recount my heart stopping moment while shooting the Southern 80 on Saturday the 9th February 2008 at Echuca.
Hi, my name is Rob Storum and my business is IN THA ZONE Images. My focus is to provide unique action photographs for your enjoyment.
Early on Saturday morning I arrived at Dead Mans Bend and walked around to find the best position to start shooting what I had heard to be the greatest and most exciting ski race of all time. Everything was going well, the sun was in the right position, the weather was fine and after some initial action of shooting a competitor doing a complete 360 right in front of me my blood was pumping and I was looking forward to a day of adrenalin packed action. As the sun was moving higher I found that I had to move closer to the point of the corner and positioned myself in calf deep water about a meter behind a submerged tree trunk marked by a buoy. After a couple of hours I was taking more shots when all of a sudden I found myself with ski rope rapt around my neck and face, the sound of this same rope screaming over my camera still rings in my ears. All I can remember was wrestling with this rope camera in one hand rope in the other and lifting it over my head as fast as I could and luckily there was enough slack in this rope to give me the time to do this. After escaping the rope and looking at the crowd’s faces I knew luck was on my side.
In no way at all do I put any blame on the skier/boat for this incident, it was an accident and I am very lucky that it did not end with more serious consequences. I have some lovely rope burn marks on my hands, neck and across my face and some would say it is an improvement on my complexion.
The crowd on the beach were all gob smacked, I was embarrassed and would have felt at fault if I had of caused the skier to have to let go.
While I will continue to go to great lengths to provide you all with extreme action photography, I think I may need to take a couple of steps back next time.
To Ken Oliver that took the time (out of his busy schedule) to show me this corner on Friday, thank you Ken it was everything and more than you described it was the best day that I have had shooting Ski Racing. See you next year.
Safe skiing
Rob
NB: If the skier/boat involved can drop me a line I would love to talk to them about how they saw it!
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