Right about now I'll be stepping onto an elevator and descending about seventy stories below the surface of the earth into a strange, dark, and dusty place, the Hutchinson Salt Mine. I'll be spending the day with the workers documenting their underground lives. I'm not quite sure what to expect except for really challenging lighting and a nice dry 65 degree day without the sun.
I lightened everything out of my bag except for the essentials and a lunch consisting of a couple pb and j sandwiches, a banana, a granny smith apple, and a bottle of water. That way it will be much easier to get around all day.
Lightened load, only the essentials.
Fully charged batteries for a full day of shooting. I marked them a while back so that I know which are spent and which still have a charge when I am sifting through my bag.
Other than that all I have to carry, among other things, is a certified breather that's about the size of mango, but in rectangle form. The breather only weighs about 3 pounds and in case of emergency it turns poisonous carbon monoxide into harmless carbon dioxide to allow for greater time to run out of the mine. Knock on wood, don't worry though, salt mining is actually very safe, especially when compared to coal mining.
Waiver and releases let you know what you'll be doing is exciting.
I also sorta enhanced the seals on my camera with some electrical tape and rubber bands to keep the salt dust from getting in where it shouldn't. If the mine is worse than I am anticipating as far as particles in the air and getting all over my camera I'm also bringing down two weather bags that fit around my cameras and lenses. I really don't want to use those though, they are a real pain in the butt.
Super seal, patent pending.
Other than that I guess there isn't much. I'm really excited to get down there and start making pictures. I'm leaving my apartment at 5am or so to get to the mine before the workers start to arrive to capture the whole process of one of their full work days.
So, if you need to get in touch with me tomorrow, good luck, my phone won't have much signal due to the interference of 700 feet of rock, sand, dirt, and salt.
See you topside,
Brad Vest
Listening to: Your rocky spine, Great Lake Swimmers
2 comments:
You're a giant! How are you going to fit?!? Especially with that huge hair of yours!
sounds risky, i'm glad i read this after you were returned safely so i didn't have to worry all day about you dying a salty death.
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