Drug Free Celebration

The local elementary school PTA dreamed up an idea to get all the kids to spell "Drug Free" with their bodies and asked me to take the photos.  I don't own a 70' ladder and the building is only one story so the first call they made was to the fire department.  They gladly made time to bring their ladder truck over and set the shot up.  We hit a bump in the road when the fire department had liability concerns letting me go up 3 stories in the air.  I had liability concerns letting some joker take my camera up nearly 3 stories in the air!  After negotiations we reached an agreement, one of the fireman had a Nikon pro-am camera and had experience taking photos and would strap my camera to his harness, and then after the shot they would all do a jumpshot for me.  I love compromise because it can end in a win/win situation :)  Even in the Marines when I was dangling off and out of things, I didn't really enjoy it that much and when I saw the fireman on top of ladder 60' off the ground I was glad it was him.  I noticed he wasn't all that comfortable either and he said normally the ladder is against a building and not in mid-air so he was happy when he was finished with the shot.

True to their word we got this cool jumpshot of them before they headed back to the fire station.

When the kids saw how much fun everyone was having jumping they started crowding around and wanted more :)  I wish I could have taken class jumpshots but the teachers were getting a little uptight and I had relinquished the bull horn to the principle so it didn't happen.  But, as with most things, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and the mom's were just as excited about the jumpshots as their little "apples" and they didn't have teachers squawking at them :)

This shot made my day. The kids were just outstanding and perfectly behaved even though it took 30 minutes to get the photos finished and the success is showing on the faces of these moms. They sensed the relief of pulling off a successful event and I was happy they mobbed me for a jumpshot of their own!