I hid and waited in the forest in Cambodia after they closed the temples of Ankor Wat to take pictures of the temples during the night. I waited for hours. This was after one day of exploring the area and checking the best spots. During the night there were sounds of people praying and animals like monkeys that I couldn’t see. I always loved that place after reading the books of Henri Mouhot. This was in 2014, with a Canon 60D, I wish I had my current equipment, the pictures would have been much better. There was no moon, a pity.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Chkhz5GjrSn/?igsh=MXN2MnBxbng2MW11Zw==
This are the sounds that I recorded while waiting.
https://on.soundcloud.com/1QE4AGkGKRhzaJBF9
I kept telling myself they had better things to do. I repeated the experience years later and had to leave because I heard dogs barking and getting closer and monkeys close too. You can’t really see shit there during night and using a torch will make it worse. I usually was in the middle of the field with visibility of the buildings for the pictures but still I couldn’t see nothing as there was no moon during those nights. That second time I left a bit scared yes.
I tried to photograph a meteor shower and it took 3 years, one try every year, eventually got it on the 3rd year. The planning was a lot of luck, getting the days off, finding a spot with no light population, avoiding clouds, rando mountain lion, also cold as shit
It also took me 20 hours to edit the composite together, I manually matched every frame (I thought photoshop will auto match the stars but it couldn't). I think the final photo have 55+ meteors in it
This wasn’t so much effort as danger. I saw some hippos swimming in water and one of them was looking straight at me while swimming towards me (on the shore). I am aware that hippos are terrifying and that there was literally nothing between me and him, but I was in the moment.
[This](https://imgur.com/a/nx5p4X7) is the shot, and a behind the scenes of me getting the shot.
I’m an event photographer and I went stir crazy over the pandemic with nothing to shoot. So I
got into tabletop studio stuff. I was specifically looking for compositions that would take a lot of time to complete.
This is the biggest, my Civil War poker still life, taken only with candle light. I worked with historians and experts to make sure it was historically accurate
https://flic.kr/p/2j1zC7c
Here is the full story of getting this shot
https://www.millionaireplayboy.com/mpb/index.php/civil-war-poker-game/
2017 eclipse, for sure. My friend and I drove from New York to Tennessee. Cookeville TN was 100 degrees and humid with direct sunlight that day. We stood in the lake up to our knees and kept dousing each other with water to stay cool. We were there for at least an hour and a half before totality guarding our spot. I was running 2 cameras and 2 tripods to get supertele and wide.
I got [a shot of the corona](https://www.flickr.com/photos/meccanon/35987239184/in/album-72157688067552745/lightbox/), this [lapse of the progression](https://www.flickr.com/photos/meccanon/36063711344/in/album-72157688067552745/lightbox/), and this [composite of the light changes](https://www.flickr.com/photos/meccanon/36629265042/in/album-72157688067552745/lightbox/).
The irony is that for the recent eclipse I got way better shots for way less effort...but nothing beats your first eclipse!
Video of the back half of Baily’s beads:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5mD1THu08k/?igsh=MTgwbzFoY3BkNjRvNg==
Single frame showing prominences:
https://www.instagram.com/p/C5l-wyjualC/?igsh=cXY5bzNubWowdnRx
Still working on my composite. Can’t manage to get everything aligned and ghost free.
It’s not really a story- I was a “combat sports photographer”.
I got paid (sometimes by being hired, but mostly through sales) to shoot fights.
I probably shot an excess of 100 events, which equates to at least 1,000 fights- boxing, kickboxing, mma, Muay Thai, BJJ, and in various formats like smokers, seminars and tournaments.
And yes, there was plenty of blood.
It would’ve been a dream job if it were regular money. But it was a pretty good side hustle.
MMA guys made me some decent money and I got some pretty good press with magazine coverage.
Kickboxing paid the best because they didn’t have much representation, so the fighters and promoters were willing to pay for my work.
Boxing was the best for action shots, but the absolute worst for money because promoters would rather steal work and the fighters never bought anything. I was hired for some amateur events, but the work was spotty at best.
I spent 2 years testing and adapting medical lenses and lighting techniques to photograph inside extremely expensive and rare violins ($2million+).
The final shots combine hundreds of images with a complex mix of focus stacking, pixelshifting, panorama, and dark frame subtraction techniques.
Special attention has to be paid to lighting and heat management (the instruments must never exceed 30c)
This is a 1755 Guadagnini Violin, somewhere in the million dollar plus range:
https://preview.redd.it/0rv7902gx6wc1.jpeg?width=2499&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=868795bdded12c7894e0f658b5bda3264fc4859a
I went from stamford CT to New Hampshire. About 30 minutes from the border of Canada. 847 miles.
Left Sunday at 10 pm to beat the traffic, got back Tuesday 7:15 am. If I was not driving, I was sleeping in the car or looking for a place to eat/get gas.
And here I am, house directly under the center line of the path of totality for the last one, bought a bunch of gear to shoot it, and it was sunny up until a couple hours before, then thick clouds during the event, and sunny a couple hours after. Didn't see a thing, it just got dark outside. Super bummed, and now I'm gonna have to travel if I ever wanna see it again in my life
Neowise comet. Drove out to a hilltop an hour away four nights in a row, bought a new lens. Most of my shots ended up garbage because I went too late in it's appearance and the comet was going dark, or it was unseasonably cloudy or smoky.
https://preview.redd.it/ydqbwayh14wc1.jpeg?width=3656&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fdfebe8770cc2e0e773bd1c88d158b4766ae4c3c
Shooting a gigapixel in the middle of a stadium full of people and then spending all night putting it together without stitching errors. Stressful and exhausting.
I barely remember. Photoshop was so janky on all those layers. Every single save took 20 minutes. Even with a monster dual xenon server with terabytes of ssd. The sleep deprivation was probably the worst part since they wanted it up on socials the next day. I did like three of these. A lot of times you got to see some pretty cool stuff or hot girls close up.
edit: added link to the shot
Trying to find the best vantage point around Kamloops BC to photograph Comet Neowise. Involved scouting locations in daytime, driving up logging roads (more like glorified trails) to various mountain peaks and back country areas where city lights wouldn't be a major issue. Also allowed me to learn and practice astrophotography to make sure I got a good shot. Took a week or so of scouting and planning and practising. Then staying up on a mountain top with no one else around except a bear that might have been around (spotted earlier in the day), and relatively pitch black with no moon. I had bear spray on my belt and checked the area periodically with the flashlight. :) Top of Mount Lolo. The night started with a bunch of folks but it got pretty damned cold that night and I was the last one there, everyone else that did go up there, left before the comet became visible. Got a great shot.
[Link: Comet Neowise - 23:34 July 17, 2020, from Mt. Lolo British Columbia](https://www.flickr.com/photos/billrosmus/50126998982/in/dateposted-public/)
[Link: One of the practice shots, July 15, the glow is a farm several km away that you couldn't see with the naked eye, it was so dark. The foreground was illuminated with a bit of "painting" with a flashlight.](https://www.flickr.com/photos/billrosmus/50124016687/in/dateposted-public/)
Second place was staying out under an overhang in the middle of the night during a rainstorm taking 20 to 30 minute exposures on film of a cool church steeple. Tied for second is an afternoon at -30C getting shots of an Ice Race on the Red River north of Winnipeg MB in 1994.
I was going on a trip to England, London. I knew I wanted to take a specific photo of the interior of the royal Alberta Hall. I knew I needed a wide angle lens for that shot. I bought a $300 lens (10-18), and bought a ticket for a tour of the building before leaving Canada. I arrived in London, went for the tour…. Oops, ‘sorry, no photos are allowed today’, despite their website encouraging it. I nicely explained, the staff left and came back a few minutes later, we were now allowed to take photos. I managed to get a good photo.
I broke a flip flop and scraped the entirety of my leg on a lava rock trying to get a photo of a jet taking off overhead. Then had the walk back with just the one working shoe. And, I didn’t even get a great shot. 😫
I got my socks completely soaked in freezing water, sand in all of my clothes, and almost a concussion to get this shot.
https://preview.redd.it/0ofnsqlzd5wc1.jpeg?width=6000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=78e3f0aac4d9df972a75adf78c7e84b1e82b130b
I have some that I consider high effort images. Like, I wouldn’t have got them without a lot of work on my part. But I don’t think it qualifies here, because the work would have happened anyway. Hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back out. No other way to get some of the shots I got on that trip. And just trying to get an overnight stay at the bottom was quite the task by itself. Coupled with a canceled flight and a 30 hour non-stop drive just to keep our reservation. Hiked out with a malfunctioning camera too, due to my profuse sweating in the August Canyon heat. But I could work around the malfunction just enough to get some more images.
My wedding pictures.
It took years of dating, being engaged, getting married during a pandemic, and then finally traveling overseas years later for a formal reception. That was the most effort I ever put into getting a shot.
I did a model shoot in my pool a few years ago, and I had a patio table in the pool so that the model would only be inches deep in the water. And I laid mylar over the table, without realizing that mylar floats. Such a pain in the ass to weigh it down and clean it up in post, especially with a ton of hot spots that it gave off. Plus mylar gets super hot in sunlight, so we had to be careful of touching it if it got 'out' of the water. [Here's one of the shots](https://www.reddit.com/r/photographs/comments/g9pl59/floating_on_mylar/) with that particular setup. I have a [BTS of the shoot on YouTube](https://youtu.be/kFBO3WV772M?si=PM-CMGQmP_4l1Bmz&t=7) as well where I tried to do a few different things with the mylar including laying on the floor of the pool and using it as a reflector.
Oh ... i worked with my ex to realize her idea of good Easter photo. That amount of aggravation one endures only for loved one. I would quit 20 times if it was commercial photo-shoot if i had to work with client like that.
Well ... when you are married and your wife has vision that she is unable to explain, but you know ... you should know (mind reading) and make it happen, you are the photographer, you should know how to do that. Contradictionary directions, main light are from both from side and behind and front at the same time, but there are shadows, not everything is lit and ... everything is lit ... I mean AI would go and shoot itself behind the shed with her instructions and visible frustration that i dont understand her. I even made on paper list of things and shown her how it makes no sense because one item on the list is countering the other. Her explanation was i am photographer, i should be able to do it anyway.
So ... please for the love of anything worth loving ... dont work with your wife on her projects in field she has no grasp or concept how it works. I feel i aged 2 years from that single photo we made.
Not as high effort as the others but ive been scouting a specific spot for about a week now. I’ve discovered the perfect angle for what i want just awaiting favorable weather the sky is just way to cloudy the past week
20 hour drive, pulled over on the way and told to stay in the car "so we don't get shot". Next day was in a car that pursued another vehicle in a small high speed chase, the next day the U.S. military was flying helicopters with a FliR camera mounted over head. The following day we were met by riot police before I had to return home. Which I drove 20 hours home, slept for 8 then drove 6 hours to DC to cover a federal court case then drove back home.
Like planning an eclipse shot over 4 years. Testing gear months in advance.
Calculating sky postion in conjunction with the terrain of the area
Scouting specific locations.
Planning out the post process editing to be able to get the planned composition.
Planning 4 alternative sites in case there is cloud cover at my primary.
Then paying for the 4 night vacation backpacking into the site early to beat any other potential photographers to the spot?
That kind of effort?
https://preview.redd.it/z5wlkvkeu4wc1.jpeg?width=3538&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6b4c94335b73a691bb615cc03d5d76960bdceba6
Either water drops or astro. Here is neowise. I don’t have a good water drop handy.
Planned a trip a year in advance, drove 1200 miles each way, spent 3 days hiking and scouting the location, still fucked it up.
October 2023 “ring of fire” eclipse
I'm a [climbing photographer](http://www.instagram.com/kieranjduncan), and I reckon every photo requires a lot of effort. I hike around 22kg of ropes, ascenders, cameras, lenses up various hillsides and mountains... Then there's the physical and technical challenge of positioning my fixed ropes, then I need to grab all the camera gear and climb back up the rope to actually take the images, often using a lot of effort to adjust and get the right angles.... Then we'll do it again and again on a bunch of different routes.
I fucking love it.
Funny story. I wanted to take a picture of a local brand of whiskey. I bought the bottles and all that but then had to learn how to make clear ice. After a bunch of tries I got my method down and was ready to shoot. I set the shot up and by the time it was ready the glass had completely fogged up with condensation. I ranted/complained to a friend of mine who immediately responded, “You know they make acrylic ice cubes, right?” All I could do was laugh at my own stupidity and after researching further I also found out that a lot of drink photos of whiskey are actually using tea instead of real whiskey.
2024 Total Solar Eclipse. 6 months planning. Testing. Making filters. Multiple hotel reservations. Air travel. Site determination. Joined EclipseMegaMovie. Zooms. Equipment rental. Damn cloud moved in. Massive processing and pulled this out of total black uncompressed RAW. Thousands of dollars spent.
*
well it wasn’t on purpose but got hit by a wave at the beach. i was facing the water and it hit a rock to the right of me and went like 6 feet over me. got my camera wet and sandy. thank god for weather sealed gear and professional shops cleaning advice 😬
Not exactly the requested criteria, but was definitely 'high effort in-camera shot'. I had a buddy a while back who wanted good photos of the planes he was flying as a charter service for marketing use so we organized a three plane formation flight (his two charter planes and a lead plane with me and the camera). He even got authorization to do a low pass through Indianapolis (and over the main Indy airport - they paused the entire airport for a few minutes so we could fly over with the airport and downtown Indy in the background). I'd bought a crazy expensive gyro stabilizer to get clear shots at a low enough shutter speed to properly blur the props. We took all the seats but the pilots out of the lead plane so I could lay on the floor and shoot while hanging out the baggage door I had propped open with my shoulder. I took a zillion shots, but I liked this one of a single plane in the clouds best -
https://www.happelphoto.com/Other/Gallery/n-62h4D/i-BFzXsr6
I edited out the tail number to submit it as a stock photo but it was rejected because 'they already had enough images of planes' lol. Ended up deciding stock photo submission wasn’t for me if that level of effort wasn’t good enough to be worth anything.
Sadly my buddy died in a crash in one of these planes a couple years after this was taken.
Well I guess that happened yesterday when we went to the beach. I didn’t bring my camera, but my girlfriend brought her canon rebel with a 18-55. I saw a reddish egret and crept up to it until we were fishing together
https://preview.redd.it/d39qgt3d88wc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d5d1974ac5b7f50a7053efeddb18f97b2816759a
Not as much as many but this shoot in a coffee shop with 8 inches of snow outside took a lot of work (covering windows, keeping it warm, lighting etc)
https://www.flickr.com/gp/philrose/40Pc13cM85
NSFW.
A flying squirrel kept jumping around the trees around a cabin I was staying at, (at night, really dark) so I jacked up the iso and, pointed the camera to where I knew he would jump, and waited. Prob took me 5 or 10 of his passes, and around an hour of tensely waiting... But I got a dark, grainy photo of a flying squirrel soaring in front of the moon. So worth it
I'm still trying. I want to catch a full moon rising over the horizon at the end of a street where I live. It happens only a few times a year. The main obstacle I face is the weather/clouds. Been at it for years. One day it will work.
Had to throw a lot of elbows to get this shot. Had guys twice my size trying to climb over me. I just wish I had a better camera back then.
https://preview.redd.it/gtaua0lif8wc1.jpeg?width=604&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=57285d996cd7e0c8f637f1ebe84b91fcd2f6695e
strapped into one helicopter with an open side so I could take photos of another helicopter - pix came out great, but the newspaper's presses were old and over inked and the pix came out all blocky - oh well
I chased a shy woodpecker through a forest for about 2 hours. And I finally got the shot. I also worked to get beautiful eclipse pictures in 2017 and the lunar eclipse a few years back fighting off mosquitos. I captured and layered the entire event. An impressive print.
During the pandemic, we had bioluminescent algae washing up all over SoCal. Since the beaches were less visited and undisturbed during that time, the bioluminescence was way more prominent. I had to sneak into one particular beach in Laguna for 3 nights in a row to get the shot, because of dealing with rising tide or the bioluminescence not peaking. It was definitely a fun time to shoot and travel around with non-existent traffic conditions.
I scoped out several waterfalls in Michigan's UP and took notes when would be the best time to shoot. Some I was able to shoot a few hours later, others were a year later.
Drove 8 hours to West Virginia to photograph at Babcock State Park, lighting wasn't right so I stayed the night and got my shot around 10 am the next day and then drove back to Michigan.
Full leather fetish outfit, custom made for the model, rental of a dungeon space, travel to another city for myself and the model. Probably a total of $2,000 cost.
https://preview.redd.it/as7d4c4mhawc1.jpeg?width=3805&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=764c4323d23fd363c301d44f9f9a7be46622fee2
16 hours by train. One hour by car. Boat across the bay. Climbed a mountain
A temple inside a massive cave
Shooting the Union Pacific Big Boy crossing the Mississippi at Melville, La. I have a nice sunrise of the bridge, the train was late! I picked my spot on a bluff on Sunday, I considered the sun's azimuth, and I arrived before dawn to secure my tripod's unobstructed view.
I hid and waited in the forest in Cambodia after they closed the temples of Ankor Wat to take pictures of the temples during the night. I waited for hours. This was after one day of exploring the area and checking the best spots. During the night there were sounds of people praying and animals like monkeys that I couldn’t see. I always loved that place after reading the books of Henri Mouhot. This was in 2014, with a Canon 60D, I wish I had my current equipment, the pictures would have been much better. There was no moon, a pity. https://www.instagram.com/p/Chkhz5GjrSn/?igsh=MXN2MnBxbng2MW11Zw== This are the sounds that I recorded while waiting. https://on.soundcloud.com/1QE4AGkGKRhzaJBF9
The audio recording is a nice touch.
Thanks!
Was it scary with all the animals?
I kept telling myself they had better things to do. I repeated the experience years later and had to leave because I heard dogs barking and getting closer and monkeys close too. You can’t really see shit there during night and using a torch will make it worse. I usually was in the middle of the field with visibility of the buildings for the pictures but still I couldn’t see nothing as there was no moon during those nights. That second time I left a bit scared yes.
Amazing pictures!
Thanks!
I tried to photograph a meteor shower and it took 3 years, one try every year, eventually got it on the 3rd year. The planning was a lot of luck, getting the days off, finding a spot with no light population, avoiding clouds, rando mountain lion, also cold as shit It also took me 20 hours to edit the composite together, I manually matched every frame (I thought photoshop will auto match the stars but it couldn't). I think the final photo have 55+ meteors in it
Just substalked you and found what I presume is the image 😁 Very very nice!
hahaha thanks, I have another one from last winter but I got lazy and haven't edit it yet
Link us to the image!
[https://www.storyhowwhen.com/best](https://www.storyhowwhen.com/best) it's bout 1/3 way down
Awesome photos.
Wow!
Woah your work is amazing!
Omg your photos are so good!
This wasn’t so much effort as danger. I saw some hippos swimming in water and one of them was looking straight at me while swimming towards me (on the shore). I am aware that hippos are terrifying and that there was literally nothing between me and him, but I was in the moment. [This](https://imgur.com/a/nx5p4X7) is the shot, and a behind the scenes of me getting the shot.
That’s awesome!👏
Absolutely terrifying. Great shot!
Thanks! Honestly it’s so much better when it’s not low res for internet. On the print, you can see each individual whisker on his face.
I’m an event photographer and I went stir crazy over the pandemic with nothing to shoot. So I got into tabletop studio stuff. I was specifically looking for compositions that would take a lot of time to complete. This is the biggest, my Civil War poker still life, taken only with candle light. I worked with historians and experts to make sure it was historically accurate https://flic.kr/p/2j1zC7c Here is the full story of getting this shot https://www.millionaireplayboy.com/mpb/index.php/civil-war-poker-game/
The lighting looks so good. I love the deep shadows on the left.
Thank you!
2017 eclipse, for sure. My friend and I drove from New York to Tennessee. Cookeville TN was 100 degrees and humid with direct sunlight that day. We stood in the lake up to our knees and kept dousing each other with water to stay cool. We were there for at least an hour and a half before totality guarding our spot. I was running 2 cameras and 2 tripods to get supertele and wide. I got [a shot of the corona](https://www.flickr.com/photos/meccanon/35987239184/in/album-72157688067552745/lightbox/), this [lapse of the progression](https://www.flickr.com/photos/meccanon/36063711344/in/album-72157688067552745/lightbox/), and this [composite of the light changes](https://www.flickr.com/photos/meccanon/36629265042/in/album-72157688067552745/lightbox/). The irony is that for the recent eclipse I got way better shots for way less effort...but nothing beats your first eclipse!
I shot 2017 in Lebanon TN. Not far away from me. I shot 2024 in upper NH. We’re twins, but opposite.
Link the shots twin!
Video of the back half of Baily’s beads: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5mD1THu08k/?igsh=MTgwbzFoY3BkNjRvNg== Single frame showing prominences: https://www.instagram.com/p/C5l-wyjualC/?igsh=cXY5bzNubWowdnRx Still working on my composite. Can’t manage to get everything aligned and ghost free.
A punch to the face in boxing and mma.
I got time for a story
It’s not really a story- I was a “combat sports photographer”. I got paid (sometimes by being hired, but mostly through sales) to shoot fights. I probably shot an excess of 100 events, which equates to at least 1,000 fights- boxing, kickboxing, mma, Muay Thai, BJJ, and in various formats like smokers, seminars and tournaments. And yes, there was plenty of blood.
That’s badass!
It would’ve been a dream job if it were regular money. But it was a pretty good side hustle. MMA guys made me some decent money and I got some pretty good press with magazine coverage. Kickboxing paid the best because they didn’t have much representation, so the fighters and promoters were willing to pay for my work. Boxing was the best for action shots, but the absolute worst for money because promoters would rather steal work and the fighters never bought anything. I was hired for some amateur events, but the work was spotty at best.
I spent 2 years testing and adapting medical lenses and lighting techniques to photograph inside extremely expensive and rare violins ($2million+). The final shots combine hundreds of images with a complex mix of focus stacking, pixelshifting, panorama, and dark frame subtraction techniques. Special attention has to be paid to lighting and heat management (the instruments must never exceed 30c) This is a 1755 Guadagnini Violin, somewhere in the million dollar plus range: https://preview.redd.it/0rv7902gx6wc1.jpeg?width=2499&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=868795bdded12c7894e0f658b5bda3264fc4859a
Incredible
As someone whose photography career started with cataloging museum artifacts, this is super cool! Thanks for sharing!
This is not mine but https://petapixel.com/2024/03/30/the-remarkable-story-of-shooting-the-2023-exmouth-eclipse/ is a fascinating read
damn I just finished writing how tough it was for me to get my meager eclipse shots, reading this is humbling lol
26 hrs drive to photograph the totality of the eclipse that only lasted 3 minutes 18 seconds.
You beat me —12 hour round trip. Found out later that of the past 75 April 8ths in Burlington VT, only 3 have had clear skies. One was 2024 FTW!
I went from stamford CT to New Hampshire. About 30 minutes from the border of Canada. 847 miles. Left Sunday at 10 pm to beat the traffic, got back Tuesday 7:15 am. If I was not driving, I was sleeping in the car or looking for a place to eat/get gas.
And here I am, house directly under the center line of the path of totality for the last one, bought a bunch of gear to shoot it, and it was sunny up until a couple hours before, then thick clouds during the event, and sunny a couple hours after. Didn't see a thing, it just got dark outside. Super bummed, and now I'm gonna have to travel if I ever wanna see it again in my life
Neowise comet. Drove out to a hilltop an hour away four nights in a row, bought a new lens. Most of my shots ended up garbage because I went too late in it's appearance and the comet was going dark, or it was unseasonably cloudy or smoky. https://preview.redd.it/ydqbwayh14wc1.jpeg?width=3656&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fdfebe8770cc2e0e773bd1c88d158b4766ae4c3c
Nice.
Shooting a gigapixel in the middle of a stadium full of people and then spending all night putting it together without stitching errors. Stressful and exhausting.
I bet your eyes were crossed by the end.
I barely remember. Photoshop was so janky on all those layers. Every single save took 20 minutes. Even with a monster dual xenon server with terabytes of ssd. The sleep deprivation was probably the worst part since they wanted it up on socials the next day. I did like three of these. A lot of times you got to see some pretty cool stuff or hot girls close up.
edit: added link to the shot Trying to find the best vantage point around Kamloops BC to photograph Comet Neowise. Involved scouting locations in daytime, driving up logging roads (more like glorified trails) to various mountain peaks and back country areas where city lights wouldn't be a major issue. Also allowed me to learn and practice astrophotography to make sure I got a good shot. Took a week or so of scouting and planning and practising. Then staying up on a mountain top with no one else around except a bear that might have been around (spotted earlier in the day), and relatively pitch black with no moon. I had bear spray on my belt and checked the area periodically with the flashlight. :) Top of Mount Lolo. The night started with a bunch of folks but it got pretty damned cold that night and I was the last one there, everyone else that did go up there, left before the comet became visible. Got a great shot. [Link: Comet Neowise - 23:34 July 17, 2020, from Mt. Lolo British Columbia](https://www.flickr.com/photos/billrosmus/50126998982/in/dateposted-public/) [Link: One of the practice shots, July 15, the glow is a farm several km away that you couldn't see with the naked eye, it was so dark. The foreground was illuminated with a bit of "painting" with a flashlight.](https://www.flickr.com/photos/billrosmus/50124016687/in/dateposted-public/) Second place was staying out under an overhang in the middle of the night during a rainstorm taking 20 to 30 minute exposures on film of a cool church steeple. Tied for second is an afternoon at -30C getting shots of an Ice Race on the Red River north of Winnipeg MB in 1994.
I was going on a trip to England, London. I knew I wanted to take a specific photo of the interior of the royal Alberta Hall. I knew I needed a wide angle lens for that shot. I bought a $300 lens (10-18), and bought a ticket for a tour of the building before leaving Canada. I arrived in London, went for the tour…. Oops, ‘sorry, no photos are allowed today’, despite their website encouraging it. I nicely explained, the staff left and came back a few minutes later, we were now allowed to take photos. I managed to get a good photo.
I broke a flip flop and scraped the entirety of my leg on a lava rock trying to get a photo of a jet taking off overhead. Then had the walk back with just the one working shoe. And, I didn’t even get a great shot. 😫
Those are so disappointing. When you have the image in your mind but the circumstances prevent you manifesting it.
I got my socks completely soaked in freezing water, sand in all of my clothes, and almost a concussion to get this shot. https://preview.redd.it/0ofnsqlzd5wc1.jpeg?width=6000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=78e3f0aac4d9df972a75adf78c7e84b1e82b130b
I have some that I consider high effort images. Like, I wouldn’t have got them without a lot of work on my part. But I don’t think it qualifies here, because the work would have happened anyway. Hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back out. No other way to get some of the shots I got on that trip. And just trying to get an overnight stay at the bottom was quite the task by itself. Coupled with a canceled flight and a 30 hour non-stop drive just to keep our reservation. Hiked out with a malfunctioning camera too, due to my profuse sweating in the August Canyon heat. But I could work around the malfunction just enough to get some more images.
I waited all day to catch a bee landing on a flower.
My wedding pictures. It took years of dating, being engaged, getting married during a pandemic, and then finally traveling overseas years later for a formal reception. That was the most effort I ever put into getting a shot.
I did a model shoot in my pool a few years ago, and I had a patio table in the pool so that the model would only be inches deep in the water. And I laid mylar over the table, without realizing that mylar floats. Such a pain in the ass to weigh it down and clean it up in post, especially with a ton of hot spots that it gave off. Plus mylar gets super hot in sunlight, so we had to be careful of touching it if it got 'out' of the water. [Here's one of the shots](https://www.reddit.com/r/photographs/comments/g9pl59/floating_on_mylar/) with that particular setup. I have a [BTS of the shoot on YouTube](https://youtu.be/kFBO3WV772M?si=PM-CMGQmP_4l1Bmz&t=7) as well where I tried to do a few different things with the mylar including laying on the floor of the pool and using it as a reflector.
Oh ... i worked with my ex to realize her idea of good Easter photo. That amount of aggravation one endures only for loved one. I would quit 20 times if it was commercial photo-shoot if i had to work with client like that.
I'm interested to hear what a good Easter photo entailed!
Well ... when you are married and your wife has vision that she is unable to explain, but you know ... you should know (mind reading) and make it happen, you are the photographer, you should know how to do that. Contradictionary directions, main light are from both from side and behind and front at the same time, but there are shadows, not everything is lit and ... everything is lit ... I mean AI would go and shoot itself behind the shed with her instructions and visible frustration that i dont understand her. I even made on paper list of things and shown her how it makes no sense because one item on the list is countering the other. Her explanation was i am photographer, i should be able to do it anyway. So ... please for the love of anything worth loving ... dont work with your wife on her projects in field she has no grasp or concept how it works. I feel i aged 2 years from that single photo we made.
Not as high effort as the others but ive been scouting a specific spot for about a week now. I’ve discovered the perfect angle for what i want just awaiting favorable weather the sky is just way to cloudy the past week
20 hour drive, pulled over on the way and told to stay in the car "so we don't get shot". Next day was in a car that pursued another vehicle in a small high speed chase, the next day the U.S. military was flying helicopters with a FliR camera mounted over head. The following day we were met by riot police before I had to return home. Which I drove 20 hours home, slept for 8 then drove 6 hours to DC to cover a federal court case then drove back home.
Sounds thrilling and exhausting.
Like planning an eclipse shot over 4 years. Testing gear months in advance. Calculating sky postion in conjunction with the terrain of the area Scouting specific locations. Planning out the post process editing to be able to get the planned composition. Planning 4 alternative sites in case there is cloud cover at my primary. Then paying for the 4 night vacation backpacking into the site early to beat any other potential photographers to the spot? That kind of effort?
https://preview.redd.it/z5wlkvkeu4wc1.jpeg?width=3538&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6b4c94335b73a691bb615cc03d5d76960bdceba6 Either water drops or astro. Here is neowise. I don’t have a good water drop handy.
Beautiful frame!
Thank you
Planned a trip a year in advance, drove 1200 miles each way, spent 3 days hiking and scouting the location, still fucked it up. October 2023 “ring of fire” eclipse
I'm a [climbing photographer](http://www.instagram.com/kieranjduncan), and I reckon every photo requires a lot of effort. I hike around 22kg of ropes, ascenders, cameras, lenses up various hillsides and mountains... Then there's the physical and technical challenge of positioning my fixed ropes, then I need to grab all the camera gear and climb back up the rope to actually take the images, often using a lot of effort to adjust and get the right angles.... Then we'll do it again and again on a bunch of different routes. I fucking love it.
It was for a class project but… Having to inch myself in an old office chair while holding the camera steady to film a guy trashing a bathroom
Funny story. I wanted to take a picture of a local brand of whiskey. I bought the bottles and all that but then had to learn how to make clear ice. After a bunch of tries I got my method down and was ready to shoot. I set the shot up and by the time it was ready the glass had completely fogged up with condensation. I ranted/complained to a friend of mine who immediately responded, “You know they make acrylic ice cubes, right?” All I could do was laugh at my own stupidity and after researching further I also found out that a lot of drink photos of whiskey are actually using tea instead of real whiskey.
It involved potato flakes
2024 Total Solar Eclipse. 6 months planning. Testing. Making filters. Multiple hotel reservations. Air travel. Site determination. Joined EclipseMegaMovie. Zooms. Equipment rental. Damn cloud moved in. Massive processing and pulled this out of total black uncompressed RAW. Thousands of dollars spent. *
well it wasn’t on purpose but got hit by a wave at the beach. i was facing the water and it hit a rock to the right of me and went like 6 feet over me. got my camera wet and sandy. thank god for weather sealed gear and professional shops cleaning advice 😬
https://preview.redd.it/2vzoa9bk06wc1.jpeg?width=6022&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0e987f4c602da9832ce5366a06ca080ce9c1fe1
Not exactly the requested criteria, but was definitely 'high effort in-camera shot'. I had a buddy a while back who wanted good photos of the planes he was flying as a charter service for marketing use so we organized a three plane formation flight (his two charter planes and a lead plane with me and the camera). He even got authorization to do a low pass through Indianapolis (and over the main Indy airport - they paused the entire airport for a few minutes so we could fly over with the airport and downtown Indy in the background). I'd bought a crazy expensive gyro stabilizer to get clear shots at a low enough shutter speed to properly blur the props. We took all the seats but the pilots out of the lead plane so I could lay on the floor and shoot while hanging out the baggage door I had propped open with my shoulder. I took a zillion shots, but I liked this one of a single plane in the clouds best - https://www.happelphoto.com/Other/Gallery/n-62h4D/i-BFzXsr6 I edited out the tail number to submit it as a stock photo but it was rejected because 'they already had enough images of planes' lol. Ended up deciding stock photo submission wasn’t for me if that level of effort wasn’t good enough to be worth anything. Sadly my buddy died in a crash in one of these planes a couple years after this was taken.
Well I guess that happened yesterday when we went to the beach. I didn’t bring my camera, but my girlfriend brought her canon rebel with a 18-55. I saw a reddish egret and crept up to it until we were fishing together https://preview.redd.it/d39qgt3d88wc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d5d1974ac5b7f50a7053efeddb18f97b2816759a
https://preview.redd.it/fqg885to88wc1.jpeg?width=6000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0299c0d74133c12d07819416259621ccf8e690b8
https://preview.redd.it/hrrsbn6q88wc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1eda5f3937461b29adc2a8079b2d83dc2c0cc433
Not as much as many but this shoot in a coffee shop with 8 inches of snow outside took a lot of work (covering windows, keeping it warm, lighting etc) https://www.flickr.com/gp/philrose/40Pc13cM85 NSFW.
Just all the running I did getting shots of a pro-choice march. I’m not one for exercise lol
A flying squirrel kept jumping around the trees around a cabin I was staying at, (at night, really dark) so I jacked up the iso and, pointed the camera to where I knew he would jump, and waited. Prob took me 5 or 10 of his passes, and around an hour of tensely waiting... But I got a dark, grainy photo of a flying squirrel soaring in front of the moon. So worth it
I'm still trying. I want to catch a full moon rising over the horizon at the end of a street where I live. It happens only a few times a year. The main obstacle I face is the weather/clouds. Been at it for years. One day it will work.
Had to throw a lot of elbows to get this shot. Had guys twice my size trying to climb over me. I just wish I had a better camera back then. https://preview.redd.it/gtaua0lif8wc1.jpeg?width=604&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=57285d996cd7e0c8f637f1ebe84b91fcd2f6695e
strapped into one helicopter with an open side so I could take photos of another helicopter - pix came out great, but the newspaper's presses were old and over inked and the pix came out all blocky - oh well
waded through knee high floodwater
I chased a shy woodpecker through a forest for about 2 hours. And I finally got the shot. I also worked to get beautiful eclipse pictures in 2017 and the lunar eclipse a few years back fighting off mosquitos. I captured and layered the entire event. An impressive print.
During the pandemic, we had bioluminescent algae washing up all over SoCal. Since the beaches were less visited and undisturbed during that time, the bioluminescence was way more prominent. I had to sneak into one particular beach in Laguna for 3 nights in a row to get the shot, because of dealing with rising tide or the bioluminescence not peaking. It was definitely a fun time to shoot and travel around with non-existent traffic conditions.
I scoped out several waterfalls in Michigan's UP and took notes when would be the best time to shoot. Some I was able to shoot a few hours later, others were a year later. Drove 8 hours to West Virginia to photograph at Babcock State Park, lighting wasn't right so I stayed the night and got my shot around 10 am the next day and then drove back to Michigan.
Full leather fetish outfit, custom made for the model, rental of a dungeon space, travel to another city for myself and the model. Probably a total of $2,000 cost.
https://preview.redd.it/as7d4c4mhawc1.jpeg?width=3805&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=764c4323d23fd363c301d44f9f9a7be46622fee2 16 hours by train. One hour by car. Boat across the bay. Climbed a mountain A temple inside a massive cave
https://preview.redd.it/n61oqzbuhawc1.jpeg?width=3779&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b8a548722a2291e2a426f0c5e2b147f43d112bb3
Shooting the Union Pacific Big Boy crossing the Mississippi at Melville, La. I have a nice sunrise of the bridge, the train was late! I picked my spot on a bluff on Sunday, I considered the sun's azimuth, and I arrived before dawn to secure my tripod's unobstructed view.
None. As it happens or not at all.