Try as I might, I cannot get through an episode of Whale Wars. It's not the heartless slaughter of those magnificent beasts that drives me away; it's those damn hippies! Seriously, if I was bobbing along Antarctica with that crew, I'd ram every harpoon ship I saw just to shake the smell of Patchouli oil from my decks. Yes, there would be only ONE thing worse than watching a whole season of this Animal Planet production: shooting it. Don't believe me? Take a few minutes and watch The Making of Whale Wars: a growing collection of interviews with the shooters and producers who trolled the Southern Ocean with the ballsiest crew of nut-bags ever to play chicken with a Japanese whaler. It's a soggy dichotomy: The activists aboard the Sea Shepherd and her sister ships are willing to DIE for those poor whales. The camera crews shadowing their every suicidal move are NOT. Good luck with that. You know even if the photogs of Whale Wars were positive they'd see dry land again (they were not), the whole trip was an exercise in misery. Gloves, Neoprene suits, helmets: these are not things that make operating a camera easy. Now, crawl down into a bucking Zodiac and HOLD ON as the shaggy pilot of that small boat makes a beeline for a ship full of pissed off whalers with water cannons. "Great Neptune's Nipples, can't I shoot a thousand city council meetings instead?" Probably, but it won't score me the kind of street cred the Animal Planet crew came back sporting. In fact, I believe the producers have stumbled across a viable reality show spin-off: the adventures of a reluctant camera crew as the salty oddballs they're about to make famous do their best to kill everybody aboard.
THAT, I'd tune in for.
1 comment:
Does every photographer have his price? What would yours be to work this job?
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