Janelle really tests the absolute limits of my abilities as a photographer. Not because she’s difficult to work with, or anything scandalous like that (just the opposite, actually), but because if I’m taking photos of Janelle, chances are, we aren’t anywhere normal. We certainly are not in the controlled safety of a studio!

We are most likely somewhere mildly to extremely dangerous, which is exciting, but it means that only about 50% of my brain can focus on my camera and photography. The other 50% is trying to focus on staying alive and not falling off the side or a cliff. Or into a snowbank. Or off the boat and into a lake. Or, in the case of the Mad Scientist shoot above, into a river.

Because even though it appears to be one of our more tame photoshoots, Janelle is of course standing in the middle of a rushing river, and I’m several yards away, precariously perched up on some huge boulder with my camera, like a circus seal.

I have to admit, shooting with Janelle is more akin to wildlife photography than it is to fashion photography, and I get the same familiar adrenaline rush of needing to use every single skill I’ve ever learned—all at once, and QUICKLY!— to get the shot before one of the many moving parts moves in the wrong direction. Or, let’s be honest, before Janelle falls into the river/off the cliff/into the snow/etc… (Don’t think that’s not always in the back of my mind!)

Not only do I frequently worry that I AM GOING TO DIE while taking a photo and not paying enough attention to all the constantly changing dangers around me, but I also feel there’s a good chance I will take the last photo of someone else alive, all because we were trying to do something risky for the shot. I think Janelle is a prime candidate for this. (Sorry, Janelle, but you know it’s true!)

Part of me is always nervously expecting to be looking through my viewfinder and suddenly see some real-time horror show— like suddenly Janelle slips off the rock, or some huge snow boulder crushes her from above, or out of nowhere, she’s attacked by a bear…. So many scenarios have played out in my mind, I’ve lost count!

A small aside— do you know I find it almost impossible to watch any sort of program or documentary about someone doing something challenging in the wilderness? I always end up turning it off. Because the entire time I’m thinking— sure, that looks tough, but everyone on the OTHER SIDE OF THE CAMERA had to do all that stuff too, but while filming! While holding a camera and audio gear! Whatever “heavy backpack” the onscreen person is bitching about having to lug around, I guarantee you that everyone else on the film crew had to carry 10 times that! So why are we acting like that person is out there doing this “amazing thing” alone?

Don’t get me wrong, I understand why it has to be this way— without the person on screen for the audience to relate to, there’d be no compelling narrative and the whole project would never have been funded in the first place… but unless they are being honest within the context of the documentary about the size of the expedition and the camera crew, it doesn’t mean I have to watch it.

Sorry. I’m done. I’ll come down.

It’s also likely I’ll die from simply falling off one of my super slippery soapboxes…

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See more of Janelle HERE and HERE.

Shop Janelle’s complete line of jewelry and lifestyle accessories HERE.

Decide whether or not Janelle is a (dirty?) "Peak Bagger" HERE!

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