My First Camera Jump . . .
"Don't let them bother you, they goof on all new people around here. Mind if I look at your camera helmet?" He was a straight looking fellow in a sea of hippy jumpers. His short hair and buttoned down shirt was weird for a drop zone in 1975, but at least he was talking to me. He picked up the camera helmet I'd just put together the night before and noted my Nikon F was mounted too far forward on its mount and also too high. "There's a better way to run this wire too," he said, "have you jumped with this?" This guy was the last thing I needed after a day I'd dreamed about for a long time was turning into a nightmare. I'd just been discharged after four years in the Marine Corps a week earlier and now back in the "world" with about 70 jumps I was anxious to leave straight-laced military sport jumping behind. Lake Elsinore was all I'd heard about, the Mecca of west coast relative work, and the place to be if you wanted to get on the hot loads. But so far only three people gave me the time of day. And two of them were trying to sell me something. A dark and brooding Charlie Manson look-alike told me to look him up when I needed a repack and another handed me a card and told me if I needed any gear to call him, and he was scarier looking than the first guy, and that's how I first met Al Frisby and Max Kelly. And now this guy who looked more like a narc than a jumper was fingering my camera helmet. I thought about the big bag of Maui Wowie in my gear bag I'd picked up in Hawaii and just wanted the heck out of there.
My earlier attempts to get on a load fizzled not with a bang but with a whimper. The three groups I approached didn't just say no, they wouldn't even acknowledge my presence. And my outstretched hand of introduction is left dangling in mid-air.
My interest in camera jumping was a natural for me as my job in the Marine Corps was that of photographer. And I could hold my own in the air with the military sport club I was jumping with, but like a lot things about jumping I didn’t yet understand, I didn't realize just how bad they sucked. I left my latest detractor and my camera helmet sitting on the wooden packing table and walked away. I wandered out into the field and just sat while rolling myself a joint and I watched the canopies land, a 60/40 mix of rounds and squares. I was halfway between re-enlisting and sticking it out as I walked back sometime later. And my camera helmet was gone. That's just great, I thought, so much for fucking Lake Elsinore.
"Hey, there you are." And the narc looking guy is standing there with my helmet. The wire that tripped the shutter is now nicely attached with small screws down the side of the helmet where I was only counting on tension to keep it in place. There was also a new hole drilled in my mount and my Nikon was pressed flush against the front of the helmet. "Try this; I think you'll find it better," he said. "And oh, by the way, my name is Carl Boenish, what kind of gear are you jumping?"
Later that afternoon I made my first jump at Lake Elsinore, my first jump at a civilian drop zone, and my first jump from an airplane. All my previous jumps had been from Marine helicopters. I bought a ticket for 12.5 from the manifest lady (seven dollars) and she asked who I was with? I said I was doing camera and wasn't sure yet. The truth was I was with nobody. In the military all our jumps were carefully briefed and then de-briefed just like combat missions. But this was something new as everybody just wandered out to the DC-3 in a gaggle so I just followed along somewhere in the middle. I sat amidships trying hard to be Mr. Invisible, and wondering how I was going to get through that small door with my camera helmet. All the way to altitude, which after the turbine helicopters I was used to, took forever, people around me kept asking, "who you with?"
When the group in front of me got up I did too. When the guy in the lineup in front of me turned to say, "Who you with?" I looked him in the eye and said, "I'm with you!" And so I followed him out the door and got Z'ed in my first experience with prop blast. After tumbling I found them below and just put my head down. The old axiom about your body following your head is true, especially with a few pounds of helmet and camera on your head. I set up above them and snapped away just knowing I was getting good stuff. I tracked off early and pulled high busting my lip open on my highly mounted chest reserve. I jumped into my car and went home. Anxious to process the black and white film in the home darkroom I'd set up in my bathroom.
In 36 exposed frames all I got was an errant leg on exit and the rest was just sky. But I was on my way and I didn’t yet realize what meeting Carl Boenish would mean to my life. Three years later, in 1978, he asked me to hang around after sunset because he was going to show a new film. I did, and it was the first rough cut of his El Cap footage.
What a long strange trip it's been . . .
NickD
BASE 194
