An acrophobe's nightmare, a photographer's conundrum.

Ebru Didem Yayla
Apr 15, 2017
5 min read

I'm aware the Raw Air event ended over a few weeks ago as well as that Sports in Norway attended about 3 different events each spanning somewhere between 2 to 9 days, 5 cities and 6 different major arenas (4 cities & arenas which we attended) over a total of 3 weeks this March, but when it's the first official, more story-like blog post for this website and every non-Sports in Norway thing seem to want to grab your attention, a few odds and ends seem to slip away. But, since this is not the standard issue news (papers, blog, TV or what have you), what I would like to talk to you about today is Raw Air. Or ski jumping. Specifically, the ski jumping towers. Horrendously giant structures on the side of taller-than-thou mountains designed for no other purpose than to aw and terrify.

To be able to go to these giant steel towers shooting in to sky, working at spots closer to the action itself than most people will be able to access as regular audience members, the midwestern in me would say "what a hoot!" though the fear-induced me is chained to the ground, frozen.

I don't know how much experience you readers have with jump towers, particularly the ones used for Olympic events, national and world championships, but they to tend to be your average sledding hill jumbo-sized. More like slipping slides for trolls. And for some reason there's people willing to jump off of these monstrosities. Though there's also people who race down practically vertical and slippery mountains, drive 200+ km/hour, plummet towards their inevitable doom from the lower atmosphere with only a flimsy parachute as their only mean to safety, and enjoy horror movie marathons, so who am I to lecture on the insanity of ski jumpers? But I digress.

The jump towers stand ridiculously tall with steep slopes, where most sports photographers will be standing on narrow steps going up and down these slopes. Having to go up these stairs (which I've done a handful of times) is definitely great exercise, particularly when you try to defy gravity in a roughly 50-60 degree angle for the same distance in less time it takes Usain Bolt to speed through the 100m dash since each ski jumping athlete is in the air in less time, but once you stop and have to take pictures of guys zipping pass just as fast as a car drives on a highway, the terror easily escalates. The stairs next to the hill are about the same width as most stairs, which, for going up and down is usually fine (just try not to accidentally smash the photographers equipment or push someone over an edge!!!), but once you plant yourself somewhere no way you're standing on only one step safely without risking tumbling down that way too long staircase.

If anyone has ever paid attention to the photographers or personally tried to take pictures (no matter their equipment) at a game, you've seen and experienced that panorama-like gesture of following the action from one side of the court to the other. In most situations people have a good foothold on sturdy and mostly flat ground. For photographing ski jumpers, on the other hand, to be able to get those exciting mid-air shots your only option is to stand on steep and narrow steps while following the ski jumper projectiling through the air with a good 3 - maybe 4 - second window. God forbid you have balancing issues or don't have a good foothold. If you do, who's to say you'll stop a few steps below where you started? The more likely scenario is where you tumble until you're several dozen yards below where you originally started, at least.

There are, obviously, various sports where you have to stand on uneasy terrain, sometimes in unfortunate conditions. A few days before I'd just finished shooting at the X Games in Hafjell where most of the photographers had to stand on steep and slippery snow covered hills while shooting athletes that were in the air for less time than the skijumpers. But unlike the jumping towers there were several smaller hills that flattened out not too far below each hill, stopping a healthy distance before the next downhill began. The jumping hill though? Nothing but straight down while being able to see the distance between the platform you're standing on and the unhinged slope down! Try not to imagine my brain's steroidal screaming while it continuously hit the alarm button as if it didn't have anything better to do.

The fact that I can easily see the rocky ground below the steps of the stairs that shake a little bit each time anyone nearby steps on them is absolutely not disconcerting at all. Absolutely not ...

You definitely "don't" feel like a fragile, tiny speck when you can't even make out someone standing inside the red circle - where each of the opposing shots were taken from.

The 180 degrees direction of shooting the jump: we start waiting for the jumper (above left), straight ahead mid-flight (top right) and finish on the bottom right picture while tracking the ski jumpers.

Now, fortunately I have gotten somewhat accustomed to this ridiculous feet of architecture and like most photographers on site will get out of my own head enough to do what I'm supposed to - though the constant, steady ease I've seen from crew and other photographers utterly bewilders me.

Having been to Holmenkollen a few times did help turn down the internal terror, Vikersund, on the other hand, was a completely different story. Vikersund is the largest ski jumping hill in the world, it's one of a handful of jumping towers that tower so high that the sport no longer is deemed worthy of the name ski jumping and is dubbed ski flying. They no longer "jump", they "fly" like Superman but with sticks attached to their legs. Which is sane. ... somehow. Rest assured Panic was on high alert.

One last aspect I would like to mention is that during Raw Air at Vikersund a point of reassurance and of great amusements were the Audi cars that drove people up and down the jumping tower. Just like any other tower, Vikersund had the lift (tried it once, never again!), but for the sake of the Raw Air competition Audi, as one of the sponsors of the International Skiing Federation (FIS), had cars ready for anyone who had accreditation that allowed them further up than the regular audience areas (such as press, crew, athletes, various team members, VIP and the like) but didn't want to wait for an empty lift. It was a god-send! Honestly, I have literally never looked at a car more lovingly than when I didn't have to hover in mid-air while in a metal chair only supported by a single rope.

Though honestly, despite all the terror of being up way too high in all too unstable ground, there's an exciting aspect to it all. I get to come back home and go through all the pictures that I took while I was in albeit less perilous situations than the guys rocketing through the air like it's just as normal as eating breakfast.