I'm really not sure how I feel about these things. On one hand, these are great escapades, and they result in fantastic pictures. I do like seeing "forbidden and forgotten areas". On the other hand, I would never want to encourage anyone to do something like this. It's illegal for a reason. The reason is not just your own safety. If he had fallen on to the road side of the bridge, not only would he die, but he would risk the safety of others driving across the bridge. Even in the best-case where he doesn't hit a vehicle or cause an accident, the morning commute is screwed up because of what on the surface appears to be another suicide.
I have been BASE jumping for quite a while and within that community there is a strong thread of leave no trace. It reduces the legal risk, eliminates property damage, and keeps it open for everyone else.<p>Back to Joe, I found his blog and saw a picture of him setting off fireworks on top of a crane I had just climbed and jumped in the city I used to live. I kept thinking the increased security probably should have led to my arrest since setting off fireworks isn't exactly stealth and if I was property owner and found that I'd definitely be horrified enough to increase security. I tracked him down and took him out to an antenna for him to climb and photograph warning him what could happen if he kept posting so publicly. He was eventually was arrested for this:<p><a href="http://www.nopromiseofsafety.com/?p=311" rel="nofollow">http://www.nopromiseofsafety.com/?p=311</a><p>He was an interesting dude. Modified a car to have a skin of bottle caps all over it. He does not walk to the beat of normal society's drum.
Amazing things like this make me wish I wasn't afraid of heights. Even the pictures sort of make me feel uneasy. Haha Regardless, this is incredible.
In railfanning we don't look kindly on people who trespass to great the 'perfect shot' because they just end up screwing things up for everyone else with ever increasing rules, surveillance and fences. Please think about the consequences of your actions when doing something like this.
If you like this sort of thing, you might appreciate Vitaly Raskalov [0].<p>0: <a href="http://englishrussia.com/2013/03/22/on-top-of-the-pyramide/#more-122040" rel="nofollow">http://englishrussia.com/2013/03/22/on-top-of-the-pyramide/#...</a>
> In a choice between a 300-foot-fall to water and a 30-foot-fall to concrete the winner is discernable if not immediately clear<p>I'm guessing the correct choice is the concrete, but for some reason I feel like I would still prefer to go for the water...
This is lovely and amazing!<p>90% of chance of law enforcement to be in touch with you soon, unfortunately.
This is akin posting Youtube video of yourself breaking legal speed limits.
I caught myself wondering why climbing the bridge has to be <i>illegal</i>.<p>You can't practically damage the bridge. You will mostly just hurt yourself if something happens. Theoretically the worst that could happen is you could fall onto a car but the damages incurred by a dead climber would be peanuts for any insurance company — people crash their cars by themselves alone all the time. And that could already happen because climbing being illegal doesn't stop the people who want to climb the bridge, as demonstrated in the article.<p>Of course, there's there "could" track where anything "could" happen thus it must be declared illegal before it happens, but you can extend that thinking to nearly everything until living just becomes impossible. For example, it "should be illegal to climb the big rocks on the shores because you could fall on an innocent party on a boat".<p>I would be inclined to reserve the illegal status for activities that actively affect other people. Stealing, mugging, murdering, manslaughtering, kidnapping, etc. Conversely, accidents just happen.
<i>It is the most photographed landmark in the country</i><p>I am sorry but that is BS. I could not find any statistics about "photographed landmarks" but a quick check of any measure of tourism and this seems extremely unlikely. For starters San Francisco's tourism does not come close to NYC.
Performance art from the Williamsburg Bridge:<p><a href="http://gothamist.com/2011/11/19/video_see_the_williamsburg_bridge_a.php" rel="nofollow">http://gothamist.com/2011/11/19/video_see_the_williamsburg_b...</a><p>If you enjoy these sorts of stories, you'll love watching Man on Wire -- <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_on_Wire" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_on_Wire</a>
Mesmerizing. Apart of the glitz, I think of living in a city, is exploring.<p>When I was young with friends in SF (we were around 12), I remember the most adrenaline pumping thing we did was walk in the muni tunnel off I think Duboce (back in 01', so I'm not sure of the right names) and we'd always climb to roof access in the condo where they lived.
There's a lovely little book by John Law which includes climbing this bridge, back in the 70s: <a href="http://www.furnacepress.com/publications/law.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.furnacepress.com/publications/law.html</a>
Why does every photographer have to use that "make colors look like xbox games" effect on their photos? I much rather look at unprocessed photos that have not been distorted by color enhancing filters.
Someone has an idea to find what camera he used? I tried to find it on flickr and google.image but there is nothing. I really like how it captured the colors and the light.
You can get a permit for this and do it legally: <a href="http://www.parksconservancy.org/visit/tours/golden-gate-bridge.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.parksconservancy.org/visit/tours/golden-gate-brid...</a>