Please Get This 550 lb. Water Heater Off Of Me

There was absolutely nothing formal about it…I was quite expressive as far as having the crushing 550 lb. water heater (refrigerator size) lifted off of me.

On this particular day, we had a Jaguar/Rain photo shoot in the planning for over 2 weeks… models, location, assistants, stylist, make-up, wardrobe, props, etc. were all in place on shoot day. The location ‘checklist’ was completed, covering all details. The plan was to shoot in the late afternoon for that warm, sun-setting sidelight. Our pre-production was perfect.

Then an unforeseen event struck…doorbell at 10:00am for the unexpected delivery of a client’s rather sizable water heater prototype for an upcoming shoot. A long-story-short, it was clobbering time: the water heater fell on yours truly. We now had a significantly more imposing checklist…(rush to the hospital to get x-rays of any potentially broken parts on me)…crushed and dented (me) …nothing broken (water heater). So we loaded the studio’s equipment van, and drove to our north suburban location. My crew and models knew of my injury/accident, taking the lead, I made like nothing occurred, as to not affect anyone else and to make all happy.

Our location was perfect. Models were great, our hose hooked up to our chosen hydrant for water, our scheduling for the sunset was timed beautifully for our light on the people, car and the plastic covering on our painting. The plastic concealed our painting perfectly as to not have it detract from our people being happy in the rain. All we needed to do was to fire up our power generator for our strobe light, which filled our shadows, and also froze our raindrops just enough behind our models. My slow shutter speed and the positioning of our strobes allowed the foreground raindrops to turn nearly invisible.

By focusing on the dare that my day challenged me with, our photo shoot proved successful …the impromptu crushing water heater accident/ injury didn’t have its way with our positive day. The added challenge actually made us all stronger, and simply validated my “Don Levey Makes People Happy” brand. I knew the pain from my accident would be temporary…my photo would be for life.