Common sense might dictate that when a volcano starts erupting, the best thing to do is run away. But for a small and somewhat obsessed band of photographers, news of a new lava-spewing giant somewhere in the world means one thing: It's time to book a flight.
In early April, Martin Rietze spent three sleepless nights huddled next to a large boulder about 1,600 feet from the mouth of Iceland's recently reawakened Eyjafjallajökull volcano, having the time of his life. Sleepless because when a volcano is throwing car-sized pieces of rock into the air, you can't close your eyes for a second. "It's too dangerous to sleep, so you have to stay up," he says from his home in Eichenau, Germany.
Rietze, an engineer who builds delicate electronics for planetariums, is part of a very small group of mostly men worldwide who spend vacations racing to be as near as possible to molten magma, choking ash clouds and poisonous gases, not to mention a rain of smoking-hot boulders.
Volcanophiles exist all over the world, though there are at best only a couple hundred of them, they estimate. There are groups and individuals in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, France, the USA and Japan.
They seem to include a high percentage of engineers, computer, electrical, chemical and mechanical. Though it once was a solitary pursuit, the Internet has allowed them to share their work — and tips. It's a labor of love, because they all know they can't make a living at it, says Richard Roscoe, an Englishman who works as a patent examiner in the European Patent Office. He's spending this week in Vanuatu to shoot the Yasur volcano.
"One always hopes that one will get the really big shot and get that contract with National Geographic, but the likelihood is very minimal," he says. But professionals urge a large dose of caution. Volcanoes are astoundingly alluring; far too many people take far too many chances around them, say Donna and Steve O'Meara, a husband-and-wife team who shoot for National Geographic. "They put fire in people's eyes and their brain is left behind," Donna says. I have cppy this news from ABC News Online.
สมัครสมาชิก:
ส่งความคิดเห็น (Atom)
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น