Climbing the World’s Tallest Building!

Time flies. Roughly ten years ago, I climbed the Burj Khalifa, the tallest structure in the world. Took a while to negotiate with the building, but they eventually took a liking to the idea, and allowed me up there with a couple of their own climbers, two really remarkable gentlemen, Mick and Johnny. The showed me the ropes, literally, and kept me safe.

As Mick said, in his wonderful English accent, “Now Joe, you’re gonna be alright in the bucket, eh, mate? Cause we don’t want anyone panicking in the bucket. Somebody panics in the bucket, we gotta take him off in a helicopter, and that’s a bad day. You’re not gonna panic in the bucket, right?” He was right to be concerned, as all personnel who are involved in dangerous jobs are when they take a civilian along. We’re tourists. They don’t completely know how the interloper will react.

When we got into the bucket, the first thing I asked Mick was to climb outside the bucket and hang off of it. He looked at me a bit sideways, and helped me get out and over the railing and into the wind. At that point he knew, I think, he wouldn’t have to call a helicopter. I had to get outside, because the hard thing to do is photograph something you’re standing on or clinging to. You have to push yourself as far away from the structure as possible.

It was fun up there. Even got lucky and snapped Johnny whilst he got an airplane warning strobe full blast in his face. Sigh, always using flash somehow.

Fun going through the archive and taking a look back at videos and some pics never used. The BTS video on our YouTube channel was shot by the remarkable photographer Drew Gurian, with whom I had many adventures and wonderful memories. As I write this, that video is closing in on four million views. People like shots from high places! And…a big shout out to Mohamed Somji and Hala Salhi of Gulf Photo Plus, which a while back was a wonderful gathering place for photogs from all over the world.

More tk….