A professional photographer has taken hype beast Instagrammers to task with a proper rant against illegal (and not to mention highly dangerous) trespassers who do it just to get those precious clout levels. About time, too.
Darren Soh — the dude responsible for that super-cool shot of a lightning storm, among other brilliant photos — took to Facebook to call out the reckless foolishness of some young photographer-influencers here who love taking risky pictures from up high. This is usually done by trespassing into high-rise rooftops, usually with some model dangling near the edge. Just take a look at all the plenty #rooftopper shots on Instagram.
For this particular diatribe, Soh pinpointed a photographer by the name of Nicholas Ling (@fiery274 on Instagram) who somehow managed to trespass into the new Marina ONE development with his friend. For the ‘gram, Ling apparently had his companion perch precariously on the roof rails of the east tower’s high rise lift shaft building maintenance.
Admittedly, the end result is stunning — but we imagine we’d be reporting about a tragedy instead, if either one of them took a wrong step.
It’s this irresponsible trend that Soh takes issue with. “Because of some desire to up each other on this stupid game of trespassing into private property and dangling a pair of legs off the edge, people like him make life difficult for working photographers like myself, who happen to have to deal with the same security personnel he played cat and mouse with,” he wrote.
“Someday, someone is going to fall off a very tall building. Must we wait till then for people to wake up?”
Soh’s concern is justifiable — Russian teen Andrey Retrovsky actually died two years ago when he accidentally fell off a roof of a nine-story building in the process of posing for an Instagram pic.
The response has been polarizing, to say the least. While many are glad that an actual professional has spoken out against the fad…
…there are others who accuse Soh of bullying younger lensmen — especially considering that he publicized Ling’s full identity. Though to be fair, all the personal info was readily available on Ling’s end of social media.
Regardless of where you stand on the issue, you gotta admit that Soh dealt a pretty harsh burn as his concluding line:
“And oh, please don’t call yourself a photographer. Thrill seeker? Maybe. But photographer? Please don’t insult my colleagues and me.”
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