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James Mason | all galleries >> Galleries >> Odds and ends > Loowit
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May 18, 1980 James Mason

Loowit

Central-south Washington state

In 1980 I was fired from the newspaper where I was working because they found me tough to get along with...while I was cleaning out my desk I heard on the radio that Mt. St. Helens had puffed some steam that morning and geologists thought the mountain might be waking up. "That should give me something to do," I said to myself glumly. Three months later I got this shot from an airplane. It was on the cover of Newsweek and several European magazines. Copyright 1980, 1997 James Mason/Black Star. Later on...this image has been up for three months now. I recently discovered that somebody had appropriated it for a commercial website. Not cool. The guy will be paying me several thousand dollars shortly, and his lawyer must have cost him $3,000. If he had emailed me for permission I might have let him use it for free. Stealing is not nice. The laws are very clear about these things and recovery of damages is easy.

Leica M3 ,50mm Summicron

other sizes: small medium original auto
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Larry Ganders 19-May-2020 06:11
James, I thought of you to mark the 40th Anniversary of the eruption and was pleased the photo and your comments were online here. I was proud to work with you at the Tri-City Herald and was pleased with your embarrassing success afterwards.
Guest 22-Aug-2011 19:39
stunning shot James. Glad to know that you were "well" compensated for it. Stealing is not cool!
joseantonio04-Jan-2011 20:36
Impressive image. Well done
Juanma 04-Jan-2011 20:31
Spectacular picture !!!!!!
Congratulations !!
Blandine Mangin14-Aug-2010 06:44
wow ! spectacular !
Guest 25-Nov-2009 02:02
I want to say something, but to tell the truth Im not sure what to say axactly, or how to say it! This image is just very overwhelming - I guess it speaks more eloquently for itself. Congratulations. And I'm glad you're pursuing the buggers who swiped the image - there's too much of that going on.
Guest 13-May-2008 09:46
Awesome is the only word suitable to describe this image. Congratulations on the capture, and on firmly protecting your copyright. ~V~
Long Bach Nguyen17-Feb-2008 09:31
spectacular image of the explosion
Matthew Sarna-Wojcicki 13-Jan-2008 21:24
Hi James,

Once again, stunning image here along with your fantastic bicycle racing gallery.

My dad, a geologist whose specialty is "tephrachronology" or "ash dating" was on assignment when this volcano was erupting. He had gone to the top before the big blast, in a helicopter, to gather some samples, for approximately one minute. The helicopter pilot was very, very nervous. My dad is still alive today and I am very grateful he is still with us, especially after seeing in image like yours shown here. I don't know about the helicopter pilot.

MSW
Guest 27-Nov-2007 08:04
Wow this is stunning!
MarcWildPassion22-Nov-2007 00:00
Right time, right moment,... Impressive
Guest 19-Feb-2007 11:30
very impressive, excellent.
James Mason28-Oct-2005 08:40
Alex,

That's a very good question...and I do not recall. My guess would be 9,000 feet, which is about 2,700 mtrs. We were in a 185 and I know we'd been up to about 12,000 on previous days. The summit before the blast was just over 11,000 feet.
Alex Brincko 25-Oct-2005 19:55
Thank you so much for making these pictures available to all. The Mt. St. Helens picture is particularly interesting. If you would be willing to take the time to answer me, I would be interested to know your altitude at the moment the picture was taken, to give me a sense of scale.

Regards,
Alex Brincko
Guest 29-Apr-2005 09:47
Wonderful, truly wonderful!
Guest 04-Jun-2004 12:37
Amazing.

In the 20th centuray images form the "collective memory" of the human race (I did not say it someelse did) - this image surly touchs one of our more primal emotions which are built into our "collective memory" that goes way before the 20th centuray.
Guest 18-Apr-2004 09:30
A wow shot. You get a sense of the power of the thing. Sort of puts man his puny place.
Ryan G 29-Feb-2004 07:44
Amazing shot...I knew I had seen it somewhere. I can't agree with you more about stealing photographs. I have a hard time even when my buddies take mine and put them on their website without giving credit.
Lara S20-Feb-2004 04:19
I remember this photo. waow you are the eye behind it. :) I agre with you about the unlawfull use of photography.