BTS Video of an Epic Photoshoot with a U.S. Military Explosives Team

One of the things I love about photography is how it can lead you to places and situations you’d never imagine possible.

Pete Leong’s photoshoot is a perfect example of this. Pete is an Australian wedding photographer who lives in Okinawa, Japan and takes pleasure in shooting water sports and seascapes when he’s not shooting weddings.

So far it sounds like Pete was enjoying life and getting the most out of living near the ocean. One day he was out an about shooting a family on location when he discovered the husband is a Master Sergeant for the military’s EOD (Explosive Ordnance Demolition) Company.

Next thing you know, Pete is wearing an 85 pound bomb suit and playing with C4 explosives!

Oh, and he got some epic photos as well…

“I’ve always believed personal photo projects are important to professional photographers (and armature photographers for that matter)”, Pete wrote on his blog, “as they can really help when you start to feel unmotivated and stale when shooting often the same kind of thing day in day out”.

One of the ideas Pete had for a personal project was to create an action-packed series of various military personnel in full gear, “almost a bit like a cover shot for a movie or a game like Call of Duty”.

Once Pete’s new friend got him the necessary permission, an awesome photoshoot ensued and we get a six minute long behind the scenes view of what it is like to work with explosives and the highly specialized men and women who deploy, disarm and dispose of them.

Ear protection was worn for safety reasons, and for some of the larger explosions using C4 the crew had to enter a bunker, while a brave GoPro was left behind to record the explosions.

Pete captured the photos with a Canon 1D Mark IV and select Canon lenses (16-35mm f4L IS, 70-200mm f2.8L IS and 24-70mm f4L IS) before editing them in Lightroom and plugins such as Nik Color efex pro 4 or Perfect Effects.

Summing up the unique experience, Pete said he “got to try on an 85 pound bomb suit, operate a bomb disarming robot and detonate C4 explosives! Not something your average civilian gets to experience”.

What’s the most stupendous thing you got to experience through photography?

[fotoShisa via ISO 1200]