Tree Suspension

The last weekend of April we were at Carter Stevens Spring Fling in the Poconos. On Saturday, the sun came out and the thermometer peaked at a balmy 60 degrees with a brisk west blowing. Not really warm enough, but I haven't been able to tie Dee up outdoors yet this year, so I packed a bunch of rope and out the door I went.

Dressed only in a denim shirt over a yellow and black bikini, Dee followed me into the woods. We then discovered a big problem: all the trees in this woods had straight trunks and no cross branches. We finally found this one tree with a small branch that was strong enough to support Dee.

I had brought a tripod along, so I set the camera up with a timer on a 60 second repeat, and managed to get a few shots of me working the ropes.

Aside from the cold, the main problem was that the branch was only large enough to support Dee about a foot and a half from the trunk. That meant she spent the whole shoot twisting back and forth bonking her head and hitting her knees on the tree trunk.

Mick sets up the suspension ring from a branch Dee is wearing a shirt because it was about 55 degrees F Mick ties a hip harness on Dee (Notice the Steelers colored bikini) Dee loses the bikini top We couldn't find a good long branch So we don't have much room to work with Dee runs the vertical lines to the ring Wrists tied in a strappado position Testing the weight distribution Rear view, barefoot Rear view, closeup Dee plays with the position Mick ties her feet to the ring The wrists take some weight Dee swings slowly back and forth Mick starts to tie Dee's hair The full suspension from behind Front view Wide shot Dee has no room to spin, and keeps hitting the trunk with her head Wider shot Hitting her head, again Now swinging to the left She hits her knee on the trunk Bang Rear Shot Side view She's still smiling