Focus on Adventure

Action photography’s Indiana Jones,Bo Bridges ’96 knows what it takes to get the perfect shot

Bridges ’96 majored in art with a focus on photography because he wanted a career that would keep him outdoors. Outdoors? OK, that’s understandable. But out plane windows? In an Airbus that’s climbing at 200 mph? Proof positive Bo will go to great lengths — and heights — in pursuit of the perfect picture. That’s what makes him world-renowned.

During this particular aerobatic feat, he was shooting actor Tom Cruise for the official Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation movie poster.

While the cargo plane ascended, Cruise clutched handholds in the plane’s exterior door, his body suspended precariously over the countryside north of London.

At the same time, Bo squeezed his body, down to his thighs, out one of the plane’s windows, his camera duct-taped to his hands. While two guys grasped his calves, he twisted sideways and aimed backward at the actor.

The icy wind whipped around his head, bouncing off his camera’s eye cup. Some 15 feet away, Cruise looked like a dark blob.

“My eyelid was flapping up and down so hard I thought it was going to rip. The next thing I know, I’m shooting in a pool of my own tears. It was kind of like I was under water and trying to shoot this blurry spot and make sure it was focused.”

Bo knows more than a thing or two about photographing under water. Although he’s jumped out of helicopters at the top of mountains and climbed active volcanos to go after breathtaking vistas, his first love remains the ocean.

Off the shore of Mexico’s Guadalupe Island, he strapped on scuba gear and went cage diving to capture the massive power of the great white shark. In the Bahamas, he left the cage behind and simply jumped off the back of a boat with his 15 mm fisheye lens to detail the sleekness of the blacktip reef shark.

Yes, he’s an adventurer, but he’s nobody’s fool. The boat’s ladder was within easy reach.

Most would consider Bo’s work style dangerous. And he supposes it is, but he makes sure to study the location before he sets up, and he doesn’t take unnecessary risks. For the most part.

Still, there was that one time in Cordova, Alaska, where he photographed glacier

My eyelid was flapping up and down so hard I thought it was going to rip. The next thing I know, I’m shooting in a pool of my own tears.

—Bo Bridges ’96 on photographing Tom Cruise for the Mission: Impossible poster

“tsunami” river surfing. He calls it his “craziest, coolest, stupidest” photoshoot.

Aiming at a glacier the size of Rhode Island, with black bears all around him, he “nailed” the sequence in which an ice chunk broke off from the edge of the glacier, creating a massive wave that two surfers proceeded to ride down the river.

“If the ice had gone out instead of down, everyone would have died,” he said.

He’s definitely earned his reputation of “the world’s most badass photographer.”

Even badasses have limits, though. Bo’s is the great white. He prefers to admire them from a paddleboard or a cage. He won’t swim alongside them.

Whether he’s shooting models for eight hours or clicking off 13 frames of Kobe Bryant in 11 minutes, the advertising and fine art photographer keeps it even keel.

Inset: A selfie from Bo Bridges ’96 Above: During the NBA finals in 2009–2010, Bo was supposed to have an hour to photograph Kobe Bryant. He set up a dark studio for dramatic shots and another for a light, bright look. When Bryant showed up late, Bo had 11 minutes to work and managed to take 13 shots. “Everyone was getting super stressed out, and I was like, ‘Look, we are going to be fine, and we are going to work with what we got.’ ”