Robert Landsburg's Brave Final Shots

Authored by huckberry.com and submitted by SoNuclear
image for Robert Landsburg's Brave Final Shots

When Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980, photographer Robert Landsburg was there – within a few miles from the summit, shooting away. Landsburg had spent several weeks prior to the eruption documenting the volcano, putting himself on the precipice of danger.

On May 18, Landsburg’s luck ran dry. Seeing the immanent explosion in the not-so-distant distance, Landsburg decided he could not escape the eruption in time to save his own life. And so, he used his body to save his film.

Landsburg continued to photograph the eruption until the last possible moment, leaving himself enough time to wind up his film into its case, place his camera in its bag, place that bag into his backpack, and lay his body on top of the bag as the final protective layer against the shower of magma and ash.

Landsburg’s body was found 17 days later, buried in ash with his film in tact. The photographs were published in the January 1981 issue of National Geographic, a scan of which can be seen below.

Reddit via PetaPixel. Picture #1: USGS / Robert Krimmel. Picture #2: Danial Dzurisin. Picture #3: a scan of the January 1981 issue of National Geographic.

ajay_reddit on August 1st, 2019 at 18:58 UTC »

Words of u/shodty

This is my great uncle, after whom I am named. Or rather, I believe we were both named after someone even further up our lineage. (I'm Robert A Landsburg, he was Robert E Landsburg). Also, small gripe, but it's "burg" not "berg".

Here is an Imgur album I made of some of the artifacts we have memorializing the event. My dad has a whole box of articles, pictures, letters, magazines, newspapers re: the eruption and Robert's death. I posted this the last time it was posted to Reddit. This will probably get buried, but hope some of you enjoy :)

https://imgur.com/a/a9yo0

mrshatnertoyou on August 1st, 2019 at 18:40 UTC »

Landsburg continued to photograph the eruption until the last possible moment, leaving himself enough time to wind up his film into its case, place his camera in its bag, place that bag into his backpack, and lay his body on top of the bag as the final protective layer against the shower of magma and ash.

Landsburg’s body was found 17 days later, buried in ash with his film intact. The photographs were published in the January 1981 issue of National Geographic.

A professional until the end.

thehappyman on August 1st, 2019 at 18:38 UTC »

When I was very young, before I could read, we had the issue of National Geographic with these photos in our house. My dad explained to me how these were the last pictures taken by the photographer before he died and to this day it’s the first thing I think about whenever the mt. St. Helens eruption is mentioned. It’s haunting.