Contact sheet of the day I broke my back while
crash landing a hang glider, Montana, 1975.

Documentary photography requires being present with one's subject, so it wasn't unusual for me to want to fly along side the hang gliders I was photographing in Montana in 1975.

I got together with my friend Johnny Craighead and he suggested we go out for a test flight. He stood on a small mountain south of Missoula and placed his hands on the wind, feeling its force and direction. "You're going to fly today," he said, and I did. It was the landing we hadn't perfected and I crashed on my first flight.

Johnny had my camera and made a full record of the afternoon's events, which ended with me in the hospital with a broken back.