For the Photography Duel on July 24th, 5 teams of photographers and stylists will compete in a timed photography competition to produce images in 3 categories. The LVHRD membership will vote for the winning image.

Leo Zacharias tried to tell us once what it’s like to hang 800ft off the ground attached to a piece of rock with a cord and metal clasp.

“I get into my tent after a day of rock climbing and I wonder why I’m still alive,” he said. “I think, What the hell was I doing! Am I crazy?”

Leo’s story reminds us of the astronauts in those deep space movies like Event Horizon and Sunshine who crack up after 16 months in deep space. At first you wonder why NASA didn’t do intense psychological profiles of these people before they left earth, but then you realize that to volunteer for such a mission in the first place (say dropping a bomb the size of Manhattan into the sun) you have to already be a little crazy.

So it must be with Leo Zacharias, our 5th and final PHTHRD photographer, a little disjointed from his time dangling away from the ground speaking the language of birds (he’s from Brasil). It is however, only because of his time spent living over the edge is Leo able to capture that same suddenness in his photographs, the relief in the eyes of someone who has just touched down.

Good luck to Leo. PHTHRD is Tuesday, July 24th.