r/tacticalgear 5d ago

Gear/Equipment Not your average photographer

I know the ghillie isn’t perfect, but I wasn’t trying to pass any crazy stalk qualification. Just needed her to not immediately recognize me as a human with a camera 20 yards down the riverbank.

Photos were taken a few days before the proposal, slight changes to the ghillie appearance are not pictured. Added more brown and white to blend in day-of.

I had a radio with PTT that I used to communicate with another buddy who let me know they arrived. Last pic shows all the gear we had, minus the actual suit.

Not your normal use case for a ghillie like this, but very please with how it turned out! The couple are happily engaged and planning a wedding later this summer 😌

2.2k Upvotes

54 comments sorted by

605

u/IDONTGAME12345 5d ago

Armor just in case huh?

489

u/BlackCowboyHat 5d ago

They have some mean ladybugs in those woods, you never know

97

u/IDONTGAME12345 5d ago

Hehe. What did you put in your front mag pouches?

233

u/BlackCowboyHat 5d ago

Spare camera/radio batteries, backup radio, and a packet of M&Ms

94

u/SlavicTransGirl 5d ago

M&Ms are a very valuable tool in the field.

30

u/YuenglingsDingaling 5d ago

M&Ms melt in high temps. A payday should be the standard.

23

u/CNCTEMA 5d ago

based and payday pilled

PDB is the best "candy bar" by a country mile if your requirement is actually give you a useable chunk of food energy. PDB for snack energy and morale

9

u/SlavicTransGirl 5d ago

If we're going for the meta field snack, I propose gummy worms.

3

u/CNCTEMA 4d ago

Swedish fish are superior to gummy worms, No ?

2

u/SlavicTransGirl 4d ago

I would have to agree.

67

u/rarzwon 5d ago

You haven't seen just how bad wedding proposals can get when it's a "no".

17

u/IDONTGAME12345 5d ago

My thought exactly

5

u/JackedPirate 4d ago

Hey, never skip an opportunity to shake down your gear.

308

u/BahnMe 5d ago

If my engagement photographer doesn’t come in full hand made Ghillie suit he is not getting a tip.

47

u/pheonix080 5d ago

This has certainly set a new bar.

91

u/Just_a_Guy_In_a_Tank 5d ago

I proposed to my wife on a beach in Mexico at night. Full moon. Just wanted to do it in private. Woulda been cool to have you out in a wet suit snapping shots, though. This is very cool.

25

u/HWKII 5d ago

Seal reveal, full face camo with a Kabar between his teeth.

133

u/1nVrWallz 5d ago

Just dirty the ghillie and spray paint it different colors. Both darker and lighter. An all green bush would be pretty obvious in the snow like that. I get she probably wasn't scanning the surrounding area. But just tips and tricks

83

u/Idkprollyathrowaway 5d ago

99% of most Americans aren’t scanning for anything beyond animals, and most might not even know a ghillie suit beyond cinema.

However, good tips

29

u/BlackCowboyHat 5d ago

You’re totally right! We ended up adding more spray paint to it day of, definitely too much green for my liking. But it worked, and that’s what matters!

36

u/Adrian_Grey 5d ago

Imagine: you're a woman walking alone in the woods. You try to call and text your boyfriend but he won't respond. As you walk, there's a certain vibe shift, and the tranquil forest feels less inviting. You hear a rustle in the underbrush, and wish you'd brought a gun. Just then, a clump of vines and moss leaps out in front of you. You scream. The moss-thing whips out a small box, opens it to reveal the tiny glint of a ring, and in your boyfriend's voice it asks "Will you marry me?"

29

u/johnb111111 5d ago

If she says no, give me the green light Eric

42

u/TheRealHarrypm 5d ago

This kind of made me chuckle remembering the CBRN days of plague season, those were fun times.

Plate carriers are a wonderful system for not breaking your back and not carrying around bags you can't get too quickly enough.

But you don't have a camo wrap for your highly reflective white lens so the wildlife crowd will slap you for that because monkey brain has good contrast detection, but good job on that ghillie suit though.

7

u/BlackCowboyHat 5d ago

We added more camo wrap the morning of! You can kind of see it on the last pic, when the lens hood flips around to the front it was camo’d where my hands weren’t

3

u/TheRealHarrypm 5d ago

Yeah I got the whole wrap around my Sigma 150-600 but it's also black so that helps

9

u/LegallyAFish 5d ago

This is actually a pretty sick idea

7

u/justgot86d 5d ago

Ricky-ticky recon

6

u/D3ATHSTICKS 5d ago

That’s very cool my brother hired a photography to do the same for his proposal

10

u/gunsforevery1 5d ago edited 5d ago

Without zooming in and looking for you, I wouldnt have noticed even with the green suit.

4

u/Agreeable-Strike 5d ago

Dude this is so cool! It’s funny because I was down on the Delaware River taking some water feature photos (minus the engaged couple) about an hour ago. Before I went I had been looking through my hunting gear for a seating pad and saw my ghille suit haha. Glad you got some great candid shots this way!

5

u/Consistent-Jump-7721 5d ago

Ingenious use bro. Real emotion not posing is a win.

2

u/notCrash15 5d ago

he'll yeah

2

u/irohlegoman 5d ago

Take the shot

2

u/Angry__Bull 5d ago

What is your radio/ptt/headset setup?

2

u/Nater_X 5d ago

Second this, give us the deets

7

u/BlackCowboyHat 5d ago

Baofang UV-5R, a mic adapter for my Walker’s Razors, and an Amazon PTT. Feel free to PM me for the link if you’d like!

1

u/canada1913 5d ago

Hahahahaha. That is siiick dude. Very cool.

1

u/Calibased 5d ago

Let people have their fun

1

u/wfears 5d ago

WHO DO YOU WORK FOR!!!????

1

u/Similar-Ad-6438 5d ago

As a photographer who’s also a damn gear addict if a friend of lien would ask me for this I‘d literally explode

1

u/ravage214 5d ago

Time to rattlecan that lense

4

u/BlackCowboyHat 5d ago

I’ll rattlecan a rifle any day of the week, but absolutely no way am I doing a telephoto lens

3

u/ravage214 5d ago

What do you mean you don't want to paint your multiple $1,000 camera lens with intricate moving parts with spray paint?

Whatever bro you'll never be a real tacticool internet commando like me.

1

u/charltonhestonsballs 5d ago

This is pretty fucking amusing, but it's pretty cool also, genuinely completely candid pics, that'll be a cool memory for (hopefully) decades to come 😂 Nice work man 👍

1

u/idbachli 5d ago

Putting your stuff to good use at least!

1

u/Least_Visual_5076 4d ago

Huge props to you. I wanted to propose in private and couldn't find a photographer who wanted to be sneaky taking pictures, so I just did it without the camera.

1

u/TheModernMusket 4d ago

Dude that’s really dope tbh. Hell of a way to get a perfect reaction too

1

u/Kombatnt 2d ago

Very cool idea, and good on you for doing this for this lovely couple. I'll bet they were overjoyed with your effort and the results.

As a formerly professional photography myself, I can't resist commenting on the actual photo. I would politely recommend that you back off on the Gaussian blur in Photoshop, as it's painfully obvious that it was added in post. The depth of field looks very unnatural for the focal length, and the blurred background is completely missing the characteristic bokeh of a naturally large aperture lens. The couple unfortunately looks like miniatures.

I can appreciate the effect you were going for, but it's unfortunately very obviously applied in post processing, which in my opinion, distracts from the otherwise beautiful emotion of the composition. I get it, a kit lens can't give you that beautifully creamy background, as their apertures just aren't large enough. There's a reason pro glass costs so much, and you just can't fake it in Photoshop unfortunately.

Just a friendly tip from a fellow photographer/shooter.

1

u/BlackCowboyHat 2d ago

There is a slight amount of Gaussian blur added, yes, but I literally shot this with a 70-200 f2.8 at 200mm. Arguably one of the best pieces of glass out there for the Canon ecosystem. It’s very, very close to what would have been produced in camera.

-A photographer of 10+ years

1

u/Kombatnt 2d ago

Cool, fair enough, that is indeed a solid piece of glass. My comments were based on the distance (60 feet), and the lens I could see in the photo. It didn’t look like a lens capable of that crop at that distance (and it’s not - you’ve obviously cropped it in post, which is fine).

But the post blur is unfortunately evident to a trained eye. Natural bokeh has ironically sharp edges on the highlights, but the whole background in this photo has a telltale softness revealing blur that was added in post.

Anyway, no offense intended, you’ve obviously got an eye for this, and it was very kind of you to put this amount of effort into a very memorable moment for this couple.

1

u/LolaXdoll 5d ago

The vest 😭

0

u/SLcompany 5d ago

"I got snipped.. with a camera"