Robert Landsburg: the man who died photographing an erupting volcano in 1980
Without wanting to make this article more depressing than it already is, what do you do when you know you’re about to die? Do you panic? Do you pray? Or do you do what Robert Landsburg did and document it in the name of science?
It’s a horrific question, right? However, it’s one that several people have answered in their time. There are more examples than you’d think of people accepting their fate and making sure they get their last moments down for posterity. In a strange way, there’s something quite heartwarming to it. Than some people genuinely can go out thinking of the future. Thinking of other people in some small way. Even in a situation as brutally frightening as the one Landsburg found himself in.
Born in Seattle, Washington, in 1931, Landsburg was a Navy veteran who spent his life after serving working as a commercial photographer. Anything you could photograph, Landsburg did brilliantly, but his calling was travel and wildlife photography… He literally won an award for his travel photography in 1970, but little did he know that the drive to document the natural world would lead directly to his downfall a decade later.
In May 1980, Mount St Helens, an active volcano in the Cascade mountain range of Skamania County, Washington, was due to erupt – Landsburg had wanted to photograph a volcano waiting to erupt for years by that point and didn’t know when he’d next get the chance.
So he shipped up to Washington with all of his equipment and spent as long as he could taking photos of the volcano. These shots are genuinely inspiring, which was probably the reason why he kept pushing his luck until it ran out.
He got closer and closer to the volcano before it began erupting on May 18th. Landsburg was completely taken by surprise by this and knew that he did not have the time to get away safely. So, he did the next best thing in his mind. Save the photos.
He took a final few photographs of the erupting volcano, then returned to his car. He placed his camera and film in his rucksack, then lay down in the back seat covering his work. Then he let the onrushing pyroclastic flow take him.
17 days later, his body was found, and while the photos are slightly distorted (understandably), they’re still a pretty incredible record for geologists. Documenting something as a natural occurrence that human had ever been able to see up close and survive. He wasn’t the only life taken by Mount St Helens, either. Another photographer, Reid Blackburn, was also lost to the eruption, as was Volcanologist David A Johnston and nearby innkeeper Harry R Truman.
In all, around 57 people were killed by the eruption. Perhaps all of them had the same thoughts that Landsburg did at the end. Thinking of the future, whether that’s of their loved ones or their humanity more generally. Would that all of us could face the end with such bravery.