Silhouettes and Shadows

In a perfect world, I would holler at the suppression crews to stop what they were doing and not move while I repositioned myself to get the lighting and composition where I wanted it. Then, I would direct them into certain poses and order them to freeze while the fire grew in intensity and I clicked away.

That would be in my perfect world. Not the property owners nor the victim's perfect world, their losses would increase greatly while my feeble attempts at photography would benefit. Not the crew's perfect world, their safety would be compromised at the benefit of a more pleasing documentation of their impeded efforts. Not only that, but fire suppression crews really want to get at it and don't want to be held up by anything, let alone a F.O.G. with a camera. I'm guessin' the Chief and the bystanders wouldn't like it much either.

To be honest, I'm still a suppression guy at heart so I wouldn't really want to hold anything up either. The last thing I want to do is interfere with anybody doing their job. I enjoy the benefit of great access, one that I want to keep. So, when it comes to fire ground photography, sometimes you just have to take what you can get. 

That's how the photographs below came to be. Light low on the horizon, positioned right where I didn't want it. After the first shot, I realized that what I wanted to happen wasn't and that silhouettes were probably my best option to salvage the few minutes that I had. Although this was a training burn, I still wasn't going to have the crew stop while I accessed the roof and moved to the sun-ward side of the roof. Not that they would have listened to me anyways.

Click on the image to enlarge.

I don't remember who the crew was, but that's Crispy Helmeted

Billy monitoring the evolution.

I liked the way the masks are still visible yet transparent.

This one was taken a few minutes later. I found the shadow 

effect on the smoke interesting.

Same effect, slightly less shadow.

Final silhouette shot, the last operational shot of the day.

This project turned out to be a three day affair, with me being present for four of the six sessions. As always, I learned a lot and I refreshed some photographic skills that I don't get to practice very often. I even learned some new fire control concepts, though I likely won't get to practice them. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Thanks to the men and women of the Riverside Fire Dept. for letting me shoot their activities and, as always, thanks to you for reading.

Schmoe