FIRST DUE! Media

Be Prepared!

A couple of months ago I was reminded of how important it is to keep your gear ready and your skills up when it comes to fire photography.

For many reasons, 2010 was a slow year for me fire-wise. I shot just 12 actual incidents during the year. Of those, only five were at night. As all of us know, shooting an incident at night is a whole different animal than shooting one during the day. You need to know your equipment, you need to know your baseline camera and flash settings and, you need to be able to recall them at a moment’s notice. For me, the last 2010 ‘after dark’ incident I shot was a FAIL in all three regards. Let me run it down for you…

In the late afternoon of November 7th, I heard companies from my local department acknowledging a VocAlarm dispatch for a building fire. It was clear from the audio (and a blatant radio tip from a certain lieutenant on the first-due engine company) that they were going to have work. Here’s where things started to go wrong for me…

Problem #1:
I was completely unprepared. You could say I was “caught with my pants down”… no, really… I had just gotten out of the shower after a trip to the gym. I uttered a few expletives and started scrambling to get myself together and out the door. The reported address was just four blocks from fire headquarters and so they were on scene fast. The 2nd alarm was transmitted as I was jogging to my car. My drive to the scene was quick but the 3rd Alarm was transmitted when I was less than 2 minutes out. It was lifting pretty good as I came down the block. I parked and bailed out and was met with….

Problem #2:
My photo gear was not set up. I had been shooting a lot of day time foliage, etc. in the weeks prior and had left my camera set up for that. My flash was detached and not plugged in to the pain-in-the-ass-to-open sync cord port and my primary lens had the lens hood on. The lens hood is no good for night photos for me as it casts a shadow at wider settings when the strobe fires. I had to stop to strip the lens hood off, screw in and secure the flash unit to the camera body, and open the aforementioned P.I.T.A. sync port and attach that cable. Pissing away time because I wasn’t set up. Grrrr! Ok. I finally get my “stuff” together and make my way a half a block down to the scene.

As I walked up I could see what had been heavy overlapping fire on the rear porches getting hit from the side by an exterior line in an effort to protect exposures. So much for that. Most of the exterior work was being done in the driveway on the Delta side of the building and with a pretty decent glow visible from that area, I headed there. A ground ladder was being set up by Ladder 1’s crew and there was a decent fire condition venting from a 2nd floor window behind them. I got into position and started shooting. Whoops…

Problem #3:
I had not checked my camera settings. Normally I leave my camera set up for night work. I figure at night, it is likely I have bailed from bed in the ‘wee small hours’ and I’m not thinking particularly clearly when I first arrive on scene. As the more dramatic pictures are often very early in the incident, I believe its always best to have the camera set up with the flash attached and ready to go. The camera is left set to Manual with baseline ISO, shutter and aperature set to make the most of both available light and the light from the flash.

So, I usually make it a practice to reset to my “defaults” as I am putting away the camera after each shoot. That way I can “run & gun” at night without delay and make exposure adjustments (manual flash output power, shutter, aperature, ISO) on the fly as the lighting situation warrants. For me, that “default” means an ISO of 200 or so, a shutter speed of 1/60th sec (compromise for available light shots if ambient light from visible fire, etc. allows) and an aperature of f/5.6 (wide open enough to compromise between decent depth of field and allowing enough light in).

Let me also point out that I shoot with a Sunpak 544 grip flash (”potato masher”) that I use in full manual mode. Essentially, the camera doesn’t know that there is a flash unit attached and so makes no adjustments in the metering process to factor in light emitted from it. I control the flash output manually on the fly using a dial on the side set to anything from 1/64th power up to full power.

The point here is that my brain was thinking, “just shoot! Get the shots!”. Yeah well that would work if I had done what I was supposed to do the last time I stowed the camera away. You guessed it! NOPE! I had apparently left the camera in “Shutter Priority” mode and my selected speed was 1/320th sec. There are two problems with that.

The lesser of the two is that in that mode the camera chooses the aperature. At this incident in a dark narrow driveway – lit only by the fire venting from the aforementioned window and, with a selected shutter speed of 1/320 – was f/2.8. Not awful but it does narrow down the depth of field considerably thus risking that what I want to be in sharp focus might not be. It also caused a few images to be way over exposed when the big Sunpak flash blasted the scene with light.

The greater of the two problems was presented by the shutter speed of 1/320, as my camera’s sync speed is 1/125. So I ended up with a dark, “unflashed” band on one side of the first couple of photos until I realized what was going on. Not good. Sooo, reacting to what I was seeing from the camera, I fumbled with the dial to set it back to manual and my “default settings”. However, in doing so I apparently missed that notch on the dial and selected “Aperature Priority” instead.

The aperature here had apparently last been set to f/8. Normally a great aperature to choose except for fire photography at night in a dark driveway! For the two frames I shot at this setting (I may have shot a few more but ‘chimped’/deleted them on scene on the spot) the camera decides, based on the selected f/8 aperature, to use a shutter speed of 0.8 and 2.0 seconds respectively. Honestly, these photos came out just “ok” to me, but would have been a complete mess had the light emitted from the flash not frozen some of the action without as much of the motion blur. In actuality, given more time to think about it, I may try and use similar settings to add drama to fast moving evolutions on scenes in the future.

Anyway, at this point I finally took a moment to step back and get my camera’s affairs in order. I selected Manual mode, confirmed my shutter, aperature and ISO selections and went back to work. Total time from my first shot with the “wrong” settings to my first shot with the “correct” settings was 1 minute and 30 seconds. I had seven images that were ‘keepers’ during the time my camera was set “wrong”.

Observations/Lessons Learned:

- Don’t be caught with your pants down. Well, sort of. Basically, have your “kit” together (clothes, gear, camera bag, etc.) ready to go, to cut your “out-the-door” time down.

- Have a plan for setting up your gear with “run-and-gun” default settings and follow it. And then check it every once in a while if you haven’t been to an incident recently.

- Don’t get complacent. Review your own procedures and gear and make sure YOU and IT are ready for that next incident that could happen at any time.

- Know your “first alarm/first due district” (the area around you that you can get to FAST to get those early shots) and be ready to GO! Don’t hesitate. You can always turn around if its “nuthin”.

- Program YOURSELF to pause upon arrival at the scene, camera inhand, and take a moment to check your settings! If this had been the pre-digital era, I could have potentially shot an entire roll or more before I looked at my settings and realized my mistakes.

- I love having EXIF data to review and critique what I’d done right or wrong after a shoot. There is alot to learn from it!

Headed out late this morning to a report of heavy smoke showing from the roof of a commercial building on Garden Court.  The fire was in the duct work of a commercial BBQ kitchen and was knocked down prior to my arrival.  I managed a few apparatus photos before departing the scene. 

A short time later, I headed to Lawrence MA for a fire reported in a dwelling on Packard St near Coolidge.  Companies reported heavy fire showing.  The fire involved the 2nd floor of a large 2-1/2 story woodframe multi-dwelling.  I managed a few images before the fire was brought under control.  All of the images below are linked to my website.  Click the pic to see the gallery of all of the images on my website from these incidents.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To view all of the images in these galleries, click the pictures or, click the link below:

http://www.firstduephotos.com

I took in a late afternoon fire in Wakefield, Massachusetts, on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010.  As luck would have it, I was already enroute to a friend’s house in Stoneham for dinner and was on Cambridge St. in Winchester when I heard command order the 2nd Alarm.  The fire occurred during the Metro Boston ‘rush hour’ and traffic made it difficult to get to for anyone coming from a distance.  I picked up my buddy on the way and we arrived very shortly after the 4th Alarm was transmitted.  The fire was in an old, well kept multi-unit house.  The fire appeared to have started on the first floor and extended via the walls to the floor above and the attic.  A prolonged aggressive interior attack was briefly halted while a ladder pipe and a couple of exterior lines were used to extinguish the last of the flames confined to an attic space above the top floor that the companies had difficulty opening up.  Here are a few of my photos and a brief (~3min) video clip I shot on scene.  As always, click the photos to go to my website to view all of the images I captured at this fire (and others)…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VIDEO CLIP:

Again, to view all of the images I shot at this fire, go to my website by clicking the link below:

FIRST DUE! Fireground Photography

I’ve just returned from a weekend fire photography trip to the Metro NYC/NJ area.  The group of us hadn’t been down that way in over a year so we had some high hopes that we’d catch some activity while we were in town.  The forecast called for some pretty frigid weather which usually increases fire activity in the northeast.  We managed to get to three decent blazes (from a photography standpoint).  You’ll find three video clips here.  Each photo is clickable and will take you to a gallery of images from that incident…

First stop, Harrison NJ 3rd Alarm…

On Friday evening, we started out at a 3 Alarm apartment building fire in Harrison NJ (Hudson County).  The fire at the corner of Harrison Avenue and Supor Boulevard involved a 3-story brick & wood apartment house.  The fire started apparently on the first floor and spread via the walls to all floors on the C and D sides of the building.  The Harrison ladder was out of service and the first arriving chief officer, encountering heavy smoke showing, ordered 2 engines and a truck mutual aid to the fire.  Eventually mutual aid would be requested from several other cities including East Newark and Jersey City.  I didn’t take any photos at this fire but I did shoot a couple of minutes of video.  Click the link below:

…on to a 4th Alarm in Maplewood NJ…

On Saturday afternoon, we stopped by to visit a good friend at the Jersey City fire alarm office.  While there we received word of a house fire in the Essex County city of Maplewood.  The first arriving companies encountered at least one frozen hydrant.

We started that way immediately and made it to the scene in just under 20 minutes.  A short distance from the scene we received a report that the fire was under control.  As we arrived we found this was not the case.

Fire was beginning to vent from a couple of windows at the rear of the second floor.  Maplewood firefighters opened the roof to assist the jakes who were conducting a very aggressive interior attack.

Mutual aid was requested to scene including companies from Milburn, Orange, Irvington and Newark.  One firefighter suffered what appeared to be a rather painful leg injury at the scene and was treated/transported by EMS. 

The fire was brought under control and extinguished in a little over an hour.  I’d like to extend a special thank you to the Maplewood Police Dept. officer’s working the scene.  The courtesy you extended to the many photographers who arrived on scene was greatly appreciated. I have posted a full gallery of images from this fire.  Click any of the photos to go to the gallery.  The link below is to a brief video I shot on scene:

…Last stop, a warehouse fire in Fairfield NJ

After thawing out and putting our gear back together, we headed towards Garfield NJ for dinner.  On the way, we received word of companies arriving at a warehouse fire in Fairfield, NJ (Essex County).  We were again about 20 minutes from the scene so we immediately started that way.  Reports were of a fire in a large 400′ x 100′ warehouse.  While still a short distance from the scene we monitored radio traffic indicating that while the interior crews felt they had the main body of visible fire knocked down, thermal imagers were showing high heat conditions towards the ceiling/roof area.  As we pulled up on scene conditions appeared to be rapidly deteriorating. 

Firefighters mounting the interior attack were forced to rapidly withdraw.  The fire began venting through the roof and appeared to be spreading thoughout the south end of the building. 


Over the next two hours a significant amount of mutual aid was requested to the scene including firefighters from Verona, Caldwell, Roseland and Newark.  Several small explosions occurred within the building as three tower ladders, two ladder pipes, numerous deck/portable guns and handlines were placed into operation. Copious amounts of water, a trench cut and a fire wall helped to confine the fire to the south third of the building. I have posted a full gallery of images from this fire. Click any of the photos to go to the gallery. The link below is to a brief video I shot on scene:

I invite you to check out the two galleries of images from the Maplewood and Fairfield fires on my website.  Click the pics and you are there or, click this link and you’ll get there too!

FIRST DUE! Fireground Photography

Please check out my friends’ websites in the coming days for more photographs and video from these incidents.  They can be found here:

Damian Drella’s DMDimages

RickNohlMedia.com

Rick Nohl’s photo site at EmergencyServiceImages.com

Thanks to everyone for sharing their similar experiences and for suggesting some solutions. I ended up breaking down my photo ‘rig’ to it’s various segments and opened all the various doors and ports. I then placed all the pieces on a window sill infront of a fan set to low speed and went to bed with the hopes all would be well come morning.

In the morning I reassembled everything and powered it up. LUCKY ME! it appears that everything is functioning properly now. I am definately going to be looking into some sort of rain shield for the camera. RI fire photographer Ken LaBelle has had some experience with one he recommended to me in the past. More on that when I finally pulled the trigger.

Ok. Now…it’s time to get back in the game. Bring it ON!!

I’ve been looking for a decent topic for my first ‘official’ blog post. Well, today I experienced the perfect choice – shooting incidents in the rain.  Not just a light drizzle, mind you.  We’re talking a torrential wind-driven winter rain.  Frankly, in the past I have usually not bothered to ‘take in’ anything during a rain storm (save from a few occasions) but this one sounded too good to pass up.

I was preparing to leave my office for the day when the fire came in.  Fire in a vacant commercial building in Watertown, Massachusetts – a bordering community.  One look out the window told me this was going to be ‘fun’. A soaking, wind-driven rain storm and 50 degree temperatures in not all that common here in New England in January but never-the-less, thats what I ventured out into.  I have never invested extensively in rain gear.  My water-resistent (note: NOT waterPROOF) windbreaker was pretty much all I had as a shield from the elements.  Thankfully I was able to park fairly close to the fireground and found a GREAT way in to the scene.  It was an open area that offered no shelter from the elements.  You can see the rain better in this shot…

So lessons learned?  Go to an incident in the rain and yer gunna get wet…Soaked maybe (I did).  If its in the winter, watch the ice because it gets VERY slick and you’ll end up on your ass (I didn’t).  Know whether your camera gear can handle a decent amount of water.  My primary camera is a Canon 5D (not the MarkII flavor) and is pretty extensively weather sealed.  Likewise, my primary lens at present is a Canon 28-70 L-series which is also well sealed (…reportedly? So far, so good).  For some reason I left my Sunpak 522 flash attached even though I had no plans to pop the flash through the heavy rain. 

So, how’d I fair?  So far, not good.  My 5D is dead at the moment.  Going to let it dry out over night and see what tomorrow brings.  I am optimistic but will keep my fingers crossed.  Can’t hurt, right?  I’ll keep you posted…  In the mean time, please check out the images on my website at: FIRST DUE! FIREGROUND PHOTOGRAPHY

Still getting the site set up. I’ve added a few items to the right margin including a link to my most recent Tweet and the last few photos posted to my Flickr account.

Now I’m testing adding a post with embedded photos. Such as this one.

I just could not resist creating a blog any longer.  “But what will your blog be about, Ted?”, you may ask?  As soon as I figure out what a blog IS I will be sure to let you know.

But seriously folks, I’m hoping this will be an effective tool to share information.  I will strive to post interesting, useful information for visitors to the blog.