Photographing my first accident scene

On the way home from shooting the Harry Potter book release, I noticed one of the roads was blocked off by flares. I immediately changed lanes and headed off in the general direction of where I was seeing lights from a police car. When I got to the scene, I found this vehicle surrounded by firemen. The police had blocked off the road and one man was handcuffed and sitting on the median. I thought the lighting in the bookstore was challenging, but that was nothing compared to shooting in the middle of the road at 11:30pm under an orange street light.
I was very hesitent to cross the street at first as I was afraid the firemen and police would tell me I had to leave. But, I could not get any shots from where I was standing as it was too far away. I noticed a pedestrian on the far side who was walking toward the accident, and no one was stopping him, so I decided to take a chance and move closer to the accident. I figured the worst that could happen was they would chase me off and maybe I could get a few shots before that happened. To my great surprise, no one said anything. In fact, I was largely ignored. Gradually I moved in ever closer until I was right on top of the scene. If they were gonna let me shoot, I decided to make the most of it and took as many photographs as I could think of.

I approached the firemen to see if anyone had been seriously injured and to try to guage the emotional level of the scene. They said everyone was pretty much OK, for which I was relieved. I don't know if I am ready to photograph a fatality yet (how one gets ready for that, I have no idea).

My photographic approach was pretty simple; try everything I could think of and pray some of them worked. The flash worked, but only up close. More than 10 feet away and the scene got to dark. Using the ambient light from the street light was the only way to capture the wider shots showing the firetruck. I liked the wider spots better because I felt they gave more perspective the situation. This required a slow shutter, however, and guess what I did not have with me...a tripod. So, what I did instead was lay flat on the ground and brace the camera on the curb. This allowed me to keep the camera steady enough to get the shots with just the streetlight.

After shooting the photographs, I had the presence of mind to approach the police and get as much information as I could. My thought was to get enough information to be able to present this as a news story to the local paper. I did call them and left a message, but I have not heard back from them. Once I got home I began processing the photographs, and even though they did not all turn out, I was quite pleased with a few of them. I converted this last one to black and white, and to me, it feels like accident photographs I have seen in the paper before.

I am never glad someone had an accident, but I am glad I was there to shoot this scene. I had one guy ask me which paper I worked for. Just looking like you know what you are doing counts for a lot in a situation like this. I plan to continue looking for opportunities to document these types of scenes as I encounter them.

Harry Potter Book Release

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Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

The final book in the Harry Potter series was released this morning at 12:01. I figured people would be lined up and wearing costumes, which translates into a photo opportunity. I went to two of the local bookstores, Borders and Barnes and Noble. The great thing about events like this is everyone is eager to have their photograph taken. I asked permission several times, but just as often I did not ask for permission. More than once I was told, "Oh, you have to take a picture of my child also." The crowd was very easy to interact with and the general mood of the crowd was upbeat and pleasant.

The challenge was the lighting. I used the flash for most shots, but the ceilings were constantly changing heights and the lighting changed constantly depending on where people were in the stores. This was a good exercise because it forced me to deal very quickly with these changing conditions. I am not completely happy with these photographs, and there is a lot of room for improvement. I was much more comfortable being "the photographer", however, and it was much easier working the crowd and interacting with the people.

The top photograph is one of the winners of the costume contest during the moment he found out he won. I was excited to catch his reaction in this photograph.

This was one of the volunteers helping out. She put a lot of time and effort into her costume, and I thought the result was great.

This little girl was the hit of the event. Everywhere she went people were ooohhhhing and aaahhhing. She won the costume event for infant to four years.

There were LOTS of people dressed up like Harry, but this boy was one of the ones that stood out to me. I was impressed with the detail and quality of the costumes everyone was wearing.

This was a great event from a photographic point of view, and I definitely plan to attend more of these types of events to continue developing my skills.

Art deco, rainstorms, and Splash Cove

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Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

This week my "History of Kansas City" class explored many of the buildings built during the 20's that illustrate art deco design. The City Hall of Kansas City is an excellent example of art deco construction. There is a large park connecting City Hall to the Federal Court House which is where I took this photograph. Other good examples of art deco construction are the Jackson County Court House and the Kansas City Police Station which are all in the same area. I took several photographs of each of these as well, but I was not happy with any of them.

We had a very strong, although brief, rainstorm on Saturday. As I finished mowing the raindrops started falling. After the storm I caught this shot of the rainwater on the leaves.

Sunday we went to Splash Cove for a birthday party. They have this huge bucket that fills up with water and then dumps it every 3 minutes or so. I got lots of shots of the water in various stages of dumping, which I found fascinating to watch. This also gave me a good opportunity to experiment with my longer zoom lens (the Canon 75-300). I stopped down the aperture to about f8 for most of these shots and kept the zoom to 200 or less. I think most of them turned out pretty good. Here is another one showing one of my daughters and her friend playing.

Using the longer zoom kept my camera safe from splashing water, but still allowed me to take several interesting shots. As I experiment more, I am figuring out how and when to use the different lenses. I definitely want to invest in a better zoom at some point, as I like the ability to reach out to 200mm. The difference between 200mm and 300mm did not seem like very much to me today, so I would be happy with a lens that only zoomed to 200mm as long as it did not get soft when zoomed all the way out. I may be better investing in another lens that goes to 300mm if it keeps the picture sharp at 200mm. Oh, well. All additional lens purchases are quite a ways off. An external flash is probably higher on the priority list.

I am reading another book about photography called John Hedgecoe's Complete Guide to Photography. Each chapter is very brief, yet still packs in a lot of information. It is also filled with excellent photographs that serve as illustrations for the topics discussed. There is SO much to learn, but I am hoping that just a few of the important concepts stick for right now.

For our class this week, we are going to historic downtown Parkville, Missouri. I hope to get some good photographs for my next entry.

Chris