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A consulting gig on 15th and East Capitol, NE.

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4:06 a.m. – Engine 8 is dispatched on a single-engine local alarm for smoke in the area.

4:15 a.m. – Everyone else is dispatched to deal with what they found.

A great video clip can be found at this link; credit to Vernard Green on Medic 8 at the time.

(As usual, click for full-size images.)

Motir Services, Inc. is (was) a consulting firm serving the DC area; clients include The Library of Congress, Arlington National Cemetery, The U.S. Department of Agriculture, and a whole slew of DC government organizations. Their self-description reads:

"A MULTI-SERVICES FIRM WHOSE PRINCIPAL STRENGTH IS THE ABILITY TO TAKE THE WORLD’S MOST SOPHISTICATED MANAGEMENT SKILLS AND APPLY THEM IN ORDER TO YIELD ONE CONSISTENT PRODUCT – WORLD-CLASS SERVICES."

Perhaps the folks at Motir could offer some upper-management-level advice regarding the best placement of this ladder (not that Truck 7 needed it).

The fire eventually went to two alarms, and took approximately thirty minutes to control. At one point, there was fire to be found on every one of the four story building, including a large wooden lean-to structure on the roof.

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Do you know what the best part was? Nobody cared what we were wearing.

Alright, that's it. I'm finally going to bed.

/RL

Posted by on April 9, 2011 • Filed under: DC Fire, DCFD, DCFEMS, Fire Photography, Firefighting Operations, Fires, Major Incidents, News, Raising Ladders Photography

The Best Camera.

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Having misplaced my old, yet durable, point-and-shoot, I've been relying on my iPhone for my "work" camera. One of my dSLRs is too bulky for regular use; I find that the iPhone, while not having stellar image quality, certainly gets the job done.

You know what they say… the best camera is the one that's with you.

What's amazing about the advancement of technology is that the iPhone actually has more resolution than the first "pro"-level Nikon digital SLR (The D1, with a hefty price tag of almost $5,000 and a weight to match, sported a groundbreaking 2.7 megapixels). In comparison, my iPhone 3GS has 3 megapixels—I'll concede that the sensor size is different, but without going too much into the mechanics of it, it's still pretty damned amazing. Plus, I can do some post-processing in-camera by using an app called… wait for it… "BestCamera," created by photographer Chase Jarvis' awesome team. It's only $2.99, but you can get some amazing results with it. In fact, Chase's vision has started something of a neat community of iPhone photographers, whose work you can browse here.

Plus, this Apple hardware seems to have held up pretty well kicking around the inside of my bunker coat pocket, along with some door chocks and a few random tools. (Thanks, OtterBox.)

Regardless, it's always with me at work, and I enjoy those "ohmygodIwishIhadacamerarightnow" moments. Because I do! And I revel in going through my phone's photos every few months, because I forgot about most of the ridiculous stuff that's on there.

So here ya go. As always, click to embiggen.

 

Burn Foundation Fundraisers: a good excuse for firemen to get together and bowl at 8am in the morning.

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A poorly-built third story addition in NE… on one hell of a windy day.

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An early morning fire in our first-due area, from a few tours ago.

He had just put a new helmet in service that day, and said that he wanted to burn it up a little bit…

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Basketball, anyone? I think it adds a genuine Southeast touch to our firehouse.

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Potomac Gardens, up in Capitol Hill. An apartment off on the 3rd floor displaced quite a few residents. The woman from the fire apartment was (quite literally) dumped in my arms by Truck 7 for medical care, as she was found in the apartment with significant airway damage from smoke and heat.

View from the courtyard; the windows that weren't smashed out were coated with a thick, greasy soot.

I was pleasantly surprised to see other locals bringing coffee and hot chocolate to the displaced elderly residents who had to sit outside in the cold for a while; it looks like people from Capitol Hill have hearts, after all!

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Every firefighter in the city knows exactly what this is… but what it's doing sitting in someone's yard on Park Rd in NW, I have no idea.

Posted by on March 22, 2011 • Filed under: DCFD, DCFEMS, Fire Photography, Fires, Fires/Incidents, Raising Ladders Photography, Uncategorized

Photo Contest / Fredericks Training Days

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I’m extremely pleased and quite proud to announce that my photo submission for the 2011 Andy Fredericks Training Days was selected as the winning entry!

We received dozens of submissions featuring photographs from all over the country.  In the end the photo we choose came from Alex Capece who is a firefighter in nearby Washington, DC and a talented photographer to boot. While his photo didn’t show a raging inferno or a dramatic conflagration I liked how it showed firefighters moving a hose line.  A simple task that we all need to be proficient performing, and perhaps most importantly, something that speaks to Andy’s legacy — mastery of the basics.

A few weeks ago, a fellow blogger alerted me to a photo contest, the winner of which would have their photo utilized as the promotional poster for the three-day conference in Alexandria, VA. I sent a few of my best their way, and I received the good news this morning.

Thanks to Bill Carey over at BackstepFirefighter for the heads-up… the May 2011 conference has some great speakers (no, seriously… read this list) and is shaping up to be quite the event. Register to attend here! There’s deals on lodging, and the registration fee is a steal in itself for everything that you get.

It looks like a wonderful legacy from a great man—more info on Andy Fredericks is available on the homepage. Three days of learning more about the greatest job in the world? Plus helping out a heartfelt charity organization to boot? Sign me up, buddy.

Posted by on February 4, 2011 • Filed under: Fire Department Current Affairs, Fire Photography, Fire Prevention & Education, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Safety & Health, News, Raising Ladders Photography, Training & Development, training-fire-rescue-topics

Hockey Tournament Pictures – still up!

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They’ve been available for a few weeks now, and I wasn’t sure if all participating team members were made aware that they’re still up for sale.  Below are a few favorites of mine; if you see anyone you recognize, please let them know!

The gallery collection is organized alphabetically by team, and can be reached by clicking here or on any of the photos below. Enjoy, and thanks to all the participants for some great hockey!

/RL

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Posted by on May 8, 2010 • Filed under: Fire Photography, Personal, Raising Ladders Photography

RaisingLadders Photography on Facebook, Indy, and a few other items.

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I’ve finally put together a Facebook page for the photography business; with the increasing functionality of FB’s pages for services/businesses, it’s almost like you don’t need a home website anymore (don’t worry, I won’t be discarding RLP.com—I’m always wary of FB crashing and burning as it becomes too Big-Brother-esque for its own good).

Become a Fan/Like It here, and browse around a bit if you haven’t already seen the photos from the main RLP site. The NikonFest video I made is also up there—damn you, Facebook, for being so versatile.

I’ve created an ad, as well, so keep an eye out for that in your sidebars while you mercilessly stalk your friends and coworkers.

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FDIC 2010 is just wrapping up in Indianapolis; Saturday is the last day, and I regret that I was unable to attend. I will, however, be looking to head out to wherever they hold it next year with my fellow FireEMS bloggers; sorry I couldn’t meet up with you guys! A quick search reveals a whole menagerie of posts on FireEMSBlogs about Indy and FDIC; a few of note come from Backstep Firefighter, FireCritic, and Tiger Schmittendorf (with my vote for the most clever “I’m at FDIC!” title I’ve found yet). He was also the one who was kind enough to use my photos in his presentation—more on that later.

Edit: Damn, I knew I’d miss some cool stuff! Not the least of which is this sweet podium designed to look like the tip of an aerial ladder, captured nicely by FireGeezer (original page):

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Last but not least, Gizmodo had a neat tidbit on a new firefighter’s mask that they found; did anyone see this at FDIC?

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Designed by Jason Swartzentruber (and featured on the concept technology website Tuvie.com), all these features like GPS trackers, a rotating cylinder harness, and a voice amplifier are supposed to make us safer and more effective as firefighters.

Any thoughts? To check it out even further, you can find more pictures on the Tuvie site (also accessible by clicking the photo above).

Posted by on April 23, 2010 • Filed under: DCFD, Fire Photography, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Safety & Health, News, Raising Ladders Photography, Technology & Communications, Weblogs

DCFD Hockey Tournament

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Quick note: I’ve been re-building my photography website and creating promotional materials for several upcoming events, so that’s been taking up the majority of my spare time recently. In a similar vein, however, I will be photographing the DCFD Hockey team’s tournament, which takes place in mid-April. Teams are traveling from all sorts of places across the country to attend—past participants have informed me that it’s usually one hell of a good time. More information is available on the team’s website; be sure to keep an eye out for a couple of action photos posted in the near future!

Posted by on March 18, 2010 • Filed under: DCFD, Fire Photography, Raising Ladders Photography

Raising Ladders Photography, open for business!

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Phew. Between work and a recent house guest, it's been a little crazy around here. From a writing perspective, the past two shifts have been kind of unremarkable, so I don't have any crazy stories off the top of my head. 

However, enough interest was generated by an earlier post that I've been working a lot to finalize my business ideas, and I know that if I don't post this today, I'll never get past the constant "maybe I can tweak one more thing…" voice that lurks in my head. Check it out, think about it, and let's talk.

JPEG preview below just for a quick look, but lossy upload software from the blog (not my doing) has made it look a bit washed-out. 

Easily printable, high-resolution PDF available for download here:  Download Raising Ladders Photography 2009

Note: as long as your monitor has a properly-calibrated color profile, it should look just fine. I tested the documents with a few different PCs; some were horribly over-saturated, and it makes everything look all wonky. Just another reason why I do all my work exclusively on a Mac, I suppose.

RLP flyer Aug09
Posted by on August 27, 2009 • Filed under: Fire Photography, Personal, Raising Ladders Photography

Many thanks to WeLoveDC!

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My interview with WeLoveDC was posted to their website on Wednesday morning. (I'd have gotten around to this earlier, but I was working that day and spent the entirety of Thursday sleeping… it was a long night.)


Lots of credit is due to Katie, the interviewer extraordinaire, and also to Tom for originally picking up Raising Ladders.

And it's not a half-bad self-portrait, if I do say so myself. Clean portraits like this are surprisingly easy to set up, so I'd be happy to do a shoot if any local firefighters are interested; wives and/or girlfriends (haha, kidding) love this kind of stuff. If you're curious, see this post for more information and ideas.

/RL
Posted by on August 14, 2009 • Filed under: DC Fire, DCFD, DCFEMS, Fire Photography, Raising Ladders Photography

Projects.

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On the way back from a call, I often think that there were certain situations/moments that would have lent themselves very nicely to a photographer's presence. It's the potential action shots, mostly; but there are of course some interesting, compelling, and out-right ridiculous moments in this job that would most likely never present themselves the same way again (imagine actually being able to see the scene where the crackhead from a few weeks ago found out I was a rookie and stormed off. Images make any story better!)


I haven't been writing on RL for the past week because I've been working on a way to combine my love of photography with my love of this job; while not as extreme (and highly illegal, in the case of medical calls) as stopping what I'm doing to take pictures of stuff/people while I'm actually working, I'm convinced that there is a way to mix these fields. 

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On my off-days, I've been photographing events around the city (performances, a friend's wedding here or there… you get the idea). I've recently been updating Raising Ladders Photography, and I think it's time to branch out a bit. 

From a photojournalistic point of view, there's quite a few stories to be had within the fire service as a whole. Besides, from knowing a handful of people on this job, everyone loves pictures of themselves. I would get emails from guys in the Academy almost every weekend, asking if I could hurry up and post the pictures of them doing Academy stuff so they can show their friends and family. 

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"What'd you do at work today, honey?"
"Oh, nothing really…"

I'm thinking that I could turn this into a nice little portfolio gig. Whether firefighters want posed shots, candid shots of them drilling or on the scene, or even just technically accurate images of their firehouse/apparatus, I can provide them with that. Additionally, it would allow everyone to enjoy themselves at banquets, graduations, retirement dinners, company barbecues, etc. without having to worry about who's taking pictures of it all (Hint: people REALLY love it when you have a slideshow running somewhere of pictures as you're taking them. Yes, it's possible; it actually works really well for wedding receptions.) 

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Recruit Class 358 around the 9/11 Memorial at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

Photographer ride-alongs strike me as the most exciting possibility, because then it's just a fast-paced, "run-and-gun" scenario (thanks to David Hobby of Strobist for the terminology; as a former Baltimore Sun staff photog with an awesome website, he really knows his stuff). 

I suppose the only challenge now is contacting everyone with what I've been working on, and drumming up some business. So, readers, I entreat you: does this sound like something feasible? Leave some comments* if the idea strikes you as interesting, or if you have any suggestions for me!

/RL

* Seriously, what's with the lack of comments? Is everyone just here to shovel their faces with writing and skip out on the check? I know the posts aren't always great, but at least let me know what you think of 'em. Especially ones like this, where I'd really like to hear your input!
Posted by on August 11, 2009 • Filed under: DC Fire, DCFD, DCFEMS, Fire Photography, Raising Ladders Photography