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

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.

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.

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

]]> http://raisingladders.com/2010/05/hockey-tournament-pictures-still-up/feed/ 0 http://raisingladders.com/2010/04/raisingladders-photography-on-facebook-indy-and-a-few-other-items/ http://raisingladders.com/2010/04/raisingladders-photography-on-facebook-indy-and-a-few-other-items/#comments Fri, 23 Apr 2010 19:04:44 +0000 raisingladders http://raisingladders.com/?p=511

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?

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).

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!

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.