Two days ago, I heard the fire whistles blow for more than one company. I ignored them, went about my daily life and left the scanner off. What did I miss? Only a man falling on his mountain bike 100 feet down a cliff in a park less than 2 miles from house. Would it have been a paid photo? No. The local paper already has a few people who cover the "scanner" stories.
I should say, however, that I "was" published in the paper. For what? My Pulitzer Prize winning coverage of the local Christmas Parade in 2007. How cool, right? Again, sarcasm.
Last night, about 11:00pm, I hear those same sirens. For whatever reason, I turn the scanner on and I hear the words, "totally engulfed". Well, it was about a mile from my house so I got the 50D (better high ISO) and my 70-200mm USM IS (had to keep some distance from it - it was a FIRE after all) and headed down.
I'm glad I did. I got some pretty interesting shots. I posted them to the local news' Facebook pages and to my own page. Anything I can do to further solidify a position as an actual photographer is a good thing. Do I want to be running around at all hours of the night covering spot news? No. The guys here do an awesome job. Not to mention, they have job security.
Anyhow, here's what came of last night. I am only putting three up to conserve space. The rest can be found on my Facebook page: Heffran Photography.
