Lately, I have been leaving my cameras at home unless we are traveling or I want to shoot something specific. As I was walking out the door to head to Salisbury and Princess Anne for errands, something told me to take a camera. It was two levels up, and so my mind argued with my body about trudging up to the studio. Once there, I picked the camera with the most versatile lens (my other lenses were on the second floor in my camera bag).
When I reached the lower level and touched the door knob, something told me to switch lenses to my 70-200 telephoto, something that would have been more useful for shooting the below photos. That would require another trip one level up, and since my mind won the first the battle, I let my body win the second and so left without my telephoto.
Call it Global Consciousness, something I believe in, or photographer's ESP; I was forewarned that the immediate future held something that I needed to document.
While shopping at Food Lion, my husband came up and told me there had been a bad accident near the store. A bad accident it was, but luckily there were no major injuries. You can read full story in the January 18 edition of the Crisfield-Somerset County Times.
Thank you to the Princess Anne Volunteer Fire Department and law-enforcement officials for respecting my profession, even though I am retired. In this digital age, people try to capture everything with phone cameras. News photographers are trained to stay out of the way and still be able to get up close and personal. We know what is front of us, behind us, and can pretty much predict the movement of emergency workers, so please, unless you have special training, stay back and shoot from a safe distance.
My thoughts go out to those involved in the accident. Glad there were no serious injuries.
6 comments:
What a horrendous accident. It is truly amazing that no one was seriously injured. Without your photos, it would be hard to imagine the intensity of the fire.
Maple Lane: it was a miracle that no one was hurt badly. Though the photos look terrible the heavens
were looking out for those involved. The fire department did an excellent job. Kudos to them.
Whoo hoo! Food for the photojournalist soul.
Bagman: ah, words from the mouth of an old AP photographer. Always sad to have to photograph someone's tragedy, but it is in our blood, isn't it? Even though I am retired, if I come across news my local paper is happy to have it. I am so glad there were no fatalities. Had there been, I would have thought twice about posting. With the blogosphere, Facebook, and Twitter, people post without thought to anything. Everyone wants to be a photographer, but you and I know the people who pull out baby cameras and cell phones are no more than a nusiance and hindrance to the emergency workers and law-enforcement.
I work with the people involved driving the truck. can you forward me copies. your pics are great & we are all very happy everyone is ok. tsnyder@twgi.net
Anon: I am very happy everyone survived the crash. Looking at the photos one would think there would have been fatalities. I know your driver did he all he could to avoid causing more damage to others. They, along with their families, are in my thoughts.
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