helloMoni

An evening with Firefighters

Friday, June 20 2008

Driving into the city with Eva last night, I wasn't sure what to expect. I realized it was the first time I had ever showed up to a location to meet new people with the specific purpose of taking pictures. I've taken pictures of family, friends, events, trips, etc... for years - but this is the first time I showed up as a photographer. I can't explain how incredibly cool that felt. I seriously had to take a moment (ok, several moments!) to soak it all in. Since her husband is one of the firefighters, Eva's been taking pictures of these guys for years. Recently, they asked her for some new shots and Eva invited me to tag along. You'll have to imagine this - but my response was an enthusiastic "Heck, yeah!".

I experienced an incredible sense of family between these guys from the moment we arrived. When I remarked on my observations to Eva, she said that there had to be - these guys put their lives in each others hands every day. They were quite a bunch - welcoming and totally funny. I'm not exagerating when I say that I laughed as much as I took pictures - there were several hams in the group who LOVED to pose.

I'm still working on the post-processing , but here are two of my favorites:

Hey did you know that not all fire hydrants are red? I completely did not know this. Evidently it has to do with the amount of water pressure for each particular hydrant and they are color coded different colors throughout the city.

One final picture...thank you Eva for this one!