Sunday in Hawaii with Engine 101

    

     I photograph anything and everything, but when I was asked to shoot this Pearl Harbor based fire station's live fire training, I jumped all over that invite because what a privileged access. So I am glad to add Station 101 to my annual 9/11 In Remembrance 'Day in the Life' of our country's firefighters.
The day involved driving over to a remote burn house with two fire trucks, chatting about back in the day (since I went to the same high school as 3 of the guys in the station, graduated with one of them), and me going over 100ft up in the ladder for aerial shots (eep!).  
     The images pretty much speak for themselves so not a lot of story-telling or explaining needs to be done for my fire station blog posts, but I did want to talk about a few things I learned, mostly from Firefighter Daniel Pagan, who accompanied me for over an hour up in the bucket when the ladder was extended over the burn house. (And what a good sport he was in adjusting this massive thing we were on inch by inch up, down, back & forth, as I was trying to angle for the best shot as all photographers do, "Okay.. back...now, forward an INCH, now right... not too much.... no, no, okay down a LITTLE...)  lol.. Poor guy!
      A few things I learned; this burn house in particular could only withstand up to a specific heat degree or it would be damaged, so every now and then the guys had to wet down the internal walls. And also, firestation's swap guys apparently. I didn't know that, because evidently on this particular day there were several guys on duty from other stations. I also was told that trainings such as this weren't done all the time, maybe 3 or 4 a year. One of the most sobering things we talked about was the chirping alarms that the guys wear. I kept hearing them going off intermittently and asked what that was, Daniel said they are basically motion sensor alarms that sound when the firefighter who wears them isn't moving after a specific amount of time, so in the event something happens to him and he needs to be found, others can follow the beeping amid smoke, haze, etc. It reminded me of the many news footage scenes at Ground Zero on September 11th when both towers were no longer standing, and how all you could hear was the eerie, deafening sound of hundreds of chirping beepers, for hours, coming from the rubble. Surreal, indeed. 
     That being said, it was a great experience documenting this "A day in the life" and I was eager to make it the next blog post so others could see a different type of behind the scenes & prep, something they don't get to do all the time. Much thanks to my friend Lt. Joey Sonognini and the rest of the guys, who actually proved to be fantastic models who took direction quite well. ha! Hmm, They may have even liked it, I wonder...

 

All images © carrie hampton photography - do not copy

 

Gear used: Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 70-200mm 2.8 IS EF
Canon 17-22mm wide angle EF, Canon 85mm 1.8 EF