Could It Get Worse?

It was a bad day in Berdoo. I found my old friend Sponge Bob face down in a trash-strewn field in the pre-dawn rain, next to Pioneer Cemetery. You have to laugh or you will cry. This town is going through a very challenging time with violent crime. I have seen this type of scene many times with people over the last year or so, a couple only yards away from this very spot. The assignment where I had discovered this scene was to spend the morning getting soaked with the SB Mayor and a writer on a census of the homeless in the city. We were able to find one man who was washing a towel he used as a bandage in the rain runoff from the street above. He was tending a wound he received from a gunshot to the stomach and lost his colon. This is his home.

Mojave Marines

Much like my experiences at Fort Irwin, (see previous blog entry in Archive: April 2006) the Marines at the Marine Corp Air Ground Combat Training Center in Twentynine Palms use the Mojave Desert as their playground. I recently spent some time at 29 Palms to watch the Marines train in a live-fire attack and work on urban warfare techniques. At the same time hundreds were deploying and returning from Iraq. This is an emotional time for the troops and their families. It is always an amazing experience to be apart of it, to witness this chapter in U.S. history.
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MARINES

On the Spot

Spot news is an unplanned event that has a timely aspect and mass effect or appeal. Often, people do not understand this concept that a newspaper is trying to convey. It has to be of interest to many thousands of people. With the change in schedules at The Sun and the number of photographers there, I often will go a while without any spot news on my plate for as stint. Other times it comes in waves and I seem to see a lot in a shorter period of time. We, in Southern California, have had some unusual weather patterns of late. Overturned semi-truck season is usually around October. We seem to be in an extended season here in January. Along with the Santa Ana winds in Jan., high winds in the Mojave Desert caused dust storms along Interstate 15 to Vegas causing accidents as well. Apart from weather, a four-alarm fire of an apartment building in Grand Terrace broke out where 12 units were damaged. When I was called on this one I was already on the same street , the next city over. Being able to respond early to an event is 100% luck. Our coverage area is so large that getting to spot news often becomes a clean-up news feature… late. In case you did not know, firefighters who are published have to buy ice cream for the department... I sent these photos of the GT fire to a firefighter's trade magazine. I said I would buy, this time, if they were re-published, One firefighter acepted! This may cost me.

Nutcracker Access

I cannot remember if I have ever seen the Nutcracker, but I have photographed parts of it for years. This time I had a little more fun with it because, one, I was playing with that 50 1.4 again and I was interested in the process of the play, back stage and actors instead of the actual play. My favorite image is that of the toy soldiers watching the dress rehearsal from the audience perspective. It reminds me of a color Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1930s image. It has softness in tone and monochromatic setting in red uniforms and red seat fabric. The center girl’s expression of concentration takes the viewer into the moment. It makes me loose myself in the moment each time I look at it. The other shots are with the 14 at 2.8 and all at 1600 ISO on the Nikon D1h. P.S. a 14 mm on a Nikon digital camera is equivalent to 21 mm on a film camera.

Beautiful But Deadly

Stark Beauty: or Beautiful But Deadly. A trip to Surprise Canyon was just that, a surprise. I have traveled over much of the region specializing in the Mojave Desert and I only say deadly because places like these can bee if one is not prepared for the elements. This is one of the few places I have found that actually surprised me in its natural diversity and eco system in such a stark and generally inhospitable land. The other areas in the Mojave are: Afton Canyon, Round Valley and Providence Mt. State Park. Although, Round Valley in the Mojave National Preserve was burned during the Hackberry Complex Fire of ’05. I created a slide show of Surprise Canyon, which as I understand it, had a road through it at one time and Mother Nature took it back. The canyon is now the center of a national lawsuit by off roaders to be able to access the canyon again. I hiked in several miles with a little climbing up waterfalls with some water, trail mix and two camera bodies with a lens range of 14mm to 600mm and yes I used it all. The writer and I did not attempt to make the eight-hour hike to Panament Ghost Town at the top of the canyon.

Ballarat Ghost Town however is near the base of Surprise Canyon. With Rock the caretaker and his dog Potlicker, the grave of Seldom Seen Slim the prospector and Charles Manson’s ‘50s pickup truck. I started to use a 50 1.4 lens, see if you can pick out which images are from that one.

Suprise Canyon
Ballarat Ghost Town

In Memoriam

After covering wildfire for 20 years, the death of five professional firefighters reminds their colleagues and journalists alike the danger involved in an unpredictable disaster such as this. Anyone could have been with them that day. I tend to get close. Experience, professional training and FULL fire gear including a emergency fire shelter help me tell the story through images. There are many ways to photograph fire; very long lenses of flames and aircraft is one way. I tend to use a 20mm lense. I feel I always stay out of the way of firefighting crews, but I also try to show them as the heroes they are. I can do this best by showing them in the real situations they work in. I often think the general public does not understand. We all love to do our jobs out there. They died doing what they loved to do.

Report:
Even as investigators continue to probe the cause of the Esperanza fire, the blaze claimed its fifth life Tuesday night. Firefighter Pablo Cerda, 23, died about 5 p.m. in Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, where he had clung to life since sustaining critical burns over most of his body on Thursday, the day the fire started near Cabazon.
The fire itself was was fully contained Monday evening after a five-day fight covering an estimated 40,200 acres.
Also killed as a result of burns sustained that first day were Jess McLean, 27, of Beaumont; Daniel Hoover-Najera, 20, of San Jacinto; Jason McKay, 27, of Phelan; and Mark Loutzenhiser, 44, of Idyllwild.
Investigators worked both at the fire's origin on Esperanza Avenue and where the crew of U.S. Forest Service firefighters was overrun by flames Thursday on Gorgonio View Road in lower Twin Pines.
Authorities stood by their damage estimates Monday - 34 homes and 20 other structures destroyed. The cost of fighting the fire was put at nearly $10 million.
The San Bernardino Sun: 10-31-06

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Esperanza Fire Images
Full Story

Pointing To The Sky

Spending a day at the Edwards Air Force Base Open House and Airshow. I decided, in true Garry Winogrand fashion, to use a wide angle and photograph people watching the sky. Many people like 'people watching' and one co-worker said they look like they are waiting for God.

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Waiting4god