Fw: Documentary Photographs
F stop 6.3 Exposure time 1/800 sec ISO 100 Focal Length 300 mm U.S. Navy to the Rescue Ken, Here is this weeks thoughts. It was an exciting week! Photographic Thoughts Volume II February 18, 2013 Documentary Photographs
By Paul Calkins © 2013 Bellaartandphoto.com
Life often presents us with unexpected and unplanned opportunities. You can start your week, with thoughts of going to the World Agricultural Exposition, in Tulare, California. I had dreams of photographing 2.6 million square feet of exhibit spaces of the world's largest agricultural exposition. I wanted to take in the new building that replaced one of the giant exhibit spaces of the old Pavilion C tent. To the non-farm community a 60,000 square foot, insulated, cement floor, steel building does not sound like a big deal, but in farm country it is. This exposition is a photographers dream; you can find farm machinery, sustainable soil fertility products, irrigation pipe, remote surveillance camera displays, asset trackers, Radio Frequency Identification Tags, silage processors, choppers, and robotics for the dairy! One day I want to go, and take in the opening ceremonies that includes an honor guard, national anthem, and of course a fly over of the Naval Air Station, Lemoore F-18 Hornet formation. The thought of that alone is enough to give me goose bumps, and thoughts of how to catch those magnificent machines in flight. Maybe next year I will be able to do all this. "Can you come up and photograph a search and rescue exercise?" It was a request from the Emergency Management Officer, Naval Air Station Lemoore. I would be doing documentary photography to record the exercise. The newly commissioned Search and Rescue Unit the Wranglers would be training, honing skills necessary to rescue downed Hornet pilots, civilian hikers, climbers, and natural disaster victims. Their job is to go into harm's way to save lives. I was thrilled at this assignment to say the least. I checked my camera batteries, camera kit and I headed for the rendezvous point. From my background and training I would fill a position in the Planning and Intelligence section of the Incident Command staff. Once on site I checked with the Safety Officer, lives of the air crew, simulators, exercise evaluators, and observers depended on this young officer. I followed his directions explicitly; I would stand and move where he directed me. As noted in the previous article on January 21st of 2013 I was so impressed by the exercise and all that was going on that at its end I had five hundred shots! I would like to thank Rainer Streib, and the Wranglers for this opportunity.
Thanks for listening.
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posted by kenreport @ 1:04 PM
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