Five members of the Wandering River Fire Hall pose for a photo on a blocked off part of Highway 63 two hours north of Edmonton near Breynat, Alberta on June 7, 2010. The volunteers are Maureen Hagan, Jennifer Batiuk, Trisha Hatch, Sheri Johnson and Janet Snydmiller. The Wandering River fire hall is threatening to close down due to the high calls of traffic incidents on highway 63. Jimmy Jeong For The Globe and Mail

Speeding semi-trucks on highways scare the shit out of me. So imagine how I felt, lying flat on my stomach on one of Alberta's most dangerous highways. I just kept telling myself that the perspective would be better (see second photo) and that it will be worth if for a more compelling photo. It's about angles, right? The road actually rumbles and shakes when semis drive by. I kept thinking that they might pass back into my lane, not see me, and then run over my camera and my head along with it. One of the firefighters, Sheri Johnson, saw I was feeling nervous and then asked me to imagine what it's like for them when they answer a call on a pitch black highway and there's only two of them.

Good thing that these volunteer firefighters are a lot (lot) smarter than I am. They had a friend, Terry Wilkinson, with his AMA tow truck steer the traffic and close off one lane of a two-lane (passing) stretch of the highway. Seeing the fear in my eyes, one of the firefighters, Maureen Hagan was also kind enough to put a lot of flashing cones down. I kept insisting that she place more down.

I really think that they should do a reality show on this group. Even the Globe writer, Josh Wingrove, was saying that he could write so much about each of them. Here is the article that was written. And if you get a chance, please visit my website and let me know if you think I should add one of these photos to my portfolio.

The Technical Stuff: The first and third photos were shot using two Nikon SB-800 Speedlights on either side of the group. As usual, I first metered for the ambient light so that the scene would be about 2 stops darker to get richer tones especially in the sky. And then I brought up the lights on the portrait subjects. One eye on the group, one eye on the road.

 

 

Edmonton - December 12, 2009 - Montana Wolff Von Selzam holds a candle as other members hold up letters that spell HOPE as Community members, NDP MLA Rachel Notley, Council of Canadians, E-SAGE, Greenpeace on Campus, and the Sierra Club hold a candlelight vigil demonstrating Albertans' concern about people dying from climate change. PHOTO BY JIMMY JEONG for the Edmonton Journal.

-48 degrees (with windshield) weather didn’t stop Edmontonians from joining in on a co-ordinated 130-country vigil in hopes of some real action from the Copenhagen talks. I was quite surprised that so many people actually came out for this event. Didn’t they know that the Canadian Curling Trials were underway? Didn’t they know that my poor fingers were turning purple as I tried to squeeze every bit of available light on my Nikon D700 pushing the pixels beyond ISO 2500.

Or maybe they just knew that our newspapers are suckers when it comes to candle light vigils. There’s so much symbolism with that lighting of the flame. A shared hope.

The Technical Stuff: Shot with my trusty Nikon D700 at ISO 2500 (shot a couple at 3200 and it was still pretty clean) and a 50mm lens at an aperture of 1.4. I wish that Nikon would come out with that 35mm 1.4 already. I love the bokeh (the quality of the out of focus parts of the image) with a 1.4 aperture, but the 50mm focal length is just too tight for my style of bringing the viewer into the setting type of look.