Living with fire and ememrgency response

If you live in Victoria as I do, unless you have been comatosed for the last couple of months you would be aware of the Royal Commission into the Black Saturday Fires. Media and political interest often fuel these inquiries into disasters... because some has to be at fault... right!

Funny thing is anyone with even half a brain knew that we were in for one hell of a day on February 7th. A week of sky high temperatures, very low humidity across the state had already laid the ground work for a disaster. The Bureau of Meteorology forecast high winds and high fire danger days before. It was just a matter of when and where disaster would strike, not if.... Or at least that is the way our fire fighting forces should have viewed the situation.

Now the CFA has copped a lot of flak over its handling or rather miss handling of the days events and rightly so. We should however separate the CFA into two parts. The teams on the ground busting their guts doing everything in their power to save lives and property and on the other hand the administration and management division. One group literally laying their lives on the line every time they turn out to a fire or emergency. The other group charged with the responsibility of ensuring crews on the ground are trained, equipped and provided with timely up to date information, enabling rapid and safe deployment in the advent of a disaster situation arising.

The failures within the CFA appear to primarily lay with management. Failure to adequately ensure the CFA was ready to handle an event of this magnitude. Failure to have in place a communication system that worked. Failure to disseminate information to its own members and failure to provide any relevant and useful information to the public. Who by the way are not totally free of blame here. There was plenty of information available to suggest that there was a clear and present danger. We all have to accept some responsibility for our own well being. " Oh look Bill there's a bloody great fire up wind of us... awesome, now let's crack a coldie and watch the cricket".

Ultimately we all need to take responsibility for our well being. Choose to live in a flood plain, expect your house to be flooded. Construct your dream home on top of an active volcano, expect your life to reach new heights. Choose a beautiful, forested mountain area in South Eastern Australia in which to live and you will need to accept that bush fire is inevitable. Prepare for the day, don't expect help to come, be self sufficient, arrange your own defenses and expect external utilities such as water and power and phone to be cut. If the additional cost of providing your own protection or the worry and uncertainty are too much for you.... move.

A communication meltdown may have been due to an overwhelming event... But that's what disaster management is about, being prepared to handle events lager than normal. If we only prepare for day to day work loads, we are always doomed to failure as soon as work loads elevate to a higher magnitude. In this case we had an advanced warning of several days, in fact months. How would emergency services cop with a spontaneous disaster. A large aircraft crashing into a small remote rural community during summer. No chance then to think about chains of command and protocols.

Governments have to ensure that our emergency response services are in a position to immediately assume control of a situation. They must ensure that the people at the top of these organisations are capable of immediately initiating a chain of command, utilising suitably qualified personnel, not desk jockeys who collect a salary and sip cups of tea at a political level. Management figures who wilt under pressure, and fail in the most basic of managerial practices have no place in any emergency organisation.

However the failures of emergency response organizations pale into insignificance when compared to successive governments over the last 30 odd years, who have slowly eroded any advances made after Victoria's last significant fire event. The implementation of fire refuges to name one. Demanding management that is capable of performing their duty is another. We have a Royal Commission into this latest fire which from memory our Premier said "will ensure that this never happens again". I just wonder if we will have exactly the same reaction to a catastrophic fire event 30 years down the road.

If you think I'm being a bit harsh, take a look if you will to our emergency response to Swine Flu. Had this been indeed a killer virus we would currently all be dead. Could our already struggling health system cope with even a minor terror attack? Would our response be to meet the challenge head on, or would we, as in the case of Black Saturday, make provision to change the triage conditions of incoming patients . I believe you normally require burns to 10% of your body to be admitted to the critical burns unit, but I understand that was to be raised to 30% on Black Saturday. Although this was not implemented, due primarily to a high mortality rate with few people caught in the inferno surviving long enough to need hospitalization.

OK rant over have a great day.

Snake oil salemen.

While researching for a stock shoot the other day, I came across a website announcing an upcoming book by the sites owner. There was lot of hype about the books value to anyone wanting to become a real professional photographer. How buying the book would tell you the secrets of making huge amounts of money from this exciting new career. It would show you how to become a full time professional in a matter of weeks. We're not talking taking snaps at some wedding but flying the world to all the most exotic locations, living the high life and being paid copious amounts of money for you new found skills.

Sound good doesn't it! The funny part is though, I'd just read an article in a very respected international photography magazine by this very same person, bemoaning the fact that photography as we know it is over.... According to the author there are very very few big jobs around and they seem to be shrinking daily. Accelerated he believed by the current economic downturn. I guess the only logical thing for a photographer who can't find work is to write a book on how to make a fortune from photography. Sadly, this book will be snapped up by thousands of would be wanna be's, all hoping to share in an almost no existent dream. I think I'll just keep on doing lowly wedding snaps and pictures of people and not get involved in real photography.

Getting nude for the camera.

Our good friend Cate over at excite art, asked a nude art model for a models perspective of getting ones kit off for the camera. She posted the short article by an anonymous model this morning. Interesting read for anyone who has ever wondered about what the nude art modeling scene is like. See the excite art "Baring it all" post here.

PS Minimus, Wentworth, Australia.

Not the greatest image in the world but it brings a smile to my face each time I see it.This has got to be one of the smallest Paddle Steamers around. I'd call it a model but I'm sure its registered as a Paddle Steamer so that buggers that up. Funny thing is that apart from being tiny, the vessel is very well trimmed, and floats in the water just like her really big sisters. Must have been quite a feat trying to balance such a small hull with a heavy steam engine up one end and two people up the other. I've notice that a lot of the paddle steamers plying the Murray and Darling Rivers here in Australia, list badly to one side or the other. Not sure why this is, design or badly placed ballast.

Everything change, all stays the same!

Ok so I admit that the title to this post is confusing…. However the other day a client made a statement to me about how photography must be “so much harder for professionals now that everyone can take photos”.
Funny thing is photography has been available to the masses for all of my lifetime and most of the previous generation as well. Sure technology has changed but the actual concept, optical science and required vision have not. Most people today capture their images digitally rather than use film, but light still has to pass though an optical focusing mechanism before exciting a whole bunch of electrically excited receptors to create a picture. A wide angle lens still works much the same as it did ten, twenty, thirty or more years ago, as does a telephoto or zoom lens. Automatic exposure systems still get it right about 80% of the time as they did during the latter parts of the film era. Autofocus has been around for decades, admittedly it has advanced more rapidly since digital photography, that most likely because of the relative youth of the technology than anything else.

One thing that has remained constant throughout the relative short life of photography as a medium… is the photographers vision. From memory it was Henri Catier-Bresson who said something to the effect that there is nothing worse than a sharp rendition of a soft fuzzy idea. Ahmen to that.

A novel idea

Received an email yesterday from a prospective model, suggesting a TFP shoot. Traditionally a TFP or TFCD shoot involved both model and photographer exchanging their time free of charge and both parties gaining new imagery for their respective portfolio's. Nothing new photographers and models have been exchanging time for years, sometimes beneficially to both, mostly one will loose out because of wildly differing levels of talent.
Yesterdays proposal was different however as our model intended to charge her full rate for a her services, while in return I was to supply her with a full set of fully retouched images for her use along with full copyright of all images. Maybe just maybe I would have gone with it if she was bringing something to the table.... such as lots of photographic experience, a distinctive look or even a novel idea... but no, despite her claim to have worked with all best photographers in the world, her portfolio showed only crappy, happy snap photos obviously taken by raw beginners.

Reluctantly we politely declined her kind offer....

When is art not art?

Now I’m not going to get into this one. I’ve never been a big supporter of the idea of labeling any photographic works as “art” or “fine art” or my favorite of all time “fine art nude”. In fact I’ll be honest and tell you that I have no idea what art is!

Years ago it was a common belief that photography couldn’t be art because it was to easy. Everyone could take a photograph, so photography couldn’t be art. Then if you take that tack, my argument would be that I have a welder and a pile of scrap metal in my shed, which in a few short minutes I could turn into a sculpture, an art form supported by those early detractors of photography as an art. I can however, guarantee that my sculpture would not be art.

So why bring up this subject again? A post on one of the photographic forums recently, once again arguing the case for photography to be considered art. The discussion trotted out all the old arguments for and against, with the exception of one lone voice, who in a tirade of venomous abuse which I won’t repeat here, declared that any photographer charging for his work couldn’t call himself and artist, because the act of accepting money for art, stopped the works from being art.

How much does your $700 wedding package cost?

Yep believe it or not that was my favorite phone call question this week. I guess I'll have to think about the answer for a bit... now let me see... could the answer be $700..
Nah... gotta be a catch somewhere.

excitations stock

excitations stock

excitation stock today published a gallery of stock photos from the Mildura 100 Ski Race.

Whistling Kite (Haliastur sphenurus)

Here's a shot that I've been going to do for way to long. You know how it is, you see the image or opportunity but just don't get around to shooting it. Well this week I had a go, and yes I'll have to do some more work on it, for a first go I'm happy. Image created with a Cannon 1D IIn with a 100 - 400 piece of glass extended out to about 320mm. The rig was locked off on a predetermined focus point and fired remotely by a couple of Pocket Wizards.
Now all I have to do is hope my friend will continue to cooperate. The Whistling Kite (Haliastur sphenurus)and his family are a regular sight above our studio complex, swinging by most days to check out the available food supply and occasionally to say g'day.
One of the family will often answer to Robyn's mimicking of their calls. And of late we've noticed that they will come up to some trees near the studio just to keep and eye on what we're up to and I suppose remind us that they are around and would really like some lambs hearts put out for them to swoop on and carry off to a nearby tree.