Angel Thunder 2015 - Bundeswehr Kampfretter (German Pararescue)

About a year ago, maybe a little longer, I shot two spec assignments for Fire Chief Magazine. The first one (image on the left) was used as a 2-page spread for an editorial on safe driving for code 3 runs.

This image is of Gilbert firefighter Andy Larkin as he manuevers Ladder 253 against traffic on a 'med call' run. I was seated in the rear-facing seat, so for the 5 minutes we spent responding, I just was turned in my seat as far as I could go and snapping shots off. I ended up favoring this one because of that median and the context it gives of going against the traffic.

After we returned to the station following this call, I had another shoot lined up for the engine. The shoot with the engine was for a feature on CAFS panels and general CAFS maintenance. For the image set, the crew was gonna flow foam through an inch and three-quarter line, and the photos would depict Engine 2253's engineer, Scott Steil, as he managed the panel.

Well, the first image, from the ladder, ran as scheduled the following month, but the CAFS feature was shelved.

Yesterday, however, out of the blue, I got an email from Fire Chief Magazine's art director. They wanted to run one of the images (on the right) from that CAFS set in an upcoming editorial, so they wanted to discuss the licensing cost for the image, running it as a 1/2 page.

I was surprised to see the request after the amount of time that elapsed since that shoot, and honestly, totally forgot about it. So I'm looking forward to seeing the image in an upcoming issue.