Firefighter Photos

Vycor

So I decided to try tone mapping some old photos i've taken of firefighters over the years. I like how some of these look... i went for a "painting" feel, something cartoonish in a few that id like to see hanging in a fire department entranceway or something... something a little different then my normal pics on my site (www.fdphotos.net) - Let me know what you all think:

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adbsgicom

Dang! Those are incredible images. Do the firemen just know you, or they don't really mind (or are used to) folks hanging around taking pictures of them working?

Vycor

I'm one of a few photographers in the area who take photos of the departments. 9/10 departments don't mind at all, they love seeing the shots themselves.

goldilocksandmy3bears

Vycor wrote:

I'm one of a few photographers in the area who take photos of the departments. 9/10 departments don't mind at all, they love seeing the shots themselves.

Those are awesome shots. How did you achieve the cartoonish painting look?? Do you mind sharing your processing technique??

Vycor

I have a tone mapping program I use when I combine photos for HDR... i just converted my photos to 32 bit, ran the tone mapping program and played with the levels until I liked the "cartoonish" look... then i re-converted it back to 8-bit and saved it.

Sometimes the solid white (like the smoke on the roof in one photo) disapears because the filter gets confused... but its still a neat look to play with.

TangoJuliet

Very nice. #'s 2 and 3 are my fav's.

wvrocks

First, I like the PP and think it would work nicely for your intended purpose of hanging them in a FD.

As a FF, 6 and 7 speak to me the most. I like the visible teamwork aspect. Them against "it". As I'm sure you know, most FD's are like families and its cool to see everyone working toward a common goal. I think if 7 had visible flame it would be even better but that might have required a different crop and taken focus off the group.

I wish there was a way to show faces and still be able to tell what's going on in the direction they are facing. Of course that would put you between them and the fire and I would guess that's not going to happen. Maybe a reflection in a scba mask would capture that but its still probably a tough and potentially unsafe shot to get on an active fire ground.

Time to pull that ladder in 5. The roof is vented.

Good stuff.

Vycor

I think they gave up on the ladder which is why its there, lol... they had a few buckets operating and hit this house from both sides of the street (went in from the rear houses yards, through the fence)

sweet caroline

These would look really cool printing on metallic paper.