The Boulder Colorado wildfire-published by the AP

kkart

For those of you who have been watching the news, there is a massive wildfire burning above and behind Boulder, Colorado which is burning out of control. And on Monday night myself and one of my friends who is also a shooter decided to go shoot it, from a distance. I mostly used my Tamron 200-400mm lens on my Sony a550 for these shots, and the amount of detail I was able to capture was not only impressive but dang scary too, considering the circumstance surrounding it. I came out, processed a few shots, and threw them up on twitpic (a twitter photo service) and twitter. The next thing I know, everyone is re-tweeting one of my photographs and it goes viral on the internet. best of all, it gets in front of those who matter and I am getting emails from places like the editor of The Huffington Post and The Associated Press asking me to call their photography desk asap.

The photo is now on the AP wire and is currently in use by several news agencies, including Yahoo News, AOL News, several regional and local newspapers, and all over the place. (in fact if anyone happens to see it in use can you link me, as I would like to add it to my portfolio or screen cap it? thanks!)

So I thought that I would go ahead and share these here with you all. The first shot is the shot that went viral and is being published all over the place. Most of these are long exposures around 10-30 seconds a piece. Keep in mind I was roughly 20+ miles away when I shot these with the Tamron lens. There are more on my website at this gallery here http://jdebordphoto.zenfolio.com/fourmile_canyon_wildfire

#1
This is the shot which the AP used

#2

#3

#4
Longs Peak covered in a sky of ash and smoke...kind of made me stop and think when I was shooting this

#5

#6

aj986s

Amazing captures! Setting the saddness of the events aside, its interesting how something so catastrophic can be so artistically beautiful.

For us newb/amatuers out here, can you describe the relationship/agreement that transpired between you and AP?

kkart

aj986s wrote: »

Amazing captures! Setting the saddness of the events aside, its interesting how something so catastrophic can be so artistically beautiful.

For us newb/amatuers out here, can you describe the relationship/agreement that transpired between you and AP?

Why thank you
The terms...I had to negotiate pretty hard as I have never been published by the AP before, but seeing as how I make my living with photography, I wasn't exactly ready to give in to their terms of a low ball price for a complete sellout including my © with not even a photo credit. Money is good, but my copyright and a photo credit are more important, which then allows me to make other avenues for income with the images, prints, displayed on my website, etc. So I 'dickered', I didn't get much but I did get what I really wanted with the shots and as the 2 photo editors said, "my foot is now in the door" with them. That is what really counts.

ian408

It's sad to see. I house sat for friends who lived just off Magnolia Road and am pretty familiar with the area.

I hope the best for all of the affected families.

Several good pictures of the scene.

kkart

ian408 wrote: »

It's sad to see. I house sat for friends who lived just off Magnolia Road and am pretty familiar with the area.

I hope the best for all of the affected families.

Several good pictures of the scene.

It is....it is incredibly sad...just a really beautiful area back there I have shot many times

Dogdots

Beautiful shots of a devastating fire. My son lives in Ft. Collins and I had to call him to see how the smoke was in his area.

Happy to hear you got your "foot in the door"

kkart

Dogdots wrote: »

Beautiful shots of a devastating fire. My son lives in Ft. Collins and I had to call him to see how the smoke was in his area.

Happy to hear you got your "foot in the door"

Thanks! Ya they said that smoke was seen and smelled all the way up to Cheyenne WY

WillCAD

Amazing shots! I certainly see why AP wanted to publish you.

I've done multiple searches on Google, Yahoo, and AOL, and couldn't find the pic. Not surprising, though - the massive gas explosion and file in California seems to have blotted the Boulder fire completely out of the news.

squirl033

wow... looks like something from Dante's Inferno! the city lights with the fires in the hills behind look like night photos from a war zone, or a disaster movie of some kind... congrats on getting on the news feeds!

ian408

WillCAD wrote: »

I've done multiple searches on Google, Yahoo, and AOL, and couldn't find the pic. Not surprising, though - the massive gas explosion and file in California seems to have blotted the Boulder fire completely out of the news.

There's not as much smoke here. From roughly SFO south to PAO, there is smoke hugging the coast range. Of course, here in the south bay, there is some amount of smoke (there's a sailor's saying that goes "the gate blows, the valley sucks" to explain why that is). Last night, I could smell the fires. Not so much today and the biggest difference is our fires will likely be out in a day or so--not so sure about even 10% containment in the Fourmile fire.

nowandthen

Having been up Longs, #4 amazes me. Good job.

kkart

WillCAD wrote: »

Amazing shots! I certainly see why AP wanted to publish you.

I've done multiple searches on Google, Yahoo, and AOL, and couldn't find the pic. Not surprising, though - the massive gas explosion and file in California seems to have blotted the Boulder fire completely out of the news.

Thanks!
Ya that is entirely possible, I did manage to get a bunch of screen caps when it was up though, glad I did!

kkart

nowandthen wrote: »

Having been up Longs, #4 amazes me. Good job.

Thank you very much

kkart

squirl033 wrote: »

wow... looks like something from Dante's Inferno! the city lights with the fires in the hills behind look like night photos from a war zone, or a disaster movie of some kind... congrats on getting on the news feeds!

Thanks, we were talking when shooting how the whole scene reminded us of Beirut in the 80s

kkart

ian408 wrote: »

There's not as much smoke here. From roughly SFO south to PAO, there is smoke hugging the coast range. Of course, here in the south bay, there is some amount of smoke (there's a sailor's saying that goes "the gate blows, the valley sucks" to explain why that is). Last night, I could smell the fires. Not so much today and the biggest difference is our fires will likely be out in a day or so--not so sure about even 10% containment in the Fourmile fire.

Ya this one is pretty bad.....I just hope it is out very soon, it is a shame to see this happen up there, it is such a beautiful area. I am just glad no one has been injured thus far..

coscorrosa

That is intense, some absolutely incredible photos.