This past Thursday there was an armed standoff in downtown Hutchinson. It started out as a hostage situation, but by the time I got there the hostages were released unharmed and the only thing being held hostage apparently was my ability to make nice photos and the time in which I had to make them. A man confronted his ex-wife, who had just enacted a restraining order, at the law office with a loaded pistol and took her and the other people at the office hostage. He quickly released the hostages but stayed holed up in the office with police surrounding the building.
Police Officer with very large gun.
This was my first time covering something like this and I wasn't surprised at how hard it was to make photos while there. The first thing that hinders photos is proximity. With the cops pretty much shutting down an entire square block around the scene nothing was going to be tight with a 70-200mm zoom lens. I tried to overcome this shortcoming by using contacts that I had made in this small town. It just so happened that the scene was right across the street from a downtown loft that I shot an assignment in earlier this month. I made may way the loft talked with the owner and got permission to get up on top of his roof to shoot photos down at the scene. The top run on the ladder placed outside was as far as I got before a SWAT member politely stared at me, shook his head, and pointed down. Well it was worth a try right?
Either way, nothing really happened for a few hours and then my photo editor called me and told me that I had to move on to an assignment to cover an art walk that happens every third Thursday on the south side of downtown Hutchinson. We did have another photographer covering the scene from the other side of the block, but I was caught off guard to say the least when I was asked to leave an armed stand off to cover an art gallery. I mean, I was ready to sit there all night and wait for anything to happen, that's what journalists do.
Granted, I was going to go shoot this event, edit my photo for the feature section of the paper, and then rush back to the scene to hang out for the rest of the night. But just like anything that one waits for a long time and then ends up leaving, it happened without me. Just as I was getting back from shooting the feature walking into the Hutchinson news building 9 bangs were heard rolling from downtown, flash-bangs. In an instant it was over and I was 3 blocks away.
Keep in mind, even if I was there I probably would not have made any decent pictures of the relatively peaceful arrest at nighttime, luckily no one was injured. But it's those kind of moments that as a photojournalist I live to be there and cover. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen whether I'm there or not, and I want to be there.
Cheers,
Brad Vest
I got pretty bored and found a double reflection of me, woot.
There were a lot of pigeons trying to get a better look at the crime seen, they were also shooed back.
This is the feature photo that I went and hastily made.
Listening to: The Strain, Blockhead
1 comment:
birdies + automatic weapons + art = hot
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