Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1898-09-08

|
Stirring and Picturesque Scenes Caught
by Amateur Firegoers.
There are in the city amateur
photographers who make speciality
of fires, but whose Photographic in
terest in fires is, after all, but sec
ondary. They are primarily inter-
ested in fires and firemen. They are
firegoers, and with them, though
they may be well advanced in the
art, photography but adds to the in-
terest they find in fires and serves
for the preservation of stirring
scenes OF wonderful fire and smoke
effects and of the working of the fire
department under all sorts of condi-
tions.
There are probably not more than
half dozen of the fire photogra.
pliers here referred to. Many pho.
tographers at one time and an
other get picture of fire, but only
casually, as opportunity presents. A
fire is not like scenery, or house,
or bridge, that one can go out and
photograph when one wants to or
when the conditions are favorable,
but it springs up unexpectedly at all
sorts of hours and in various places,
and to get photograph of it one
must have knowledge of the fire,
freedom of movement and camera
always at hand, besides command of
facilities for work after getting to
the fire. These requirements neces-
sarily limit the fire photographers
to very small number, confined to
the ranks of fregoers.
There is probably no man whose
blood is not stirred by the sight of
fire engine dashing along the street
to fire. Everybody is fascinated
by the spectacle of the fire itself; all
are interested in the fire department
and its work and everything pertain
ing to it. There are some for whom
these things have absorbing interest.
These are the firegoers, with an in
tense interest in the fire department.
and in everything belonging to it
and a like interest in fires.
| The firegoer may be a business
man. He is likely to be man whose
| time is more or less at his own COM
mand, who can come and go as he
pleases. Of course he has a fire
badge, SO that he is free within the
| fire lines. He is familiar with the
working of the department. An ap-
paratus going along the street has
for him significance quite beyond
that which it would have even for
one interested in such subjects, but
not familiar with them. There are
various things about the movements
of apparatuses that to him convey
definite information.
If the tiregoer is also an amateur
photographer, he has camera at
his place of business or his office
ready, but he photographs many
other things about the department
besides fires. He has, for example,
a picture of the men turning out on
an alarm, the scene in the bunk
room, with the tiremen jumping out
of bed. He has pictures of the hook
ing up in the engine house, with the
horses dashing for their places, and
pictures of speed exhibitions taken
at public displays of the department
and pictures of drilling men, men
jumping into nets, and that sort of
thing.
At the fire he may take, besides
pictures of the fire itself, picture
of big stream, of course, with the
pipe and the men holding it. One
who looks at series of such pic
lures realizes right away that he is
looking at something out of the ordi-
nary. The fire photographer takes,
perhaps, picture of the fire line,
with the policemen holding the peo-
pie back, and the men and the boys
composing 1.-THE fire line that ev-
. erybody has seen. On d still day he
takes smoke effect-a fire engine
with great masses of white smoke
rolling up from the smokestack and
broadening out into great, rolling
plume above.
After the fire he may take pictures
of the wrecked buildings or of a
striking interior He takes next day,
, it may be, the burned building as il
looks covered with playbills. 1t is
not always possible to get satisfac-
tory picture of the fire. 1t is com.
paratively easy to get good pictures
of the incidental happenings. Alto
gether such pictures make a series
of great interest. The photographer
gives copies to his friends, and some
times he has them mounted as Ian.
! 1ern slides. Thus enlarged and
e thrown upon a screen, they make
pictures of most striking and in
, teresting character. New York