What's New? I'm finding that some fire fighters are telling their friends and relatives about this website. Thank You! This site is for you as much as it is for me. I encourage you to get the word out. Make sure you ask whoever you tell about the website to take a minute to send me comments at the Contact Dexter button. Are you shooting digital or film? As of December 25, 2007, I shoot both. What kind of camera do you use? I own six Canon T-90 manual focus cameras which have been out of production since 1985. You can find these on Ebay for about $150 each. My lenses are: 50mm 1.4, 20-35mm 3.5L, 85mm 1.2L, 300mm 2.8L, 1.4 teleconverter and 2 300TL flashes. My primary digital camera is a 5D with a 24-105 4.0L IS lens and 430EX flash. I also have a Canon PowerShot Pro1 that I will use in controlled environments (not fires!). What equipment would you buy if you could? I would love to own a pair of Canon EOS 1D Mark III's retailing for about $4500 each. If I couldn't get the Mark III's, I'd like another 5D. The lenses would be: 16-35mm II 2.8L, 70-200 2.8L IS, 400mm 2.8L IS, and 1.4x teleconverter at about $11,000. And don't forget another 430EX flashes at $240. How do you decide what and when to shoot? The incidents that I shoot are based on my availability and proximity to the event. Once on scene, I try to get photos of emergency service workers doing their jobs, from set-up to mop-up. as much as practically possible, I try to photograph patients in such a way that they'll not be identifiable. Why do you have photos from departments other than Alameda County on the website? Usually, this will only occur on mutual aid calls. On the other hand, if I'm on scene, I'll take pictures. Once I have them, I may as well publish them too! Why does it take so long to download the pictures? When I have the film processed, I have the images put onto a CD as high quality JPEG files. I load the images onto the website as medium quality JPEG files so the images will look good on your screen. Don't forget that download times are also governed by your connection speed to the internet. Do you show every image that you take? No, I try to pull of f the really ugly ones, the out of focus and poorly lit. You usually only see between 1/3 to 1/2 of what I shoot. I'll often take two or three shots of essentially the same picture but this allows me to edit out movement and goofy expressions. Sometimes I'm really busy and post all of them though. Is there any rhyme or reason to how the incidents are arranged? Kind of. Generally, they're in the order that I think I shot them in. However, I'm not the best note taker and sometimes, I'm turning in ten rolls of film at one time with multiple incidents so I get confused. It also doesn't help that I often use two different cameras at the same event so the sequencing is also out of order. Can I purchase an image from you? All of these images are free for Emergency Service Workers to download and print for personal enjoyment. Most images that look sharp can be printed up to 4" x 6" on a good photo printer. I can try to accommodate you if you'd like to have pictures made using the original negative, but you'll have to be very patient with me. You may also purchase photographs and gift items with photographs printed on them from smugmug.com. How are you making any money from this project? HAHAHAHAHA! That's too funny. No, I'm not. That's not my objective. I pay for my equipment, repairs, film, gas, website and many, many hours of my time. If I feel the need to send you money just because I like what you do, would you be offended? Are you kidding?  But like I stated previously, I'm not in this for the money. So while I wouldn't be offended, don't send me money. If you see me at an incident, just say hi or thanks... Or better yet, invite me and my wife to dinner at the firehouse sometime. Remember, without her support, I wouldn't be out there with you. On the flip side, if you don't like what I'm doing, give me enough money to start a new hobby and maybe I'll go away! ----dexter