8 Dead In Illinois

I have sad news to report in this blog. There have been more notable deaths here in my home state of Illinois and it's a sad occasion to write about. Over the weekend, there were two separate fatal incidents involving cows and automobiles and I just had to tell about this senseless tragedy.

At approximately 7.50 p.m. on Sunday, January 11th, 2009, cows belonging to West Farms got loose onto Route 141, at the intersection at Cottonwood Road. In the first incident, a van with six occupants collided with the herd of cows, leaving 5 dead and 1 injured. No injuries to any of the motorists were reported, but one cow, who should have been life-flighted for further attentions, was dispatched by one of the responding officers. Then, later in the night and further down the road apiece just east of the first scene, at approximately 12.20 a.m., a second crash occurred involving a tractor-trailer which hit and killed two cows. About a dozen cows were loose in the second incident and officers from four different departments, including one fire department, were employed to corral the loose cows and reroute traffic. Illinois Department of Transportation crews were on the scene the next morning to retrieve the bodies of the dead victims. Pending notification of the families of the deceased, no names have been released except one. Bossie the Cow, aged 5 1/2, was one of the victims of the second accident and will be missed by all who loved her and her milk. Your ever-roving photographer managed to capture this image at the scene of the second tragedy:

Now, if I can just locate Crosby, Stills and Nash's e-mail address. I have a good song idea for them.

Being There

As I have mentioned before in this blog, I cover all sorts of newsworthy events, photographically speaking of course. Some of the shots I take make it to the front pages, some don't. Here are a few recent ones from both categories.

Now, here's one that I really worked hard to get published. But it happened to come on a weekend that was rife with local news items. So many so, that there just wasn't room for this Life Flight Helicopter action shot. Such is the newspaper game - old news is not important any more. Still, I thought it was a good picture and should see the light of day. Therefore, here it is.

Previously I have shown some automobile accidents that were published in my local papers. Well, here are two more, one that got published and one that didn't. The one above almost resulted in my death. Shocking!? Well, as regular readers of my blog know, I am an avid Butterfly photographer. It doesn't show in this picture, but just on the other side of this car is a culvert that I had been in earlier that day because it seems to attract several different species of Butterflies. The smashed car pictured was involved in an accident four blocks up the road on the left and it had lost it's braking ability. So, as it careened faster and faster out of control, the teenage girl driving it felt that the only way to get it stopped was to pull it into a ditch off the side of the road. Well, she hit the culvert and flipped her car over until it was almost facing the way from which it had come. I was about a hundred feet on the other side of the road by this time, along the edge and happened to look up as it pounded into the culvert and came to rest like it sits. Naturally, I had my camera in my hands. It was a story that literally fell into my hands.

This is another accident that I heard about over my scanner and hopped over to cover it. It didn't result in a sale, because I think it involved the local police. The other vehicle was our town cop car and although it doesn't show, was damaged even more than this car. I have since found out that the editor of my hometown paper quit her job because of differences with City Hall. And City Hall hires the police officers here. I wonder if there is any correlation between these two facts and the fact that this story didn't get picked up? The world may never know. You decide.

The two pictures, above and below, were part of the massive fire that struck the "biggest little furniture store in Southern Illinois," in tiny Omaha, Illinois. It was so big, it took out the buildings and businesses along a whole city block. The coverage it got spanned several different local papers, and the one that picked up my two pictures also had photographs from a couple other photographers to suppliment the story because it was so big.

This was another fire I covered, and I found out about it because the fire trucks went screaming right past in front of my house. I naturally followed them and arrived at this scene. Fire departments from four or five neighboring communities were involved, but unbeknownst to me, my local paper had sent a photographer, too, which I didn't notice and therefore they didn't need my shots. They were just too good to waste, though. And their shots didn't turn out near as good as mine - what can I say?

I seem to attract danger. The reason I say this is that the above house fire happened right across the street from my home. Naturally I got full coverage of it. This picture was carried by one nearby newspaper, but not by my local one. They sent somebody else late in the event and I thought their pictures weren't near as good as mine. But, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

This was another fire that happened just about 3 blocks from my home, and although the photo didn't get picked up, I still wanted to publish it here in my blog so that our local fire fighters can get the recognition they so justly deserve. They are an all-volunteer group and are always there on the spot in record time. They keep our small town very safe! I have shown their smiling mugs on a previous post, so you can see them if you'd like to know what they look like.

This picture was of one of our local events, the annual Fairfield Bluegrass Festival. I just posted it to show that death and destruction isn't the only thing I cover.

Well, that's it for another exciting post! Be sure to stay tuned for more. I might post something just a little less intense the next time, though.

Stop The Presses!

Back in my early career as a budding photographer, I got my start capturing newsworthy events around my area as they unfolded. To find out exactly how and why this began, one would have to recall that old program called Lou Grant, which was on television in the late 1970's/early 1980's. In it, there was one character, the staff news photographer, who was simply called Animal. It was also along about this time, 1978 or so, that I began freelancing and my pictures were used by most of the local papers around me. I even became intimately acquainted with a handful of different said local newspaper's darkrooms, too. So, naturally, I acquired the nickname of Animal, which suited me fine, and I started following my nose to any newsworthy events I could find.

Daryl Anderson as Animal

Something that will always liven up the front page of a small, hometown paper, is the sight of a burning house or automobile accident. Of which, there have always been, and forever will be, too many. I have scoured my files and chosen just a few of the noteworthy images that have made the front pages and that, to this day, has somebody somewhere still calling me Animal. Maybe in a future blog, I'll post some more recent events that I have captured with one or the other of my cameras I use and have sold to one of those same local newspapers.

Before.... (above) And after.... (below)

Burn It Down

Here is an article I wrote recently and it made the front page of one of my local newspapers. The accompanying pictures were ones I took and they wanted to run a third one, too, but didn't have the column space. So, I will include it along with another one I wish they had used. The article following is what I submitted. But following the pictures is the one they edited and used.

Controlled Burn

Several citizens gathered Saturday afternoon to witness a house burn down. What was unusual about this particular empty residence located on the 100 block of West Main Street was that it was intentionally set on fire. The Norris City Fire Department was participating in a controlled burn to bring the house down. Assisting them were members from several other departments, including the Omaha, Enfield and New Haven Fire Departments.
All volunteers present were seen to work together in an extremely coordinated offert and once all the safety equipment was in place, a lone fireman entered the building at 2.15 p.m. and started the blaze. Fire erupted from a nearby window almost immediately. The smoke from the ensuing conflagration could be seen for miles and a cloud hovered directly over the heart of Norris City for a brief while. The fire raged fast, and with precision, the crew brought the house down to a smoking pile of rubble in less than an hour. By 3 p.m., all that was left standing was the front door frame and an old refrigerator that sat inside the house. Due to their skill, there was not a single injury or any damage to the nearby buildings.
Afterwards, when all the danger of any possible spread of the fire was removed, the fire crews gathered for a group photo. If you see any of these brave volunteers, please thank them for making our communities a whole lot safer.

These two pictures are the ones they used, but were naturally converted to black and white dot-matrix. The Editor wanted to use this one, but due to lack of space, couldn't:

And here's one that I thought would have looked good and been descriptive at the same time:

But, they didn't use it. What they did do, however, was to edit my story. Here it is as it was published and renamed:

Firefighters Burn It Down

Saturday afternoon, the Norris City Fire Department led a controlled burn and training session, that included the removal of a house located at 108 West Main Street in Norris City. The structure was used as a training site to improve skills in search/rescue, ventilation, nozzles and water streams, overhaul, and forcible entry techniques. At approximately 2:15 p.m., a lone fireman entered the house and started the blaze. Fire erupted from a window almost immediately. Smoke could be seen for miles, a cloud hovered directly over the heart of Norris City for a brief while. The fire raged fast and with precision, the crew brought the house down to a smoking pile of rubble in less than an hour. By 3:00 p.m., all that was left standing was the front door frame and an old refrigerator that sat inside the house. Due to their skill, there was not a single injury or damage to the nearby buildings.

Assisting Norris City were members from Omaha, Enfield and New Haven Fire Departments.

If you see any of the brave volunteers pictured above, please thank them for making our communities a whole safer.

So, there it was! All in all, I was proud to have my name attached to it. The firefighters were kind enough to pose for a portrait after the fire was extinguished and a copy of that picture hangs in the fire department today. I'll close this post with an old joke about Editors.

Three men: an editor, a photographer, and a journalist are covering a political convention in Miami. They decide to walk up and down the beach during their lunch hour. Halfway up the beach, they stumbled upon a lamp. As they rub the lamp a genie appears and says "Normally I would grant you three wishes, but since there are three of you, I will grant you each one wish."
The photographer went first.

"I would like to spend the rest of my life living in a huge house in St. Thomas with no money worries." The genie granted him his wish and sent him on off to St. Thomas.
The journalist went next.

"I would like to spend the rest of my life living on a huge yacht cruising the Mediterranean with no money worries." The genie granted him his wish and sent him off to the Mediterranean.
Last, but not least, it was the editor's turn. "And what would your wish be?" asked the genie.
"I want them both back after lunch" replied the editor, "the deadline for tomorrow's newspaper is in about ten hours.