Benning

Combat water survival test, Best Warrior Competion, Fort Benning, Ga.

 

The past few weeks have seen me laid up from a stress fracture in my left leg. It’s now in the tail end of healing and I’ve finally been given the OK to use the crutches less and less and the leg more and more. Soon enough I’ll get to lose them for good. (The crutches, NOT the leg.) At least, I hope so.

Because of the aforementioned injury, shooting has been limited and I’ve lately become much accquainted with the desk, much to my chagrin. So this go around we’ll use the way back machine and go back a few months to Fort Benning, Ga., and the Best Warrior Competition.

12-mile ruckmarch

 

Held yearly, the Best Warrior Competition is a physical and mental endurance test that consists of three days of little sleep, miles of walking, and lots of running.  (And that’s just what’s involved in photographing it.) Additionally, those who compete are also tested on a number of medical tasks and weapons related skills. After being awake, more or less, for three days each particpant then has to stand before a panel of sergeants major and answer numerous questions on a variety of subjects from current events to the history of the Army and anything in between.

Military Operations in Urban Terrain

 

Sleep is grabbed whenever and wherever those competing can grab it. Participants run the event on little sleep, mostly caught during downtime between events. They average about three to four hours a night.

casualty evacuation

 

 

Arlington

Awhile back I had an assignment over at Arlington National Cemetery. While waiting for the subjects I was actually there to photograph,  I shot two or three frames of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknowns as they performed their duties. I’ve been to Arlington, and to the Unknowns, countless times but it’s always impressive to watch.

Farewell

The Army has officially retired the UH-1 Iroquois helicopter. Better known simply as the “Huey,” the aircraft was the mainstay of Army aviation throughout the 1960s and 1970s and has become one of the icons of the Vietnam conflict, where it was first used in large-scale numbers. Though many pilots and crew chiefs swear by the aircraft, the Huey has slowly been phased out since the introduction UH-60 Blackhawk in the late 1970s.

These images are from a short project I worked on documenting the Huey’s last year in Army service. I’ve always thought it was a pretty cool aircraft and I’m glad I got to fly in one before they went away. So what’s the big deal about this? Equipment gets replaced all the time. Sure, but pilots and crew chiefs are generally a tight-knit bunch and that includes the aircraft they fly. There are a number of reasons why many in the aviation community have gotten attached to the aircraft.

For some, it’s the way the aircraft handled in the air. For others it’s the feel of the controls and the way the aircraft lifts off the ground. And for many, both pilots and the crew chiefs and maintenance folks that work on the aircraft, the simplicity of the aircraft’s design and it classic shape and features is what they like about the aircraft. Many pilots have said flying the Huey showed the true skill of the pilot as there are no on-board computer systems, no computer controlled flight systems and that the pilot truly flew the aircraft.

Since the aircraft lacked those computer systems, many crew chiefs and maintainers said that made the Huey easy to fix and simple to work on.

But for most, perhaps the most recognizable aspect of the aircraft is the distinctive low-pitched whump, whump, whump of it’s main rotor blades. Often, the aircraft was heard long before it was seen and as it got closer that deep thumping often became a physical sensation.

The Army’s CH-47 Chinook, a heavy lift helicopter, sounds similar, and in some ways carries on that legacy of the Huey. But for many there will be only one Huey.

And while the aircraft’s official Army designation of UH-1 Iroquios has largely been forgotten by many, some may not know the origins of it’s nickname. Originally designated the HU-1–for helicopter, utility–the nickname came from a pronunciation of it’s first designator. The letters were later swapped, but the name stuck. So much so that in later models the word “Huey” was emblazoned across the pilot’s footpedals.

This was quite the enjoyable project to work on. Especially since it required multiple flights in in the venerable aircraft–many of which still look brand new, despite having an average age of 40 years.

Bobsledding

Courtney Zablocki prepares for her next run while competing in the luge.

Those who compete in the sport of bobsledding are crazy. Those who compete in the luge are even crazier. And keep in mind those statements are made by someone completely willing to jump out of a perfectly good airplane while in flight. However, the thought of sitting in a fiberglass sled traveling at 80-plus MPH or on essentially a beefed-up Flexible Flyer as those in the luge do, seems, well, a tad on the nutsy side to me. And I mean that with the utmost respect for the athletes that compete in those events.

I’m not a sports person. I have zero interest in most sporting events and can only name a handful of professional athletes. If you’re lucky I can even name the sport he or she plays and occasionally even the team that individual plays on. So it’s with that background that I wound in in Lake Placid, N.Y., photographing team trials for those competing for a slot on the Olympic bobsledding and luge teams for the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics to be held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Shauna Rohbock races down the bobsled track.

Though my interest in sports , on a good day, is about the same as a passing glance, as a kid I did enjoy watching bobsledding  on T.V. during the Olympics. Watching bobsledding while standing three feet from the sled as it passes by at 80 MPH is a totally different thing. And I found I got excited as each team got set to race down the track. What was also impressive was the athleticism and passionate devotion those who raced put forth, though I think you’d have to have that to be able to compete at that level.

Shauna Rohbock stretches prior to competing in a bobsled competition.

While many may be able to name top football or baseball athletes, few outside the sport may be able to name offhand one of the top-ranked bobsledders in the world. It is perhaps because of that, as well, I found it so intriguing and interesting watching the athletes go through their paces. And, it was even more interesting when myself and my video counterpart were invited to dinner with several of the athletes–two of whom had competed and won medals in previous Olympics. Not only was it interesting to hear their stories, but it also gave me and my non-sports brain a little more insight into the sport itself. And, I have to say, I was a little giddy inside having dinner with Olympians. And I don’t mean that in a celebrity-obsessed, OH-my-goodness-do-you-know-who-you-are kind of way. More in a well, I’ll be, how did I end up here, way.

Courtney Zablocki gets ready for her luge run.

I was also surprised by the total unfettered access we had to covering the team trials. Most interactions I’ve had with  sports organizations at this level of competition have had a galaxy of rules on where I could go and when. Here, access-wise, it was like covering high school sports. Basically, we were told don’t get in the way. Though there was incredible access, the downside was that most of the track was covered because of weather, which left out being able to use the graceful curves of the track in any sort of compositional way. So, partly because of that, I focused more on the before and after of the competition rather than the sled going down the track.

Shauna Rohbock changes out the runners on her sled.

Lake Placid itself is an Olympic town still drawing off it’s notoriety as the home of the 1932 and 1980 Olympic Winter Games, and nowadays as the training ground for many winter Olympic sports. In today’s era of billion dollar sports complexes it was nice to see the simplicity of some of the venues that were used during those Olympics years ago. The 400-meter speed skating track, for example, was simply the high school running track iced over and it sits right long the main street that runs through town, something not likely to be seen in the Olympics these days.

But two other things are certain. It must have been a zoo in Lake Placid during the 1980 Olympics. I mean, it’s a pretty small town. And cold too. Even in October it’s cold.

Shauna Rohbock pushes her sled into a the back of a truck after completing her run.

Burn Out

Spent some time a few weeks ago at a big motorcycle rally while photographing something else taking place at the same location. I am by no means a biker–really, I only have a glancing interest in motorcycles, meaning that there are some bikes I think are cool (though not this recent craze of fat-tired custom choppers fabricated on certain cable television shows) and I’ve had fun the times I’ve ridden a motorcycle, that’s about as far as it goes when it comes to me and motorcycles and the biker sub-culture. Just not my thing.

And perhaps it’s because of my outsider status that I don’t really get the draw of the burn-out pit. The “pit” is really a roughly 15′ x 15′ area of a parking lot enclosed on three sides by jersey walls and with a metal plate on the ground. Riders position the front wheel against the wall with the rear wheel on the metal plate. A fresh coat of some sort of oil is sprayed on the plate and rear tire. The rider revs up the engine and holds the throttle open, the engine roars, creating a deep, deafening vibrato that echoes throughout and the area quickly fills with thick, viscous smoke from several layers of rubber having been burned off. The assembled crowd roars and cheers and the riders, if they create such a thick fog that objects less than a foot in front of you can’t be seen, are celebrated as local folks heroes.

I just don’t get it.

More Portraits

Just a few portraits that I’ve shot lately. Some are from assignments, some aren’t. Some were actually full-on, set ups complete with lights and all that jazz, others were shot candidly.

Lt. Col. Scott Mentges
C-130 Hercules pilot
175th Airlift Group

Sgt. 1st Class Jennifer Butler
1st Battalion, 640th Regional Training Institute

Kayla Kiley

Cancer Patient/ Pilot for a Day participant

Capt. Colleen O’Connor
Pilot
201st Airlift Squadron

Andrea Vane
Artist

Sgt. Ryan Brubaker
Infantryman
B Company, 1st Battalion, 163rd Infantry Regiment

Taylor Soucy
My Neice

Bang

A few months ago I photographed those going through Sniper School for the U.S. Army. While I would never want to be a sniper, the marksmanship ability of these folks is insane.

Most of these images are of the students as they went through an exercise where they had to move through varied terrain toward a specified target. They had to position themselves within 300 meters of the target and fire two rounds of blank ammunition without being detected.

Their target: instructors sitting in the bed of a pick-up truck in the middle of an open field.

Then they went and spent more time on the range, which is where they spend a good bit of their time while at the school.

Surrounded by Ghosts

Fort Chaffee, Ark., sits on the western edge of the state with many of the buildings of the Army post decaying in the winds that rustle the tall grasses now growing along once-neat streets and sidewalks. Built during the years leading up to World War II when the writing was on the wall that the U.S. would enter the conflict sooner rather than later, the post has seen a multitude of units and people pass through it’s gates including a young Elvis Presley on his way to Fort Hood, Texas, and Basic Combat Training.

The post is largely quiet these days. Still in use, though largely as a training installation with no units permanently stationed there. Units come for a few weeks at a stretch and then leave to head back to wherever their home station is. But, the post’s halcyon days can still be seen if you look with the right eyes.

Many of the World War II-era buildings sit vacant with glassless windows looking into darkened hallways and barracks containing 65-plus years worth of Soldiers’ stories, dust and memories. The sidewalks brush with ghosts from the units that were housed in those buildings. Floating along on the wind rushing through the silent streets one can almost hear the sounds of Soldiers from long ago shouting to get in formation. Or see Soldiers walking down the sidewalk, or hanging out outside of now-empty barracks. Jeeps can almost be heard rumbling down the same streets that now see no traffic.

The dun-colored paint is flaking and peeling from many of the buildings and there are just as many mysteries that peel away and shuffle past. What unit was quartered here? What happened to the folks who went to the field house for that pick up game of basketball that sultry summer night in July 1943?

The installation was in heavy use from the 1940s through the 1970s before being turned into a training base with no permanent units. During World War II, in addition to providing a training facility for U.S. soldiers, Fort Chaffee served as a POW camp and housed some 3000 German prisoners of war. Thirty years later, Vietnamese refugees were housed at Fort Chaffee following the fall of Saigon in 1975 and then many Cuban refugees following the Mariel Boatlift of 1980. Though there have been new buildings constructed over the years and many World War II-era buildings are still in use, the post seems to be throwback to days long since past.

At the old guard shack marking the main entrance to the post one almost expects a World War II Soldier to step from it to ask for identification, the architectural flourishes of the tiny structure hint of another time. Though, no such person is present and the modern security checkpoint down the road has an institutionally modern, sterile feel to it. No style. No finesse, and the overweight security contractor checks I.D.s with only half-hearted enthusiasm as the paint continues to peel from the old buildings and float along the passing breeze.

Iowa

After Thailand I spent some time in Helena, Mont., teaching a few photo classes. It was more of a week-long workshop focusing on visual storytelling. Fun stuff. I love it when I get to teach photo and that sort of stuff, especially when everyone is as engaged with things as the folks in Montana were. Though I was in Montana for quite awhile, I didn’t shoot a single frame, well, unless you count the images shot as part of the demonstration of using off-camera strobes to light portraits.

After that, it was back home for a week and then out to Des Moines, Iowa, to photograph a big training scenario for local police, fire and other first responders etc. Scheduled for a week, it was really only two days of actual hands-on stuff going on, and even then it was pretty slow going. The scenario was a train derailment in which various train cars contained an amalgamation of hazardous materials. There was also a whole sub-plot of possible criminal and/or terrorist involvement, but I never quite understood the whole thing. But there were lots of roleplayers there acting out the part of train derailment victim, and there done up quite nicely with fake burns, lacerations, bleeding appendages and even a few with fake missing limbs. Though while I was there, I kept thinking it really looked like one big zombie movie.

Thailand

Freighter leaving the Port of Laem Chabang, Pattaya, Thailand

Holy no posting Batman. Hard to believe that more than two months has passed since the last post. OK, so actually it’s not so difficult to believe. A good chunk of May and nearly all of June was spent out on the road or in the field. Back-to-back-to-back assignments and a number of other things going on outside of work/ photo stuff left little time for updating this thing.

Well, first I spent some time in Thailand. I was there for a little more than a week, which is coincidentally nearly the same length of time it takes to get there from the east coast of the U.S. Well, not really, but after 20 hours on a plane, it starts to feel that way.

I was there to cover disaster response and port operations agencies as they went through training. Did that, but there was quite a bit of down time, so we were able to go check out Bangkok and Pattaya, the two main cities that we were in. Thailand was not at all what I expected it to be like. I expected there to be more trash strewn about and much more obvious prostitution. Perhaps I just wasn’t visiting the right parts of town.

Bangkok. More scooters, mopeds and motorcycles than you’d ever know what to do with.

It’s like Chips, but no Erik Estrada.

Downtown Bangkok.

Outskirts of Bangkok.

Wading into the Gulf of Thailand, Pattaya, Thailand

Mending fishing nets, near Pattaya

Unloading freighters, Port of Laem Chabang

Firefighters training at the Port of Laem Chabang.

Firefighting training. I got soaked when a hose broke loose from the nozzle portion.

Firefighter, Port of Laem Chabang

And while in Thailand the world ended. Or, at least the sky looked like that was so.