13 minute read
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE LENS
Press photographer Damien Storan talks to Adam Hyland about capturing the right image, ethics and the importance of context and professionalism.
“O ne of the misconceptions that the emergency services can have is that when they see a photographer showing up at an incident, they think I am there for the sensational,” photojournalist Damien Storan tells me. “Sometimes they will tell you that you have to leave, you can’t take pictures, but I always explain that I am there to take pictures of them working, because they are the story at that moment.
“I am absolutely not looking for the sensational, certainly not for pictures of a body or a victim. I’m there to find a way to capture an image that tells the story of what has happened, through the people who have to deal with it.”
While he constantly has to struggle with this misconception about his work practices, and even his mere presence at an incident, an ethical approach and high degree of professionalism shines through in Damien’s photographs that make him an increasingly recognisable and, importantly, trusted, presence
S/O Dan Fynes at the scene of a fatal house fire.
at a scene. Sometimes stark, often stunning, but always engrossing, they are proof of the old adage that a picture tells a thousand words. They also serve to illustrate exactly what he says: that he is there to capture the image that tells the true story, not to shock or disturb, and not to offend those emergency responders who are at times dealing with some of the hardest situations anyone can face.
PROFESSIONALISM
Recalling several dramatic incidents he has covered, he says his professional approach has helped him get the images he needs without being affected by what he witnesses.
“When you get to those scenes, you do have to take in what is going on for yourself, but then you say, right, ‘work mode’. Your hands might be shaking, but once you put the camera up in front of your face, it’s like you are not even there, you are in full work mode. If you look at it from the point of view that you are seeing it through a viewfinder, you can remove yourself from it to some degree.
“You have to do that. You obviously have to weigh up your personal safety, have an idea of what kind of pictures you want, or what kind of pictures a particular media outlet wants, and you just do it. You get it done, go back to the car and send them off, and it’s usually only when you get home that you have time to think, ‘that was surreal’. Sometimes when I look at the pictures, I don’t even remember having taken them, or sometimes I will notice something I didn’t see when I took it in work mode.
“When I get to the scene of an incident, though, I always try to imagine what it must be like for the firefighter or paramedic who is involved. I can be behind a cordon at a distance, trying to capture what is happening, but these people are right on the scene, dealing with it, and that is something I always try to portray,” he says.
“If I go to a fire, I am more interested in taking pictures of the emergency services working rather than the fire, because they tell the story of what has happened much more. You can see it in their faces. You can tell from how they look whether this was a fatal fire, for example. They might come up to me and tell me that this is a very sensitive scene, and I always acknowledge that and will never go looking for an image of something upsetting, and I try to get that across. I’m relatively new to the job, so maybe I am bringing a new mentality that emergency workers haven’t seen before, but for me, they are so important to the telling of the story at the scene.
“I think to some degree I have managed to get that message across to Dublin Fire Brigade members who know when they see me that I am not looking for a gruesome shot. There is an idea that photographers are trying to catch you out in some way, or capture the worst of the incident, but that is not true at all. For me, if I can capture emergency responders working at whatever they have to do at a scene, it is much more dramatic, and much more powerful storytelling. My pictures are about what is happening right there, telling the full story because they are part of it. That’s the human side of the story, not the flames or the smoke.”
STORYTELLING
There is, he tells me, always “that one shot” that captures the moment, which is what all press photographers seek. “Every press photographer or photojournalist will tell you that there is one shot that tells the whole story in one frame, it’s something you learn and find a sense for,” he says. “When I first started out, I was doing the ‘spray
Firefighters finishing up at a fire in South Dublin. The picture reveals the highly detailed inner workings of the tender at the scene.
and pray’ approach, taking lots of pictures and hoping for the best. You end up with 200 pictures, but none of them are right. But the more you do it, the better you get at framing things properly. If you can tell the story in that one image, you have a good photo that could make the front page.
“You aren’t looking for any one element, you don’t go there thinking I have to get pictures of the flames at a fire, or I have to get shots of the hose going into a house. It’s a case of visually summing up the whole story, an ability to see that shot that I had to learn. To see the bigger picture rather than zooming in on something specific.”
CAREER
Damien’s portfolio that has seen his images published in national and local newspapers has predominantly covered incidents involving the emergency services, but this has come about due to circumstances, having decided to become a fulltime press photographer just before the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill, meaning there was little to cover apart from emergency incidents.
“My entire career as a press photographer has taken place within the COVID-19 timescale,” he admits, “so that is a big reason why I ended up covering breaking news, because it was all that was going on – accidents and crimes. There were no events to cover, but maybe when it is over, I can start to do nicer things like events and concerts.”
An interest in striking images has been with him for a lot longer though, and while he says he was always engrossed in what was going on around the world, what really got him interested were the unforgettable images of the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and the Iraq War in the years that followed.
“The images from 9/11 are etched into all of our memories,” he says, “but I remember being very interested in imagining what it must have been like for the news cameraman who was looking up at the Twin Towers and captured those images. I remember thinking, that must be a crazy job.”
While doing a degree he admits he had no interest in, Damien started up a news blog in his native Limerick, soon realising that if he wanted pictures to go with his stories, he would need to go out, get a camera and take them himself.
“I saw it as my way of contributing to local news coverage,” he tells me, “but it was always a side project because I knew at that age that I couldn’t make a business of it, and with my parents eager to see me earning, I went into baking, but I kept trying to capture the news whenever I could. Then, by the end of 2019, I figured I was ready to do this full time. In January 2020 I did my first proper news story under another press photographer who showed me the proper workflow of taking pictures, sending them off, etc, and I knew for sure this was what I wanted to do. The next day, I quit my job, but within two months, we were in lockdown.”
Quickly getting to grips with Dublin and building up his own sources,
Firefighters at ground level watch on as a turntable ladder is put into position over a large industrial fire in West Dublin.
Press photographer Damien Storan.
A firefighter looks directly down my lens revealing his ‘Movember’ charity moustache while dealing with a fire one November night. A photo showing the technical skills of the Dublin Fire Brigade crews as they take a casualty from a roof in a flawless Hi Line rescue.
Damien soon became a familiar face at incidents, which is something he hopes will only increase. As with any self-respecting journalist, he doesn’t reveal his sources, but stresses the importance of acting professionally and building up trust with people who then feel comfortable in letting you know about incidents, because they know they will be covered properly.
METHODS
He is happy to tell me that he also uses social media to keep an eye on what is going on around the city, giving him valuable tip-offs about incidents he should cover. “I have an Instagram account where I encourage people to send me tips, and that works very well,” he says, “but Twitter is also an immense information gathering tool. It is obviously a massive platform, but I think it is still underrated in terms of just how useful it is for information gathering, if you know what to look for and how to piece the information together. You can easily find out about incidents just by using search terms properly.
“For example, you can find out that gardaí have closed off a road in Swords because someone tweeted a question to the AA, then you go to the AA Twitter account and see they have closed off a whole section of the road, and pretty soon you get the picture that there has been a collision or a vehicle fire. You piece together the different bits to get an idea of what is happening.
“It’s all about chasing the information, asking questions about what is going on around you, finding the small pieces of information and following them to the conclusion of knowing where to go to capture a story with my camera.”
MISCONCEPTIONS
This aspect inevitably leads to another misconception or misnomer about photojournalists and press photographers: that of being an “ambulance chaser”. In recent years, thanks to a film called Nightcrawler that features an unscrupulous video news reporter in LA, that particular coinage has also become more
common, but Damien’s ethos and approach means he is as far from this character as possible, but it has come up a few times.
“I didn’t see that film until after somebody said it to me,” he admits, “and as soon as I did watch it, I thought, ‘that’s not me!’ Obviously, there is the idea of getting to a scene first, and I have created a niche where I tend to work later into the night than most because I have more freedom but also because as a freelancer I can’t afford not to. That does give me a certain exclusivity in that other press photographers aren’t there at the scene as much as me. However, I’m not there to capture the bad stuff, and I stick to my ethics and common decency. There have been lots of instances where I decided that no, I’m not taking that picture, because it comes down to your personal responsibilities and ethics, and you have to gauge it at that moment.”
ETHICS
That unwritten ethical code is something that stands to him when it comes to the photographs Damien does capture, and is part and parcel of the work of most, if not all, press photographers or photojournalists.
“There’s no rulebook,” he says. “When I joined the Press Photographer’s Association, they didn’t give me a guidebook saying what to do and how. It comes down to the fact that hopefully you have been raised properly with a good sense of morals, and you know what to take a picture of and what to not take a picture of. You also have the safety net of picture editors and editors who will decide whether a photograph is suitable for print. That’s an extra layer of ethics and decency that comes in regarding press photographers, and with that there is also our professionalism and the ability to provide context.
“I know I am attending pressurised, sensitive incidents, and understandably you can see the faces changing in emergency services staff because they are thinking ‘here’s a photographer’, but I always try to explain that I am not there to take anything bad, and I hope I have proved from the pictures I have had published that, true to my word, I did go for the type of photos I said I was going for, the ones of the people working the scene.”
The context Damien mentions is something he also strives to provide in his images, and apart from the quality of the images, it is this that makes professionals stand out from bystanders using their mobile phones to hurriedly post images that haven’t been ethically checked by an editor before publication.
“Photographers have a very hard time, especially in the age of camera phones, but it is important to point out that trained and experienced photographers know how to tell a story with a picture, not just take a picture, in the way we frame it,” he says. “We can add a much more powerful context. I’m not a rubbernecker arriving on the scene to take pictures, this is my job that I do for a living,” he points out. “I will always provide the right context, not just the most dramatic picture that would give a wrong impression, or not tell the story properly. I have to be professional in order to sell my pictures, so be assured that I will always be professional in what I do and the type of pictures I take.”
That message is something he asks that DFB members remember if and when they see him arrive on the scene of an incident, and he welcomes contact from any emergency responders who like his images posted to Instagram @damostoran
An FF/P walks away from the scene where a car crashed into a house, holding the hydraulic rescue tool that helped free a passenger moments before.
