One of my favourite assignments of the summer happened because of my good relationship with the Redwood Meadows Emergency Services.
I was covering a training exercise with them when they announced that they were going to be participating in a water fight with youth burn victims on the last day of the Firefighters Burn Treatment Society's annual summer camp at the Easter Seals Camp Horizon in the Kananaskis.
I instantly realized this would make for a great photo spread and story.
After the exercise I spoke with the RMES Cpt. Evans and got the details on when the water fight would be.
When I spoke with the camp's director, Ian McKee he was happy to have me out to the camp but their was one restriction, I couldn't interview, name or do any close up shots of the campers.
I wasn't real happy about this since the kids are what make the story but I agreed to the restriction, I was just going to have to focus on the camp councillors and RMES personnel.
When the day came, it was raining in the morning and cold and overcast as the time for the water fight came.
The fight went ahead as planned, with one bonus for me, the kids all wore their ponchos during the fight.
This had the effect of obscuring faces in many of the photos and making it easier to show kids without having to worry about whether the kids faces were too prominent in the image.
The fight was a lot of fun to shoot. I wore a complete rain suit and made sure to stay out of the way of the fire hoses to protect my camera.
Only one kid tried to soak me and he asked first if my camera was water proof. I told him not enough for the bucket of water he was carrying and he moved on.
I didn't stay completely dry, on of the probationary firefighters poured a cup of water on my shoe, making sure I was included in the action.
-30-
