Shutterbug: Web Site Of The Month

A typical page in this site features thumbnail images of the devastation created by residential fires. Clicking on each one, produces a larger image, which can be, as seen in this example, opened within its own window.
Photos © 1999, David J. Reimer, Sr., All Rights Reserved

For the Web Site of the Month to feature an individual photographer’s work, I went searching for something different. If you’ve spent any time surfing the Internet, you’ll know there are thousands of photographer’s sites to be found, each showing various individual’s capabilities in producing creative images. In my search, I discovered many interesting sites that included something other than wedding, portrait, or glamour images. At commercial photographer John Durand’s site (www.johndurand.com), I found a section that showcases dramatic vintage black and white images of 1960s drag racers in action. Halfway around the world from Durand, Ron Solomon’s site (www.israelphoto.com) displays photojournalistic images made for the Haifa bureau of one of Israel’s major daily newspapers. Back here in the U.S.A., Bruce Keen’s site (www.keenfoto.com) features nostalgic color photographs of vanishing Americana, such as covered bridges, lighthouses, and barns. While these were interesting sites--and I urge you to visit all of them--I was still looking for something “different.”

I found what I was looking for at David J. Reimer Sr.’s Emergency Services Photography site. Reimer is a firefighter currently on active duty with the Kutztown Fire Company in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He’s an 18-year veteran and is the company’s chief fire photographer. Reimer is a free-lance photographer for the Reading Eagle/Times newspaper and his work has been featured in many firefighting publications.

People of all ages like fire trucks, but there’s more than just colorful photographs of such apparatus at this site. It is dedicated to those men and women who put their lives on the line to help others in times of need such as fires, tornadoes, and motor vehicle accidents. Photographs of this kind readily lend themselves to exploitation as can be seen by the popularity of television shows featuring attacking animals or car crashes. Emergency Services Photography, instead, focuses on images of firefighters and emergency workers helping others when responding to requests for help. Reimer’s images are arranged in 21 different collections, with categories ranging from fires in dwellings, barns, and commercial property to downed aircraft and even some great-looking photographs of contemporary and vintage fire trucks. Clicking on any one topic takes you to a separate gallery page that displays mid-sized thumbnails of all of the images in a particular collection--some of which carry on for several pages. Clicking on any thumbnail provides an enlarged view of the photograph--filling less than 1/6 of my 15” LCD monitor.

While many of these images are powerful, I wished Reimer would have made some of them larger. Since he offers stock photographs for sale, I understand any copyright infringement concerns he might have. Some web sites have started using EquitySoft’s ImageSafe program that converts photographs into Java “applets” which blocks people from copying or saving the image file. Since an applet is a small program executed within a browser, copying an image is much more difficult than grabbing a GIF or JPEG file. The only downside to using ImageSafe is that the applets it creates are not currently compatible with Mac OS browsers. As the popularity of this kind of software soars, I expect that to change. If you’re interested in learning more about ImageSafe and other web-oriented products, visit EquitySoft’s site at www.kagi.com/equitysoft.