Not Normal Is Good

It used to be called ambulance chasing where a few enterprising photographers would closely monitor police and fire frequencies to rush to a scene to make photos for a variety of purposes.

Sometimes, newspapers would purchase their photos if the crash was significant in some way. If the news value was large enough to justify the cost.

Sometimes it was more profitable to sell photos to insurance companies to help decide claims.

As a newspaper staff photographer in Florida, especially in Ft. Lauderdale, we responded to many crashes with most ending up having little news value and either not making a photo or the photo not being published for a variety of reasons. Still, we went to a lot of crashes.

When I worked at The AP, crash photos were few and far between. The story had to be significant enough to be more than a local story or a very unusual angle on an ordinary crash, like today’s My Final Photo.

I don’t go to every car crash in the city. Most are very ordinary. Cars banging together with nothing more than damage to the vehicles.

But sometimes, when you listen to the police and fire frequencies you hear something that piques your interest. Closing southbound traffic on State Street at Heatherdown sounded out of the ordinary.

The severity of the crash was mainly on the vehicles with airbags possibly affecting one driver who’d exited his car after the crash.

Parked in a nearby parking lot to stay out of the street. From the angle I saw the crash it appeared to be typical with no injuries. Still, I walked into the scene and saw the unusual in the ordinary.

Very unusual.

More photos from the crash scene are below for paid subscribers.