"STASH"
"STAY BACK 300 FEET"
My portrait of the firefighter known as “Stash” is unique in that I not only didn't know him but it was also my first night in town and I didn't know anyone else either. That lonely combination produced a picture with a lot of my own personality in it.
Of course I don't know everyone I make a picture of, although my stories would give the impression I do. Usually I get to know a person well beforehand - often years pass before I click the shutter, or time passes as the picture grows out of the relationship we are forming.
Also, in the majority of my photos you will rarely see a flash in use. That's because I like to keep my eyes on the actual reflection that light provides while forming the images we see. That rules out flash! I want to produce a picture with the original tensions between foreground and background intact - between negative and positive space - even if I must sacrifice focus. These subtle values are often erased through the arbitrary glare of a flash.
But I did own a flash on the evening of this photo. I had purchased it years earlier on a whim, but had never turned it on. In fact, I used it for the first time on the night of the fire, after which it sat another couple of years in the glove compartment of an old car before it was stolen. Again, circumstances contributing to the uniqueness of this photograph.
So I am not lost to the possibility that it is the flash itself that makes this picture what it is. The flash: a great and brilliant light, instantly appearing, like a type of the one that must have been present at the resurrection of Jesus Christ, burning the very first photographic record for us, the mystical x-ray like Shroud on display at Turin, Italy.
It's also apparent that the firefighter has his cross to bear, as evidenced by the formation of the cross in reflective tape on the truck behind him.
“No, no… that's not it al all, Burkhart,” the other firemen eventually tell me. What makes this photo unique, I learn, is that it depicts the firefighter's finest moment: “The danger is over, the fire is under control… and it is only then that we can relax and light up.”
I finally met Stanley a couple of years alter this photo/fire. He'd put on some weight and wore big red suspenders. He'd also been shuffled off to a desk job. He was dying of lung cancer.
What killed him? The cigarettes? Or was it all of the other smoke he sucked back out of the lungs of those he daily gave his life for?
This photo hangs in more than one fire station today, with several prints in the homes of firefighters I've come to know. I was fortunate to have given Stanley a copy of his own some time before he died. I'm sorry to say I never got to see him again afterwards. Rest in peace, Stanley.
(Photo of Stanley: 1985 - Story by Burkhart: 1993)
When this picture was made back in 1985, Stanley was training a young recruit named Rick Vega. Rick has continued with the dedication and sacrifice that Stanley nurtured in him, and can be seen daily at the core of the community that he protects with his life. It was difficult to look into his anguished face as he acknowledged the individual losses of so many of his brothers and sisters this past September 11th. It was with heavy heart he gave me the following to post in my studio, and it is with heavy heart that I pass it on to you for consideration.
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"They Were Only Doing Their Jobs"
On September 11th, 2001
the World Trade Center buildings were impaled by two hijacked civilian airliners.
Hundreds of fire and rescue workers rushed to the scene.
Though they knew the buildings unstable and their lives in great danger,
they went in, wave after wave,
battling a 1400-plus-degree blaze,
rescuing those they could and going back in to do more.
When the buildings fell, hundreds of firemen and women lost their lives.
Entire fire stations now sit empty. Dinner tables have one less chair.
Why go in knowing the buildings could tumble?
Knowing the flames burned hot enough to melt steel?
Knowing you don't have what you need to put them out?
Why sift through rubble for survivors in the shadow of another building sure to fall?
Searching for someone's daddy at the risk of your own child losing his own?
Because in today's world, being a firefighter is more than what you read in children's books.
If you wish to help the families they left behind, please make checks payable to:
NY FIREFIGHTERS MEMORIAL FUND
1 BANK ONE PLAZA
MAIL SUITE IL 1-0331
CHICAGO, IL. 60670-0331
If you'd like more information,
contact the Fire Rescue Development Program office in Chicago at 312 226-0110.
Or visit their web site:
BURKHART STUDIOS
2845 N. HALSTED STREET CHICAGO ILLINOIS 60657 773 348-8536
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