Fifty Faces - A Story of Fire & Rescue

"What does it mean, to you, to be a firefighter?"

'Photographs are the blueprint of the major emotions,' writes Paul Ekman in Unmasking The Face (Malor Books). What those emotions might be, whether they're genuine, and what we're trying to say—or capture—is a subject of great complexity.

Arnold Newman once disclosed in a TV interview that he did not like photographing actors as he could never get beyond the facade.

Yousuf Karsh's sitters seemed to offer a soft smile at best, but usually a sense of warmth.

"Be kind!" Henry Kissinger once asked Avedon (who created lots of smiles).

Endlessly fascinating, and a subject on which I regularly ponder.

So, meet firefighter Brian Woodbridge, a Station Liaison Officer with Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service. I'd photographed Brian's crew at Brecon Fire Station some time before I made this portrait. After photographing his firefighters training—searching through dark, smoke-filled containers on a rainy night in March—Brian said, "Thing is, you have to stay calm when you see the flames. If you panic, you've had it." Hearing a few other insights made me thankful we have such people who will go forward into danger and tragedy on our behalf. They see the unforgettable.

Fast-forward a few months, and I'm spending two days with numerous crews on a two-day exercise. It felt very real, and I got a sense of what being a firefighter must feel like as firefighters jumped off their pumps, hot, sweaty, and dusty in near 30-degree heat. No one wants to tell stories—and they shouldn't be asked for. Then a thought came to me: what could a collection of their faces say? Could the shared experience be captured? Maybe not—but have a go.

I set up a natural light studio in a first-floor room near the rest area, with a chair in front of a window, one at 45 degrees to the right, controlling the light with solid metal shutters. I asked a volunteer, who'd come straight off the pump engine after an exercise, to look into the camera as I asked them, "What does it mean, to you, to be a firefighter?" I let it hang.

Firefighter Brian Woodbridge in one frame.

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