I too love photographs and think they are a useful tool. The only problem you can run into is you gotta make sure the guys are on thier A game. Im talking about safety and utilizing your training. When you make the local or even national media and they got a picture of you venting a roof and one guy doesn't have his SCBA on and the other doesn't have his helmet. This just turned your department into "don't do like these guys" company to other departments out there. As far as training with them, we use them for this purpose when training new rookies. We integrate them into powerpoints and get to point out anything they see that could/should possibly be different
Permalink Reply by Eric on February 6, 2009 at 7:21am
Along with most of the others that I see here, I see on scene photography as being useful. I know that it can lend to all types of criticism from just about anybody, especially nearby departments. I do think that any criticism can be seen as constructive, though some of it may be hard to actually listen to. There are always lessons to be learned and I think that these photos are truly beneficial to those who take the time to learn those lessons. If there is criticism that goes along with photos or video, listen to some of it and maybe it can point out things that are good and/or bad that happened. I look at it almost like sports. You watch film of the other team and/or your last game, study the good and bad points and learn from them. I think that Firefighterclosecalls demonstrates this well. You look at enough peoople without their PPE or whatever else happens to be the main point of the photo and you learn from those things. Anyway, like I said, I think that they are beneficial and I agree with those that point out being carful when it comes to images of patients or other knowledge that isn't public. As always, just my opinion.