Heroes & Trauma is an ongoing personal project I have been working on for the past few years.
I wanted to highlight the fact that whilst we see these first responders as the heroes which they most certainly are, they are also human beings with emotions and feelings, and in their endeavor to save lives, they often experience some utterly horrific scenes and sometimes death. I wanted to take a set of ‘Heroic’ images folowed by a set of images which reflect the trauma they must inevitably go through and deal with.
After I had taken the ‘hero’ shot I asked the sitter to reflect on a particularly difficult rescue whilst I changed my lighting set up. Once I was ready to take the ‘trauma’ shots the mood in the room had changed and it was clear that they had brought these memories back to the fore. After these shots were taken there were often hugs between the sitter and I , and we chatted for a bit to bring the energy levels up again. It was a very moving experience and I am extremely humbled to have been in the presence of these incredible human beings who put so much on the line to save others.

I am hoping to add to this collection with Paramedics and also Intensive care doctors/nurses.

Note* I photographed 6 members of the Ilfracombe RNLI, Albrighton Fire service (Shropshire) and the Devon Air Ambulance. I was asked to go back to Devon Air Ambulance to photograph 4 more crew members as they wanted to use the ‘Hero’ shots in an up coming ad campaign. (which is why there are more hero shots here than trauma shots)