Last Tuesday I had the opportunity to photograph the AIREX exercise at the LA/Ontario airport for the Ontario Airport Crash & Fire division. For those of you not familiar with the event, this is an unrehearsed, full-scale, aircraft incident drill to evaluate the operational capability of the airport's emergency management system, in a real-time, stress environment. Access like the one I was given does not come easily and I was grateful for the opportunity to be able to go anywhere and shoot anything I liked. So much so, that I had a close call with a helicopter that was taking off and had it not been for an alert fireman who warned me I may not have been writing this blog today! The event offered much to shoot as there were multiple things happening at once: an explosion, a smoke-filled airplane loaded with victims and and a tarmac that became an emergency treatment area as victims were brought in and treated. The "victims" were volunteers from a local college and there was no lack of acting on their part. I saw many a gasping, choking, wreathing in pain victim which just added to the "reality" of it all. You can see them and the wonderful fire crews at work here .