Behind the Yellow Tape
Glad you found me. I'm still not up to my summer road trip pace, and our website just underwent a makeover, and my blog was for a while under the heading: "FOOD & LIVING BLOGS."
During my twenty-some years here, my newspaper has never really been known for our breaking news photography. Even during the "Golden Age" of newspaper photography at the Inquirer (the 1980's) when our staff of almost fifty photographers (we currently have half that number) traveled the world doing month-long photo essays, locally we still usually arrived on the scene after the yellow police tape went up. That was the case this week.
We're working on it though, and the new Inquirer home page will soon have live news photos updated throughout the day starting when photographer David Swanson inaugurates a new early morning shift, shooting both stills and video.
But this past week was still old school Inquirer, when police Officer Richard Decoatsworth was shot in the face with a sawed-off shotgun 
after a routine traffic stop in West Philadelphia. Thankfully, after surgery his condition has improved and he has moved out of the intensive-care unit. Click on the tiny picture to see Daily News' photographer Jim MacMillan's video for a view of the scene before the yellow tape went up.
Inquirer photographer Barbara Johnston arrived before I did, and we staked out opposite ends of the street waiting for something to photograph. It ended up being the SWAT unit putting their weapons away.
I always tell myself I should have a book handy, or bills to pay, when I'm waiting as photographers often have to do. But usually I just talk to the curious bystanders, like neighborhood resident Steve Ford who used his binoculars (that's him at the top of this post). He had been in the U.S. Army and told me, "doing a basic recon doesn't hurt. You gotta see what's going on or it'll be with you before you know it."
Mostly I take pictures of pigeons. Or other urban wildlife. This day I photographed the "action" around the yellow tape.
Daily News photographer Alejandro A. Alvarez used his telephoto lens and mono-pod to raise the tape for arriving police cruisers. That's Associated Press photographer Matt Rourke on the left, and Officer Brian Lauf from the 9th District at right. He was in charge of this part of the crime scene perimeter.
