Local Heroes Featured in Georgia Art Series

Dalton (GA) photographer Brandon Cawood started out with a low-profile project in mind when he began to photograph local first responders for his portfolio.

Over the course of six months, he created 12 gritty and intense movie-poster style images, utilizing composites to create images that aren’t "real," but illustrate reality.

View the full 12-image gallery on Facebook

“I wanted to do it for my portfolio,” he says, “but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do something good with it.” Cawood decided to publicize the project, bringing recognition to the local responders and their agencies, and turning it into a fundraiser for scholarships at the local Creative Arts Guild.

The project has so far raised enough money to cover production costs and to donate about $3,000 Cawood says, and if he sells all of his calendars, it will be $10,000. He’ll keep selling the 2014 calendars into the new year at notallwearcapes.com.

“I hope that I can do something that’s inspiring, so others can do something for the communities they’re raised in,” Cawood says.

Getting Started

Cawood knew that he wanted to feature EMS as well as fire and police, and to make it all local to the Dalton area.

However, it wasn’t easy getting started. His attempts to contact first responder agencies through official channels appeared to hit dead ends. Luckily, an old friend got things off the ground.

Paramedic Stephanie Albertson became his initial point of contact. They had worked together as lifeguards when they were teenagers, he says. She connected Cawood with her fiancée, firefighter Clay Headrick with the Dalton Fire Department for a firefighter photo, and agreed to participate herself for an EMS photo.

One contact led to another as Cawood completed each project and had finished examples to share.

“After I took those first pictures of her and the firefighter picture, people got onboard,” he says. Within a few weeks of posting images on Facebook he had received 600 Likes and it has continued to grow beyond 1,000.

The Photo Shoots

The firefighter photo with Albertson's fiancee came first, and proved the most complex, as a composite of more than 30 images.

After Albertson spoke to her supervisor, who also knew Cawood, to get permission, she and her partner posed for the Whitfield County EMS photo shoot, with her daughter posing as the pediatric patient. 

Cawood chose to incorporate a child as the patient because that eliminated the possible awkwardness of showing caring smiles between the child and responder.

“I didn’t want it to be sad,” Cawood says. “I wanted to show how they help calm the scene and make sure everything is ok.”

One hitch came when the photo shoot was almost immediately interrupted. “We took about three shots and they got a call—we had to wait around for about an hour,” Cawood says with a chuckle.

He also notes, “For whatever reason I imagined it to be raining.” It actually did rain that day, but for the photo he had to add it in post-production.

Cawood's ER image posed a logistical challenge due to the small space and lighting. He had to photograph each person and the background separately. “There are actually about seven images in that one picture,” he says.

The image featuring LifeForce Air Medical is also a composite; the flight crew really did pose in the helicopter, but they were not in flight. Cawood notes that he utilized his fiancée, Whitney Tanner, as the patient in this image. He said this project was also the only one for which he had to file any official paperwork.

Another image that posed a particular challenge was that of the diver underwater. Cawood says he actually photographed the diver posed atop some chairs, and set up a fish tank at home for the water scenery.

All of the agencies that ultimately got involved included the Dalton Fire Department, Dalton Police Department, Tunnel Hill K9 Unit, Georgia State Patrol SWAT unit, Georgia State Patrol dive team, Erlanger Medical Center's LifeForce air ambulance, Whitfield County 911 Center, Whitfield County Sheriff's Office, Hamilton Medical Center's emergency room and Whitfield County EMS.

What's Next

Cawood says he’ll consider whether to do such a project again next year, but he’s still looking at what route he’d take, how this project is received and whether the fundraiser calendars sell. 

To purchase calendars visit notallwearcapes.com.