By Andy Foltz
NKyTribune Reporter
Some professions are wrapped in mystique, and capture the imagination. Turn on a TV any time of day, and you will be inundated with shows about sports, cops and robbers, and the one that is the hardest to capture: Firefighters.
Katie Woodring is a professional photographer who is doing just that with the Covington Fire Department. Her husband, Paul, has been a firefighter for over 10 years, the past six with the CFD.
Just over three years ago, Katie was given permission by Chief Dan Mathew to go along with emergency calls and take pictures of what she saw – from behind the lines.
The results have been an inside perspective that most of the world doesn’t get to see, and they has given insight into the real workings of firefighting lives – most importantly to their family members.
“I think it’s pretty clear that Katie’s love and passion for what she does comes out in her willingness to get up in the middle of the night, take pictures and share those with us,” said Chief Mathew.
“Until she started, I didn’t know what the benefit would be. I appreciate history, and the documentation of what we’re doing, but it goes beyond that. It’s hard to express how her work has brought together out department. It has really been a morale booster for the department.”
“The biggest reward is doing this for the families and loved ones,” Katie said. “A lot of them haven’t seen the firefighters in full gear or fighting a fire or working an accident. I’ve gotten a lot of phone calls, especially from the wives, saying thank you.
“I do it all for free,” she added of those photos. “It gives me a lot of freedom. I want to be respectful to what they’re doing, but I can photograph what I want.”
To this end, this website was created to display the pictures for the general public. While some of the pictures are action shots of men and women fighting fires or responding to other emergencies, it’s the portrait shots that Katie has focused on as the biggest part of her work.
“You’ve got the grim and the grit there. It’s storytelling, more through the expressions on the firefighters faces,” she said. “You can see the triumph in the good saves, but you can also see the exasperation. It is a physical job, but it’s emotional, too.”
“They are gone for 24 hours at a time. It’s not just washing the trucks and eating BBQ – they work their asses off,” Katie said.
“There are tons of pictures of fire scenes, and lots of pictures of flames shooting out of buildings and the trucks – people love the trucks,” she added. “My main objective is to portray the men and women that are working it. It goes beyond their sacrifice, the families sacrifice too. The loved ones miss out on a third of their lives.
“Anytime the wives show interest, it gives you something to talk about – you can relate,” she said.
Currently, 18 prints of her work are hanging in Keystone Bar and Grill on Greenup Street in Covington.
These prints are done on aluminum, which gives them both a sturdy background and evokes the sense of the trucks themselves, shiny and metallic. They are also available for purchase, with two having been sold within five days of being displayed.
“This art lent itself to something other than the traditional paper,” Katie said. “It’s the first time I’ve used this medium, and I love how they turned out.”
She plans to use wood for the next series she prints.
As a professional photographer since 2000, Katie has shot many weddings, engagements, and other major life events. She sees similarity in those sessions to being on a fire or accidents scene.
“I’m very emotional driven. I find a lot of inspiration in emotion and drama, and there is a lot of that on a scene.”
Many of the portrait style photos are displayed in black and white. Katie said this helps viewers to focus on the facial features and expressions.
“You’re not distracted by the lights or fancy trucks,” she said.
Chief Mathew also likes the portraitures.
“You don’t see her at a scene, and then you see the pictures afterward, and think, God, was I that serious?”
Jenny Barwick, the AGM at Keystone, picked Katie as the artist to display, and said the fire prints will hang for a couple of months.
“Her work is so beautiful,” Barwick said. “I liked how she caught the character in everyone’s faces. Hopefully the fire department will come in and hang out while these are on display.”
“I wanted something to catch the eye and that was community oriented,” she added.
“I could take a thousand pictures, but I don’t have an eye for what’s a good picture. She could take five, and all five are good, said Chief Mathew. “It’s amazing what she does with the camera. It’s an emotional job, and her ability to capture that is astounding.”
See more Katie Woodring photography at her Facebook page.