Photoshoot

Fire Hot!

1/5/20252 min read

It all started out so well, in fact lets dial things to the beginning.

Buck is a man with a flare for the dramatic, so it wasn't a surprise when he wanted a photo of himself sitting by a fireplace for one of the possible photos for his website and the promotion we have with BookTrib.

He doesn't have a fireplace per se in his home, but he does have a garage heater that works similar to a traditional fireplace. And the photographer was at first myself, and then later a family member who was visiting to have both Buck and I in the frame. So, this wasn't the best photoshoot.

To be fair though, Buck originally wanted to the photos taken by his cousin (a professional photographer) and she would have picked a better and safer spot. Alas, she had a surgery and needed to recover during the timeframe that Buck and I had to send the photo to BookTrib. So, we worked with what we had on short notice.

The photos of Buck holding Last Job while sitting by his "fireplace" were easy enough to figure out (I ended up deleting most of the dozens of trial poses and camera vantage points). Next was the group photo of Buck and myself.

After several trial videos and photos, Buck's family member (a truly patient person) and us had found the perfect spot for the lighting, background, and our pose. The below happened in about 3-5 seconds:

The first photo was taken.

I noticed something moving in my peripheral vision.

The second photo was taken.

I turned to see that there was a singular flame on Buck's back, away from me, and closest to the "fireplace".

"Man. Man! You're on fire."

A third blurred photo was taken as Buck's family member slapped the down the camera with Buck turning towards me and the flame blossoming into a fire that grew towards his shoulder blades.

A half second was used to try and pat down the flames on Buck's back, but at that time they had grown above his head.

Buck dropped to the garage floor and rolled out most of the fire.

When he stood up, several embers tried to catch again, but were quickly patted out.

Hmm, I wonder what that red flash is under Buck's hand.

The good news is Buck survived with only several blisters, thankfully he was wearing his normal set of layered three shirts. Two shirts were burnt up, and his heavy-duty trousers were also sacrificed to literally save his ass from the worst of the flames.

The bad news is it took three weeks before Buck could kind of sit down comfortably.

Just another random adventure that seems to happen when he and I hangout and do something new. Thankfully this was the most dangerous happenstance yet, and hopefully ever.