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Lens on Fire
February 10, 2009
By DAVE REESE
Professional photographer Wouter Deruytter had been coming to Montana for 11 years, photographing the landscape, cowboys and Indians.
But he'd grown weary of these subjects and was ready to turn the lens of his Hasselblad toward something else.
Then came the fire.
The Wicked Creek fire of 2007 charred some 28,000 acres in Montana's Paradise Valley, and for several weeks firefighters marched through the ranch where Deruytter was staying.
 
Finally, watching the cadres of men, with their yellow shirts and green pants marching each morning into the forest to fight fire, it dawned on Deruytter. I thought that it would be fantastic if I could follow them, said Deruytter, a native of Belgium. It was just so beautiful, suddenly it just clicked.
Deruytter had been a classic photographer in black and white medium, but he didn't see the fire this way. The colors, especially yellow, jumped at him.
His collection of photographs have been compiled for a traveling exhibit at museums throughout the world.
After lining up a Forest Service permit to photograph the firefighters, he discovered a world unto itself, where the smell of smoke is constant and camaraderie pulls the men together.
It's a nine to five job for a lot of them, but they're just so determined, he said. I had never seen anything like that before.
Deruytter shuns digital photography and filmed this collection on 2 1/4-inch color negative film.
email: wderuytter@aol.com
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