Sweeping Changes

Orlando Labrada, 4, sits in the doorway of his family's apartment while police and code enforcement officers gather at an adjoining apartment at the Garden Breeze Apartments in San Bernardino during a code enforcement and fire inspection sweep. The Garden Breeze Apartments were the scene a fire last month that destroyed 26 units and displaced 126 residents.

The code enforcement officer asked me, "Have you ever been on one of these sweeps? Do you know what a code enforcement officer does?" After more than 20 years working for newspapers, this "wasn't my first rodeo." I was compelled to give him exactly that response then the little voice in my head told me to shut the hell up and ask the nice officer to tell me what he does.

And so it goes in the manner in which we shoot photos. I figured I had this shoot in the bag. Get a couple photos of cops knocking on doors, maybe a photo of a code enforcement officer squinting at leaky pipes under a sink or the firefighter poking the test switch on a smoke detector. But, then the little voice in my head told me to shut the hell up and step away from it all, open my eyes and learn to "see" again. And I learned...the longer I do this...the less I know.

There's always a photo out there waiting to be made that you haven't shoot before, no matter how many rodeos you've been to.