From Our Archives: Josh Edelson and Noah Berger
Noah Berger, California Wildfires, Flames burn inside a van as the Camp Fire tears through Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018.
This interview was featured in Issue No. 21 - Risk.
ERIK NIELSEN: How do you navigate fire and how do you watch each others’ backs while still wanting to get the images necessary to tell a story?
JOSH EDELSON: Technically we’re usually working for different agencies. Noah might be working for AP, while I might be working for AFP, and we have walkie talkies that we use. Usually, there's a small group of us that sticks together during wildfires because it's safer to be in pairs. If we enter into a hairy situation and there are flames all over the place, one of us might be focused on a certain scene. Sometimes it's hard to see everything that's happening around you, so it's a little safer to have two people near each other.
NOAH BERGER: There’s also the physical aspect. When making decisions, a lot of it comes down to, “Do you want to drive that road? Do you want to drive through that wall of smoke?” So, it's nice to have another person, depending on the time, either pushing you to do more or holding you back when you're going to do something that's too dangerous. A lot of it is making those decisions. When you see our photos, I think you imagine we're just surrounded by flames all day, but 90% of the time we’re driving around trying to find those spots.
ERIK: Do you think your photos help the victims of the wildfires?
JOSH: I'm not sure. Maybe there are circumstances where a photo helps someone. The best example I can give is through social media. Sometimes we'll post photos on Facebook and people will say, “That's my house,” or “That's my dog.” It’s a way to get information to a lot of people who have evacuated and have no information; no idea whether or not their house, their car, or their pets survived the fire. They're just clamoring for any information to help them figure out what to do.
Noah Berger, California Wildfires, A structure burns as the Carr Fire races along Highway 299 near Redding, Calif., on Thursday, July 26, 2018.
ERIK: Is it ever a concern that you may romanticize the beauty and devastation of fires in your photographs because they're beautiful and striking? Is there an “appropriate” way to document catastrophe?
NOAH: I don't see any problem with the images being too beautiful. I hope it isn’t a problem.
JOSH: Obviously, fire creates its own light. There's a lot of beauty in disaster and destruction. The most important thing for all of us is to consciously try and remind ourselves that this is not a fun thing to photograph; these are people's lives, people's homes. We constantly remind ourselves that these are very dangerous and damaging circumstances.
Josh Edelson: In this aerial photo, one of many burned neighborhoods smolders in Paradise, California on November 15, 2018. The Camp fire claimed the lives of 88 people and destroyed more than 18,804 buildings in the deadliest wildfire in California's recorded history. (JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images)
ERIK: How would you compare photographing the fires to photographing protests?
NOAH: I used to really love doing the violent protests here such as Occupy, Black Lives Matter and the edgy ones where things were burning. In the last couple of years, it has gotten really dangerous for us. They target the media right away. Almost every time you're out there somebody gets threatened and they follow through with stuff. It's gotten a lot harder to photograph those things and stay safe. I enjoy the fires more than protests now because there's an element of danger and excitement but people aren't going for you in particular.
Josh Edelson: In this aerial view, a burned neighborhood is seen in Santa Rosa, California on October 12, 2017. Costing nearly $1.3 billion in damage, the Tubbs fire left 22 people dead and destroyed 5,643 structures in one of the most deadly wildfires on record.
ERIK: What is it about the fire that you're so addicted to? What about fire obsesses you?
NOAH: You're in a world where you don't have to deal with the normal parts of life; you're not dealing with emails and walking the dog and paying your bills and communicating with editors. It’s a really nice place to be, compared to normal life. Your needs and your goals are very pared down to the basics. You're living out of your car. You only have one goal. You don't need to do anything else in life. You have a drive, a purpose, and focus.
JOSH: It triggers some sort of inner survival instinct that goes dormant in our normal day-to-day life. We forget that we have the ability to be focused on surviving and be out in nature and experience all the things that I imagine are primitive. There's something very engaging about getting yourself into a position where you can see the options and still maintain a focus of keeping faith.
NOAH: I want to keep in mind that we are really sensitive to not say that this is super fun or we're hav- ing a blast. It’s always within the context of work and realizing that people who live here are suffering in life-changing ways.
Noah Berger, California Wildfires, Embers fly above a firefighter as he hustles to control a backfire as the Delta Fire burns in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, Calif., on Thursday, Sept. 6, 2018.; (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
ERIK: Was there a particular fire that heavily impacted you?
JOSH: To touch on that note, this campfire that recently happened was the one that emotionally af- fected me the most. There are a lot of fires where maybe only one building burned. That doesn't affect me that much because it's not a huge impact on the community. Obviously it's horrible, but recently we were faced with so many deaths and so many burnt buildings. All we saw were body bags being car- ried out, and I actually saw completely burned bodies. The image of that will definitely stay with me forever and I was definitely shaken up. My hands were shaking with the camera in my hand and I had to get focused because in that circumstance I saw a burnt woman under a collapsed roof at her home and there's nothing that really strikes a chord of the reality and dangers of wildfires more than that.
ERIK: How do you adjust to and decompress after a situation like that? What is life after the wildfire?
NOAH: It's really hard. I have a wife and an eight-year-old and my wife's pretty good about it. She knows that when I come home I'm going to be zoned out for a day or two. It's just really hard to pay attention to what she or my son says or any details about regular life. Your head's still in the fire and I'll spend a lot of time texting the four of us who are the key group here. We'll spend a lot of time in a group text talking about the fire and new things that come out in your mind. Your heart is still there even though your body is back home.
JOSH: It's definitely hard. I've only been married for about a year and a half. I've had to go through
the motions of trying to explain to my wife, “Look, when I come back from the fire I'm going to need a couple of days to decompress,” and she says she understands, but unless you're there it's hard to re- ally understand why you need that decompression time. I tried to explain to her that there's so much information in my brain and so many things that I've witnessed. I need to parse through all that in my mind by talking about it or by looking at pictures before I can purge it from my system and go on with daily life. I remember Noah texting me one time when I was at a baseball game and he was saying, “I'm just looking at these trees off in the distance and I just can't stop imagining what they would look like burning.” Or after I came back from a fire for the holidays, I went somewhere with my wife and we were walking into this house and I was looking at the wood and the structure and there were definitely echoes of what I experienced. I don't know if it’s mild-PTSD. It's not quite like we're scarred, but it's hard to get that out of our minds.
NOAH: Even if there's no death count, you're in that world for four days. It's not related to the suffering and tragedies.
JOSH: No, because it's not traumatic. It's not PTSD and there's nothing really like it. You just keep fo- cusing on it. You feel like you're still in the fire zone even when you're not.
NOAH: So, it's hard. Mentally you've checked out. It's hard on my son. You don't really understand at eight. I think my wife's pretty good, even though she's a little resentful too, but she understands it's not a choice I'm making. It's just, I'm not there.
JOSH: The worst is when you come right off the fire line and go right into a corporate event. I was in a fire in Santa Cruz for three days and I had to leave a little bit early because I had this event scheduled. I decided that I didn't want to miss it and I left the fire smelling like smoke and everything. I drove to Target and bought new clothes and then went straight to this event. Even as much as I tried, I guess I still smelled like smoke. People were looking at me weird because I smelled as if I just came right out of a fireplace. It's hard coming from a scene where everything burned and it's tragic. Then you show up at an event and people are just smiling and cheering with their drinks.
Noah Berger, California Wildfires, Flames consume a home as the River Fire tears though Lakeport, Calif., on Tuesday, July 31, 2018.; (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
ERIK: Different costumes, different masks. I’ve talked to a war photographer before; I'm not going to compare the two, but he had said when he came back he'd become frustrated because he had to do things like wait in line and it's as if he felt freer during a war. It’s kind of a paradox to think about, but still, it sounds like you guys have similar reactions. There's more freedom in the fire.
JOSH: War, like Noah said, is a totally different level, but when we're in the fire zone, it’s a totally en- closed world. Once you exit and you go out of that checkpoint, sometimes I'll come to a stoplight and go, "Wait, I have to stop at this?" All the power is out usually in places where everything is burned out and so having to abide by the new traffic laws that exist when the power's back on outside of the fire zone is a reminder that you're not in that world anymore.
ERIK: What have you learned about yourselves since dealing with wildfires?
JOSH: I was going to mention how Noah doesn't really drink water. Noah's a super eccentric dude and he doesn't really like drinking water because he thinks it's boring. So, he drinks Gatorade, an iced tea and ice coffee and coke and pretty much anything other than water. On the rare occasion, if it's hot enough, he'll maybe drink a little bit of water.
For the full version of Josh Edelson and Noah Berger’s interview, check out Issue No. 21 - Risk.
