The Daring Dozen – Arizona Shooting Heroes

In early September of this year, we received a call from Caitlin Peters at AARP Magazine to be part of the 2012 Inspire Awards, a year-end collection of inspiring people who have changed the world. Over the course of six weeks this assignment took us from Texas to Arizona, Washington DC, New York City, Chicago, Wisconsin, Miami, Tennessee, and Vancouver. Aside from making photos of the award winners, we were lucky enough to experience their greatness and learn what they had to share with us. Over the next few weeks on the blog we’ll be sharing photos and stories from this adventure.

Patricia Maisch, Roger Salzgeber, and Col. Bill Badger are three modern day heroes. In early January 2011 the three were part of a small crowd at a gathering with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the parking lot of a Tucson Arizona grocery store. When a gunman began firing at the Congresswoman and randomly into the crowd, these three heroes all took action. Colonel Badger and Roger tackled the assailant while Patricia managed to keep his weapon away. Read more of their story and see more photos and some behind the scenes from our time with these heroes.

Looking back a few months and the first thing I remember from our shoot was the heat. Maybe our heroes and local help were used to it, but I’ve gotta say – Arizona was hot. Really hot, like 100°+ and carrying around generators and sandbags while keeping an eye out for snakes and scorpions hot.

Our subjects were up to the task though, they each generously gave us a whole day of shooting in locations all around Tucson Arizona, seen above getting a bit of on location hair and makeup work after hiking through the brush to our set.

And the resulting photo. You can’t find locations like this on the east coast.

Speaking of the tremendous locations, a big thanks to our location/scout/producer/guide Alan Benoit, who definitely helped make our shoot possible – not to mention helping us haul gear and people out to all the wild locations we ended up shooting in.

And yes, even the wilds of Arizona need a bit of styling. That’s yours truly sweeping the desert floor – I’ll add that skill to my resume.

Also a big thanks to Caitlin Peters, who wewe were lucky enough to have out on location with us, braving the head and working alongside Chris to make awesome pictures.

And speaking of Caitlin, she even managed to catch a ride in the Colonel’s vintage Jaguar. Sure beats the rental car we had.