How I Got The Photo – Don Denton

2015 NPOY SPOT NEWS, Third Place – A paramedic stands by as a Saanich police officer talks to the driver of a car that ended up resting on its nose after a motor vehicle accident along the Pat Bay Highway in Saanich, British Columbia, December 10, 2015. The car was somehow driven from a parking lot above and over the embankment. (Don Denton / Victoria News)

The beauty of our career is that photographs can happen anywhere at anytime, which is why we always have to be on our game.

My Spot News image was captured as I was returning to the office after completing an assignment. What was unusual was that I was with a colleague and she was driving. At that time, I usually went alone to assignments and I always drove, except on that day.

As we approached the city limits, I could see some sort of vehicle confusion ahead so I reached into my bag for my Nikon, attached an 80-200 lens, adjusted exposure, and rolled down the window. In another stroke of luck, the accident was on my side of the road so my view was not obscured.

The accident had just happened and while some emergency personnel were on hand, the scene wasn’t too busy yet and the driver was still in the vehicle.

We were unable to stop and were moving with the speed of traffic. So I just photographed what I could as we rolled past the car sitting on end and I had my image.

It turned out that the driver had been in a parking lot above the road and somehow lost control, drove over the small cliff and ended nose down on the street.