In the days and weeks after brush fires ravaged Altadena and Pacific Palisades, destroying 16,000 structures and killing 30 people, journalists from around the world descended on the Los Angeles basin to tell the story. One group, comprised largely of journalism students, took a unique approach to the task and their efforts are now available to view online.
“We were essentially running from sun-up to sun-down,” said Ashley Buschhorn, a master's degree candidate at Arizona State University’s Narrative and Emerging Media Program.
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WATCH HEREBased in the old Herald Examiner building in downtown Los Angeles, the group found itself in a unique position once the fires broke out — geographically close and outfitted with a brand new way to tell the story.
"We felt that our special skill set was actually really well-aligned to cover this tragedy in a new and important way,” said Buschhorn.
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SIGN UP Her equipment consisted of multiple cameras on a single pole, all recording 360-degree images simultaneously as she and her cohorts walked in and around the burned remains of dozens of buildings -- a quick, but extremely effective way, she says, to tell a devastating story.
They did so over a period of 10 days. Then, the images were stitched together via computer to create three-dimensional video clips.
But she never forgot what the journalist’s first mission is.
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“What we were doing was important, but what we were capturing was also people’s lives," she said.
The images, complete with side-by-side sequences next to Google Street View photos from before the fires, show just how destructive the fires were.
To see the project, click here.
