Hyperfocal: Robert Giroux

I’ve covered a couple of these already and I don’t see them published much so I thought I’d share this image with you here.   A very solemn “ceremony” I aimed to respectfully cover.   The media have been allowed to cover these operations since April this year and you can read more about that here, if you want.

DOVER, DE - JULY 21: U.S. Marines carry the remains of Brandon T. Lara on July 21, 2009 in Dover, Delaware. Lara, 20, died July 19, 2009 while supporting combat operations in Iraq's Anbar province. The remains of one U.S. Marine in Iraq and four U.S. Army soldiers killed in Afghanistan where flown to Dover for the dignified transfer. (Photo by Robert Giroux/Getty Images)

Two Red Line Metrorail trains that collided with one another between the Fort Totten and Takoma Park stations during the evening rush hour June 22, 2009 in Washington, DC. (Photo Copyright Robert Giroux / GETTY IMAGES)

They say Washington becomes repetitive, even as some of the faces slowly change over time, the pictures and situations created for the news media tend to repeat over and over.  So deja-vu is a common experience but this time it was a little different.  Last night I was assigned to cover the Metro train collision for Getty Images and remembered that way back in 1996 I had covered a train collision between a MARC commuter train and an AMTRAK train for Knight-Ridder (now McClatchy Info Services) which killed 11 people.

16 February 1996, MARC and Amtrak Collide in Silver Spring, MD near DC (Photo Copyright Robert Giroux)

{Click any image to view  larger slideshow}

The locations of these two crashes are about 3 miles apart, the 1996 occurrence being a bit farther north along the same line.  The pictures bear some similarities and I thought it might interest readers of this blog.

Here are a couple more pictures from last nights tragedy.

Two Red Line Metrorail trains that collided with one another between the Fort Totten and Takoma Park stations during the evening rush hour June 22, 2009 in Washington, DC. (Photo Copyright Robert Giroux / GETTY IMAGES)

Two Red Line Metrorail trains that collided with one another between the Fort Totten and Takoma Park stations during the evening rush hour June 22, 2009 in Washington, DC. (Photo Copyright Robert Giroux / GETTY IMAGES)