Beck Diefenbach photojournalist

I have said before, I am not a fan of shooting photo illustrations. Not only because I think there is always a better option, but also because they take a lot of extra time and planning that I don’t always have the resources for. But I did have some fun making this photo illustration:

All 5D Mark 2 with 70-200 F4, except for the “22222″ image which is 1D Mark 3 with 70-200 f2.8.

We had a story about how important it is to have your street number clearly visible for emergency vehicles.

We considered doing a ride along with a cop, but thought that the likelihood of getting a documentary image of an emergency personnel looking for a street number would be risky and very time consuming. Plus, I feel like every image from the passenger seat of a cop car looks the same.

So I took a morning walk around my neighborhood and downtown DeKalb and just photographed what I thought were interesting street numbers.

Here is the story behind some of the cool numbers I found:

• The “1234″ is the address of a video arcade on Lincoln Highway. Sometime I need to stop in there and see what goes on.
• The “22222″ is from a farm out on the backroads of DeKalb County and was found on complete luck.
• The painted “117″ was a street number I already new about. I remembered seeing the painted number on a house while exploring my neighborhood.
• The “135″ is the address to the locally famous Egyptian Theater.
• The “12 1/2″ is in hommage to my own address which is “311 1/2.” Downtown DeKalb has these “1/2″ addresses all over the place, instead of “a” or “b.” So I thought it was important to show one.