I shot this during the height of the Los Angeles Riots back in April 1992. It's what Bob Ross would refer to as a "happy accident."

I had just gotten into photography and was working as an EMT in Los Angeles. Because of all the chaos going on around us, we were assigned to a fire station in the Athens area of Los Angeles. I had my camera with me, which had a pop-up flash. I simply wanted to take a shot of one of the fire engines as it was leaving the station to go to a call, but I didn't realize that the automatic flash setting was on, and that it was set to rear curtain sync.

As I was panning to get the engine in motion, I pressed the shutter release and saw everything go black. I didn't realize the camera automatically adjusted to a slow shutter speed (less than 2 seconds, I believe), but luckily, I didn't stop panning. The flash burst at the end lit up the lettering and some of the engineer, but everything remained blurred.

I used a Nikon N6006 35mm film camera with a 50mm f/1.8D lens and Fuji film that I used to get in packs at Sam's Club. I can't remember the ISO or settings.