YFZ Revisited – April 6, 2008 – Welcome to Fort Concho

Originally published on November 17, 2008. The buses arrive at Fort Concho in San Angelo. There are maybe four other photographers, mainly from TV stations. I shoot several frames as the first bus goes by, into a secure area that we’re not allowed into. This composite is made of those: You can’t see much into the tinted windows, but I notice this hand on one of the other buses: This is the scene we are faced with, a very long shot to an old military building. We can see people way down there, CPS workers. We’re not even allowed up to the fence. This is with an 80mm lens, so in reality it’s further than it looks in this photo. With my super telephoto 600mm lens, I photograph an FLDS woman and her boy who are escorted to a port-a-potty outside. I’ve laid it out like a comic book panel so you can follow the timeline and see how the security was handled: Soon I photograph three FLDS women being taken from the main building and across to another building out of sight. If you know who they are, you can start to figure out what may have been happening here. Finally, here’s an overview of Fort Concho, from our main position across the field