Every once in a while I look back in my photo library and I stumble across something I’ve overlooked that ends up surprising me. Most of the time it’s a scenic photo as I highlighted in a past post Always Check Your Seconds. Last week though while conducting an image search for a client I stumbled across an image from 2004 of former San Francisco Zoo Keeper Lori Komejan at the Lion House. This particular image really caught me off guard. Why?
Lori Komejan suffered a horrible work place accident at the the San Francisco Zoo when a tiger was able to grab her arm and pull it through it’s cage. The accident happened during a public feeding with a large crowd present. She survived, but the news story behind it was horrifying. Knowing what happened to her and seeing this image that was taken 2 years prior to the accident in 2006 was haunting, especially seeing how closely positioned she was to the cage at the Lion House in this photo. Since the accident happened there have been extra safeguards put in place including an extra layer of metal bars with smaller openings added to the lower portion of the cage.
All in all a very eerie experience to discover this photo.
Have you ever discovered a surprising photo in your photo library? If so what was it?
Lori Komejan at San Francisco Lion House
[tags]photography, zoo, Lori Komejan, San Francisco, lion house, lion[/tags]