We’re on Fort Concho watch when we spot a group of young FLDS boys walking through the field. We jump out of the car. They are walking right up to the fence as we run over to them. Reporters start yelling questions.

“How are you guys feeling?!”

“What are the conditions like?!”

Then there’s a whistle or a yell from a CPS worker and the boys turn as one and run from the fence.

They run back over to “their” building.

And one boy (maybe the oldest?) gets talked to, reminded of the rules which must include “no talking to the media” and “stay away from the fence.”

An officer comes over and moves us back across the street. I would have photographed him but we’re playing this cat-and-mouse game with the officers. Trying to stay just enough on their good side that they won’t completely screw us. They tell us things like, “You’re not allowed to photograph us,” and we say, “Okay,” knowing full well that we can photograph them if we want (and we do photograph them).

The boys sit around, then play kickball for a while.

It’s hot out.

They’re bored.

The Fort Concho watch gets really boring. You’re in the heat for hours waiting for something, anything. Even a boring scene (above) of a woman talking to a doctor (or a dentist? or some guy in a white smock) becomes a shot you have to get because you never know if it’s all that will happen that day.

Then you see what could be good photos, but they are so far away that you can’t do the scene justice (and that CPS worker at the right could be on the phone calling in the calvary to chase you off).

But then a TV cameraman for a Salt Lake City station drives up and gives me a tip. He says that around the corner you can pull into a parking lot and photograph a group of FLDS with their children behind an orange fence. There are about four other photographers with me. We all pile into our cars and drive over fast.

Here is that scene.

We all feel we have to photograph this scene, even if it means that our presence causes the FLDS children to lose their play area. We stay at a distance and try to be fast, but it’s obvious we’re here.

We get our photographs quick and, as a group, decide to leave. None of us want to impose any more than we have to.

But we don’t leave before photographing a CPS worker imploring the police to get us out of the area.

Soon CPS will have no such problems with photographers, as they began today to move people to the local coliseum. It’s a much more secure location where we can’t see anything.

I think it was when I shot this photo that a police officer approached us and said a CPS worker was going nuts because she didn’t want us to photograph the feminine medical examination equipment being taken into the building.

Arriving at Fort Concho I photograph Debra Brown, executive director for children at risk, Texas Child Protective Services. She says the agency is going through various books on the FLDS people to gain some understanding of their situation.

I wander back over to the spot where I photographed the women crying yesterday, only to find that police have closed off access to that area. There is now one little spot near a school playground that I can shoot from. I see a large group of FLDS women/girls lined up against a fence waving frantically to people in another building. The shot is very tight, between a building and a tree. It’s barely possible. If I lean one inch either way the view is obscured.

I photograph for a minute or so…

…then some of them wave at me, smiling. That’s a little strange.

Never had that happen before with the FLDS.

CPS workers are leading women individually to another building, for interviews (I assume).

It’s strange to see people walk past a graveyard into an interview that could determine whether or not they keep their children.

Other photographers show up at my spot now, but they’ve missed the big crowd at the fence.

Now there are less people and they’re no longer waving.

The moment has passed.

After the woman in the blue dress walked off, there was only one FLDS woman still in view at Fort Concho.

She broke down in tears.

She was clearly beyond consolation.

She seemed to offer up a quick prayer, but I was across the field a long ways off, so it’s just a guess.

So there is the scene. A lone FLDS woman surrounded by a multitude of police, CPS, and whomever else was on the scene. Let me crop it in tight the way it should be:

And that was the end of a very long day.