Marine Park Native, Daily News Photographer, Featured By WNYC

It’s hard to be a reporter in Southern Brooklyn and not run into Todd Maisel now and again. If you find yourself at a halfway decent crime, accident or disaster scene, chances are you’ll see Maisel darting to-and-fro, whipping his cameras around to take a shot, and trading banter with the emergency responders that won’t talk to you.

Oh, and those photos he’s taking? They’re likely better than yours.

Todd Maisel, a Marine Park resident, faces danger, crime, and death on a daily basis as a 13-year veteran spot news photographer for the Daily News.

“I chase fires, police incidents, accidents, homicides, you name it, whatever’s going on the street, that’s what I’m at,” said Maisel in a WNYC Culture article. “No story is too small for me.”

The website followed him around for a day at the office, which started at 1:00 p.m. in Coney Island, where Maisel took some photos of a body hanging underneath the boardwalk. He then uploads the photos to his laptop, chooses one, crops it, and sends it to the Daily News. A Tweet hits the ‘net like a cherry on top.

He then made his way to Bedford-Stuyvesant to snap a few pictures of a burned down four-story brownstone. Maisel didn’t get to stick around for that long as he was alerted, by a police scanner, that three suspects were seen wielding firearms. He raced to the location by going through several red lights and driving in the wrong direction on a one-way street to take photos of the men.

Aside from covering stories that develop in our city, Maisel has been sent to Iraq to capture the invasion in 2003; a plane crash coverage in Peru; and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. He also took one of the most iconic – and controversial – photos after 9/11.

“I don’t hope for a disaster, I just hope that I’m there when it does happen,” said Maisel.

What a workday, eh?