Every time there’s a drunken street fight, an accident, a house fire, or some kind of salacious crime, Gordon is there with his camera. And he says it’s hard and occasionally traumatising work, but somehow it became the thing he’s good at.

Gordon McComiskie is a night photographer who covers Sydney's most foul and bloody stories for the Daily Telegraph. From 10pm to 6am, all weekend, the city is his playground. And yes, he’s seen Nightcrawler. And yes he says it’s like that, but “not to the same extent.”

“When I first started, the media was a dog-eat-dog world. You had to be careful because the next bloke would screw you over. But in the navy, you worked for a common cause. That’s what I found the most difficult.”

Gordon spent the first 17 years of his adult life in the navy but always wanted to work in special effects for TV. Then his wife (through an ex-boyfriend) suggested a freelance gig shooting for channels Nine and Ten. He taught himself how to shoot photos on the job and started sending his favourites to the Tele, whose picture editor eventually offered him a job.

“It was an obscure start,” he says. “I never aimed for this job.”

We end up at Maroubra Seals where some sort of fight has broken out upstairs. A drunken man is arcing up to cops and security. He’s then brought outside for a search, and continues swearing at the cops. It’s at this moment Gordon jumps.

But the Tele broke the story and want him to check for any movements at the house. It’s nearly midnight when we’re halfway there and a cop car whizzes past. Change of plans.

We’re out driving but there are no jobs yet, so we stop for coffee. We’re in Double Bay where Burberry-clad couples dig into desserts and glance at their Mercedes parked nearby. In a lowered voice, Gordon tells me we’re headed to Sam Burgess’ house—you know, that Rabbitohs star embroiled in that sexting scandal who also happens to be playing a sudden-death NRL game the next day.

“At each scene I do a risk assessment—how many cops, how many people, and how aggressive can they get? You have to have your wits about because things can turn really quick.”

They swear at us from a distance and then the fights tapers off. The cops pack up and leave, but the mob sees us packing nothing but cameras, which is our signal to leave. “Once the cops leave, it’s best you do too," explains Gordon as we get back into the car.

He knows Gordon from his Instagram , which has something of a cult following among emergency workers. There’s an exchange of numbers and then another ruckus. The arrested man’s posse is taunting us and the cops.

“I’ve been waiting to meet you,” one of them says to Gordon.

The man’s supporters whip out their phones as their friend is escorted into a paddy wagon. It’s now time to socialise with the cops.

Back in 2018, we head to Sam Burgess’ to stake the place out. We’re in full detective mode, talking, parked a little bit down the street with the lights turned off. Thirty minutes pass and nothing happens.

He tells me about a night back in 2015. A boxer had just been knocked out in a fight at Ingleburn RSL and Gordon raced over to find a hostile crowd in a carpark. They cornered him, forcing him back into his car. He narrowly escaped and the police warned him to keep away from the hospital, where the boxer ended up dying.

Gordon tells me he’s has been assaulted and threatened on the job. More than once he’s feared for his life.

Not surprisingly, the most common question Gordon gets he’s asked is what’s the worst thing he’s seen and how he dealt with it.

“You have to mentally block it in your head," he says. "To me it’s not real, I look through the viewfinder and try to concentrate on the technical side."

But the most confronting stuff isn’t what he sees. He was once at a carjacking, where the offender took off with a taxi and ran a red light, smashing into an innocent driver. The victim’s relatives came to the scene.

“It was just a howling sound. It’s the screaming that haunts you.”