Komulainen believes she shot between 20 and 25 frames of the pair, and passed along the film, before Bill Grimshaw drove it to the Canadian Press in Montreal, where he developed and printed it. Larocque, however, was speaking English and Cloutier, who spoke only French, understood none of the comments. The voice was later misidentified as belonging to Ronald "Lasagna" Cross who had featured prominently earlier in the dispute. In video of the standoff, the voice of Larocque can be heard speaking to Cloutier: "Are you nervous? (.) Not scared, though, are you?" Komulainen recalls that Larocque explained to the man in front of him the sensation of a bullet entering the human body. He was military, but he was so young." At least three warriors approached Cloutier in this time of confrontations. When Komulainen saw the face-to-face confrontation, she was struck by Cloutier's face: "It just struck me that his face was so young. She heard on the radio that the Canadian Army was moving, and called to secure permission from Canadian Press manager Bill Grimshaw to go to the area known as "The Pines" where the photograph was taken.
On September 1, she had been assigned to the South Shore, the site of the Mohawk blockade of the Mercier Bridge. Komulainen was working as a freelance photographer for The Canadian Press.