Blog

The Leveson Inquiry

In the list of sexy subjects to write about, the Leveson Inquiry may appear to be low down the top 40 but this is the one that has huge potential to change working practise for every photographer in the UK.

The fourth day of the inquiry has now finished and, along with a large percentage of my colleagues, I feel truly let down at how we, as photographers, are being portrayed.  By way of a cheat-sheet for those not following the story, the inquiry was launched to investigate malpractice within the media, following on from the hacking scandal at News International but appears to slowly be turning into a witch-hunt against photographers.  While celebrity witnesses have been lining up to vent their anger at the ordeals that they have faced at the hands of the paparazzi, the differentiation between news photographers and paps has been blurred to the point where the whole industry is now being tarred with the same brush.

Having started writing a blog post on the subject, colleague and friend Christopher Pledger beat me to it with his “open letter” explaining how he feels about the situation.  He’s kindly let me reproduce it here.  If you agree with what’s been said or even feel that it’s made you consider how you feel on the topic, please share this page.  It’s important that as many people as possible get to know that there is a difference.  Over to Christopher…

“These are my personal views and are not intended to be representative of any organisation I work for as a freelance photographer.

The testimony of witnesses this week at the Leveson inquiry has included damning condemnation of the behaviour of the paparazzi. Both the celebrity and ‘ordinary’ victims of phone hacking have told of being chased, spat at and terrified by photographers. These experiences could have fatal consequences for the news photographer, a vital part of a truly free press.

There are important distinctions to be made between a paparazzo and a press photographer. A comparison of the two is like that between the cowboy builder and a professional tradesman. It is also important to distinguish between the paparazzi and celebrity photographers. Celebrity photographers work with the permission, and often to the benefit of, their subjects. This can range from red carpet premieres to organised and set up photo shoots of a celebrity out shopping or on the beach. I do not class them in my definition of paparazzi. Lacking moral or ethical guidance, the paparazzi work with little respect for the law. The composition, quality, or origin of a photograph is a distant second to its commercial value. Paparazzi agencies will often employ people with little or no knowledge of photography. The agency will provide cameras with settings taped over so they cannot be changed. It is not a photographer that is sent out of the office, simply a man with a camera.

Press photographers by contrast are skilled professionals with years of training and experience. They work within the strict guidelines of both the Press Complaints Commission and their newspaper or news agency. These guidelines include respecting both a person’s right to privacy and the boundaries of private property. A good news photograph will be technically excellent and able to tell the story in a single frame. In contrast to the paparazzi, financial rewards are low.

This is not to imply that all press photographers are angelic super-humans working to expose the truth to an unwitting public. Like any industry, there are a minority of ‘rogue traders’ who are prepared to bend or break the rules to get a picture.

The problem for legitimate press photographers is they are seen as no different from the paparazzi. Regardless of the assignment they are covering, press photographers now experience regular abuse from strangers in the street. When photographing something as mundane as a the outside of a high street bank, it is not uncommon to hear shouts of ‘pap scum’ or ‘leave them alone’ from members of the public. If a group of press photographers are gathered outside a court or government building, the first question asked by curious passers-by is not ‘what’s happening?’ but ‘which famous person is coming?’.

The problem of public perception stems from two different sources; celebrity magazine culture and television news. The dominant celebrity culture makes it hard to avoid a constant stream of images cataloguing the daily lives of the A to Z list. It is no surprise that the general public perceive the primary role of photographers as being to feed this machine. The problem is complicated by disreputable publications being prepared to buy pictures on a ‘no questions asked’ basis. This makes it hard to distinguish between photographers working in a professional way and those who aren’t.

Television news coverage is the other major factor in the problem of perception. During most stories a clip of press photographers is included as a ‘cut away’ shot to add visual interest. If the clip includes the subject of a story being surrounded by the media, reporters will often refer to a “scrum of photographers”. This ignores the numerous TV cameras both in the scrum and filming from a distance. This has been demonstrated during TV reports on the Leveson inquiry. Press photographers have been working from an official area behind a barrier to give the witnesses space to arrive without being disturbed. TV reports have consistently referred to ‘hordes of photographers’ while ignoring the numerous video cameras surrounding witnesses as they arrive. By using these tactics, TV news aim to draw a distinction between the dirty press and the clean media. In doing so, they may perhaps be driving the Leveson inquiry toward concluding tough privacy laws are required, privacy laws that will include a ban on photographing people in public without their permission.

A ban of this type would be the death of the free press in the UK. Current guidelines require that individuals should not be photographed while they have ‘a reasonable expectation of privacy’. In practical terms this means anyone in a public place can be photographed without permission, as they cannot expect privacy in a public space. If laws were introduced requiring the written consent of an individual before they were photographed, it would mean press photographers would have to ignore events unfolding before them. Some of the biggest news stories in the last year could not have been reported. Pictures of Charlie Gilmour swinging from the Cenotaph would have been taken illegally, likewise pictures of Oliver Letwin disposing of government documents in a park bin. Press photographers would be as ham strung as reporters are when they are prevented from covering stories of public interest that are subject to super-injunctions.

The problem of finding a solution that avoids this type of privacy law is extremely difficult. Legitimate press photographers already have licensed press cards that are required to be shown to work in places like Downing Street. This system has not stopped any of the behaviour reported this week, or prevented the use of faked press cards. Digital cameras are cheap and increasingly easier to use, making it hard for anybody to distinguish between professional and amateur, press photographer and paparazzo. If 99 out of 100 photographers comply with a code of conduct, one will always break the rules and tar the rest with the same brush. Introducing government or police regulation and control over licensing of press photographers would affect impartiality and freedom.

It would be very hard to argue that there can be no changes following the Leveson Inquiry. We must be very careful what these changes are and where they will take us. Press photographers are in danger of being so restrained by regulation that we become like the fire fighter who cannot enter a burning building for fear of breaking health and safety regulations.”

So there we have it.  This could well be a make or break time for British press photography.  Let’s hope that the inquiry sees sense before knee-jerk reactions destroy some of this country’s powerful freedoms forever.

 

Nov 25, 2011 | Categories: Thoughts | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 28 Comments »

“So, in short, you’re a wizard then?”

So often in this line of work, we have to make something out of nothing, with either long waits for men in suits to shake hands, or photo-calls relying heavily on the photographer’s inspiration rather than the publicist’s ideas.  However, this weekend provided a welcome cure to the problem with the “London Comic Con  MCM Expo” at the ExCel centre in east London.

If anything, the media preview show on Friday provided too much camera fodder so I returned for a second day on Saturday morning to shoot video and enjoy more of the fantastic costumes and concepts.  These fans put so much effort into what they do and take real pride in picking the most obscure characters to base their costumes on.  The main problem was that after asking the person’s name, the technically quick question of “which character are you?” often resulted in a five minute answer as the person enthused about which incarnation of Japanese anime royalty they were representing.

Spread out over two huge areas within the centre, the event provided fans and enthusiasts with the chance to buy, sell, try, pose with or even dress up as a huge range of people and things in the secure collective of like-minded types.  While some costumes would just raise a smile to the average passer-by, others certainly took more guts to wear.

With most of the character names meaning slightly less than nothing to me, I did get the odd right answer such as the Portal “turret” (above), the Team Fortress characters (below) and the Portal player (2nd down on the left).  Yes, I know, it’s not something most people would own up to knowing but in my teens I mildly skimmed the realms of the comic with a love of 2000AD and Judge Dredd.  All very entry-level to these people but hey, I know my Judge Anderson from my D.R. & Quinch…

Arriving at this kind of event for the first time, the lazy option would be to go along the derisory route, pointing out that, yes, there are some overweight comic fans and nerds that live up to all the stereotypes, but who really cares?  All I saw was people having a really good time and enjoying meeting up with friends to celebrate the things they loved.  My feelings were reinforced when I saw the people coming out of the Next Top Model show next door, dressed up in the hope that they’d be “scouted”, sneering at the Comic Con guests.  I’d much rather shoot the creative types than the chain store clones.

In amongst the comics and memorabilia was a stall with big banners of very androgynous looking men embracing each other.  The thing that stood out though was that the customers were three rows deep, clamouring to buy the comic books and were all young teenage girls.  It turns out it’s a genre called “Yaoi” which is basically gay porn in comic book form.  When I asked why it was only girls buying it, one customer told me that it’d “be weird if men bought it”.  She may have a shock if she wanders round SoHo in years to come…

Having heard the phrase before, I’d never witnessed Cosplay with my own eyes so it was quite a shock to find myself surrounded by so many incredible designs and costumes.  It’s a serious business with fans attending classes throughout the day to hear advice on how to improve their designs and find the elements that will set them apart.  After a live performance and Q&A with British Cosplay star Beckii Cruel, attendees were allowed their brief moment on stage, displaying their own costumes.  With some just stepping on and posing before leaving again, others went the whole hog and mimed along to scenes that they’d carefully choreographed.  It’s incredible to imagine these kids dressed as Japanese princesses and tigers running through their moves in the living room of their parents home.

On my second day at the show, the doors were opened to the general public and they packed the place to capacity.  As such, there wasn’t much chance to get clean backgrounds or space to work so I opted for some off-camera flash to isolate the subject from the shoppers and browsers milling around behind.  Some of this was done with a simple off-camera cable but I also opted to break out the ring flash for it’s bi-annual testing!  Being fully manual, it’s a bit of a bind but once you get it set up, it’s a great effect.

Knowing that I could easily stay there all day and the next, I hit the road well before closing time but found a nice little frame to wrap it all up as I boarded the London Underground.  Look out, it’s a ghost!

Oct 31, 2011 | Categories: The working day | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments »

Three days on the Farm

On October 12th, after ten years, the residents of Dale Farm traveller’s site lost their final bid to overturn their eviction, when the High Court refused them the right to appeal the judgement.  With every legal option exhausted, it was simply down to the matter of eviction, so I was sent down to cover the unfolding story.

By way of background, the two sides of the story were pretty straightforward. The case for the prosecution had built its argument on the fact that the Dale Farm site was based on Metropolitan Green Belt land so, as such, building and development laws were very strict.   No official applications had been made for the homes of the 80 families.  The residents had based their defence on the fact that, prior to them moving onto the land, it had been a scrap yard and a Police car pound, not protected land.  They argued that the eviction was simply based on a bias against the travelling community.

Whichever was correct, the law came down on the side of Basildon council, and I found myself driving east before dawn on the first day that an eviction attempt could take place.  Having visited the site once before for a press conference following an earlier reprieve, it was clear that this really was looking like the end this time.  Police and bailiffs had sectioned off large areas around the camp, with secure media parking, staff canteens and toilet facilities, as they prepared for the long week ahead.  While I’d been allowed inside on my previous visit, the camp was now very much on lock-down, with only a handful of journalists and photographers who’d invested more time on covering the story allowed inside.

The day cruised by with very little to focus on as the fortified defences were strengthened around the site, and warnings and murals were painted onto the main entrance.  By 4pm, it was clear that nothing was going to happen, so I volunteered to return the next day and headed home.

Arriving at 6.15 the next morning, the vibe was very different and it was clear that today was the day.  Hundreds of police officers in full riot gear were gathered in the fields and car parks around the site, and the media parking was near-capacity when I pulled up.  Thankfully, there were two of us from AFP on shift that day, as I was joined by this year’s “News Photographer of the Year” Carl Court so we had the chance to spread out and cover more angles.  With Carl on the front door, I went cross-country and found a different way into the camp.  By the time I arrived at the main entrance, the police had already got through the defences and had claimed an area around the scaffold entrance.  Tensions were running high as residents argued with police and activists and supporters clashed with riot teams.  Bottles and bricks were soon flying through the air.  Thankfully, predicting the way it would go, I’d brought my helmet with me so was spared the constant fear of looking to the air for incoming missiles.

With police breaking through the defences at two points, it became harder to locate where the action was, but this was soon cleared up when a small puff of smoke went up.  Activists had dragged an empty caravan into the middle of one of the roads and set it alight.  While everyone dashed towards the smoke, it quickly became a rather embarrassing situation with photographers and camera crews stacked on top of each other to get the shot.  When a woman brought out a crucifix to hold as she stood in front of the blaze, we quickly realised how set up the shot was becoming.  Unfortunately, this is one of those situations that members of the media have to face sometimes.  While you’re sadly aware of how you’re being led into a picture, you have to shoot it.  Those that are unhappy with shooting any staged event during a live news situation will often sadly miss out as the papers want the “big shot” of the day, even it does feel contrived at the time of capture.  As an interesting side note, Italian photographer Ruben Salvadori recently released a fascinating but somewhat embarrassing film highlighting how photographers can often “create” the event without having to actually physically set anything up.

With two caravans now simply piles of smouldering plastic and metal, the focus returned to those activists that had built the structure around the main gate.  While they were in their “crows nest” above the main gate, police and bailiffs were unable to gain access to remove the military truck and debris that was blocking the access road.  After clearing most of the ground around it, the police sent in trained climbers to test the structure.  I’m well aware that I may get some criticism for this controversial statement here, but I’m constantly impressed with the police force that we have in this country.  While some of the more aggressive activists hurled abuse and rocks at them, they calmly worked out how to get the protesters in the structure down to the ground, without any injury or loss of life.  There are so many countries elsewhere in the world where, faced with this problem, the police would have gone in there with an armoured vehicle and just brought the whole thing down.  It baffles me how people can scream at these guys, accusing them of brutality when they so clearly are one of the most considered and ordered police forces in the world.

I guess I may have had different feelings if it was my house being threatened, but I like to think that I’d still be able to direct any anger I had at the people responsible.  Having said that, the police did use a Taser during the very first stages of entry into the camp which may have been a little over the top, but I guess when you’re faced with signs warning of imminent death, you may end up over-reacting a little.

Once the structure was cleared, the bailiffs entered the site, for the first time, to erect fencing around the newly secured area, and seeing that this would take some time to clear what they now controlled, I spent the rest of the day looking around the site.

With sunlight fading, the bailiffs were called off-site and the police erected security lights.  With the light gone, it was my turn to call it a day.

Now that the police had near-total control over the site, Thursday was always going to be less explosive than the previous day.  With the gate now secured, it was simply a case of clearing a path and getting on with addressing each of the blockades that had been built.  To ease tensions, police teams came onto the site to visit the houses that had been highlighted as legal, by residents, and got the chance to explain that the bailiffs would not be coming roaring onto the site to destroy the buildings today.  By now, the residents were clearly just waiting to go and most had packed up their belongings and were passing the time until they could drive away from the site.

Once the police teams had cleared the protesters from under a former Soviet army truck, they moved on to two people who had attached their hands together through a barrel.  Sensing that the end of the protest was near, other activists came to say goodbye to them as they left the site, resulting in emotional scenes.

With the “Industrial muncher” (as Sky News called it) tearing the final parts of the defences down, it was time for the residents to finally say goodbye to their home of the last decade.  Whatever you think of the travelling community, it must be so hard to see your community split apart like this.  It’s a real shame that this could not have been resolved amicably between residents and Basildon Council.

I hope their next site brings them more luck and hopefully, stability.

 

Oct 24, 2011 | Categories: The working day | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments »

That’s well Jackson…

In my ongoing mission to mix it all up a bit whenever I can, I thought I’d actually do a proper photoblog for once so without further ado, here is a selection of my favourite shots from the recent “Forever Michael” concert in Cardiff, Wales.  Celebrating the life of US musician Michael Jackson, the evening saw family members and musical acts from both sides of the Atlantic performing songs from his back-catalogue.

After legal wranglings from family members, the show was initially threatened but on October 8, 2011, the tribute concert went ahead, albeit without the Jackson name in the title.  Dancers and musicians came to the Millennium Stadium to perform covers of some of his most famous songs with US actor and singer Jamie Foxx playing host for most of the evening.

With the Black Eyed Peas and Jennifer Hudson pulling out at very late notice, and Beyoncé sending a recorded performance to be played on the stadium screens, we were all assuming that Christina Aguilera would provide the American sparkle to the show but she managed to cause quite a stir in a rather different way due to her latest looks. Not quite the Christina we all remember!

The other moment of the evening that was likely to make the next day’s papers was an appearance by Michael’s children Prince, Blanket and Paris.  Having been the picture that proved to be the most important from Michael’s funeral, this rare appearance was the moment that we were all waiting for.  When the moment came, they appeared on-stage to announce Beyoncé’s video, with the youngest child Blanket appearing particularly uncomfortable.  As the children left the stage, I switched over to my 500mm lens and managed to catch a single tear.

As I touched on above, certain members of the Jackson family weren’t keen on the event taking place, so only a limited number of photographs were allowed to be used during the show, but the one thing that really puzzled me was a lack of “Thriller”.  Surely, the catalogue is all owned by one company/person so if you can do some of it, you should be able to do any.  I was really looking forward to a bit of ghoul dancing!

   

One of the big surprises of the evening was Texan gospel singer Yolanda Adams.  When she was announced a small ripple of applause went around the stadium as many people, like myself, knew the name but not the voice.  She went on to steal the show, outperforming every other act with a skilled and powerful voice.  Backed by a gospel choir, she sang “Earth Song” and really did blow everyone away.  It’s fantastic when someone surprises you in this way.

Oct 16, 2011 | Categories: The working day | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

The complete alternative London “Knowledge”

Regular readers may remember the first parts of the “London Knowledge” that I posted a while ago.  Having managed the previous “tips”, I squeezed out a further batch to make the century so here’s the final and complete collection.  Read and learn (or at least nod with recognition…)

  • You can tell a long-term Billingham bag user by the fact they look as though they’re carrying one particularly heavy shopping bag, even when their hands are empty.
  • When filing a zoom-burst, the automatic punishment is to text your colleagues to alert them to your heinous photocrime.  The allowable amount that you can file varies from once a year, to once in your whole career, depending on the employer.
  • It is important that news photographers stay in town until 6pm in case of the ever-present threat of the 5.59pm atrocity.  The 6:01pm atrocity is unheard of and could never happen.
  • Despite it possibly being the future for us all, not many people aspire to shoot film like their favourite cameraman.  Photography will always be cooler.
  • Being a professional photographer means that it will be assumed you know all about the latest point and shoot Sony cameras when your friends and relatives need a new camera for their holidays.
  • All accreditation, particularly festival wristbands, should be removed when leaving the site for the final time, due to a distinct danger of looking like a cock if wearing it on the bus three months later.
  • The length of time that you’ve been shooting professionally is directly proportional to the size of one of your photos in the paper that actually please you.
  • The chamois leather is an often-overlooked essential for every jobbing photographer.
  • Every photographer has an early project in their archives along the theme of “rusty locks and old painted doors”.
  • When a client asks for all your raw images from the shoot, ask them if they ask for all the spare ingredients after enjoying a delicious meal.  If they don’t take your point from this subtle refusal, a monopod makes a great blunt instrument.
  • You can tell a photographer who’s covered Downing Street jobs for a decent length of time by his comfortable use of the word “counterpart” in captions.
  • Press photography grants you seats that others would kill for, to events that you’d sometimes rather be a million miles away from.
  • That external drive on your desk is just an insecure archive until it’s duplicated at least once.  A backup isn’t a backup if it’s the only one.
  • If you get the only frame and everyone uses it, it’s a great picture.  This even applies if you only got it by accidentally dropping your camera as you ate your Big Mac, firing a frame of the subject by accident as they passed behind you.
  • If you’re accused of getting a shot out of focus, set the critic straight by explaining that you were merely “bracketing your focus”.
  • Union Jack umbrellas were originally designed to keep desperate news photographers happy.
  • Once you’ve gone RAW, you’ll never need more.
  • Street photography is more than just photos of people walking past the camera, converted into a heavy black and white.  Using a retro-style digital camera or even film doesn’t gain any extra points either.
  • Save the selective colour for your Grandma.  Any self-respecting picture editor will be dabbing the tears of laughter from their eyes if you put one in your portfolio.
  • What IS the very best way to respond to someone who calls you a pap on the street?  SURELY there must be an intelligent retort other than the previously mentioned blunt instrument?
  • There is no real need to take a camera, especially your Leica, to Focus.
  • When cleaning your lens with a cloth, it will invariably be the final wipe when the cloth slips and you smear a Dorito-grease covered finger across the front element.
  • The World Press Awards must be something to do with the Corby Trouser Press as the pictures that win every year rarely have anything to do with the images that we see in the daily newspapers.
  • Both of the major camera manufacturers’ products are pretty much the same in terms of quality, features and price so no, I can’t tell you “which one is best.”
  • When photographers are gathered together, conversation soon turns to their loved ones and, in particular, whether or not the new firmware has improved performance.
  • The fastest way to make money from your cameras is to sell them. (unknown origin)
  • The photojournalism festival in Perpignan does a great line in depressing monochrome care home pictures, angry people with machetes and dead soldiers in desolate locations, but really falls short when it comes to shots of kittens dressed as cowboys.
  • For those of you wanting to get into the industry, consider the fact that careercast.com listed photojournalist as being below “sheet metal worker” in a list of 200 careers in 2009 in relation to salary, working conditions, serious risk of injury or death, and poor employment prospects in the future.  Nice.
  • Nothing ruins the line of a good suit more than a belt-pack and camera bag.
  • When working on the same job as paps, there is no point in thinking that common sense, reason or the need to actually get a good photograph is on the agenda.  They will inevitably rush in as close as possible with their pre-f8-welded wide angles, ruining everyone else’s shot.
  • Taking hot weather pictures was probably a lot easier in the days before pointing a camera at anyone under eighteen automatically made you a child-hungry paedophile.
  • If you drop a lens while in the company of other photographers and the inevitable “Ooooh” is heard from all around, you will invariably scoop it up quickly and put it straight into your bag as if it escaped perfectly unharmed, even if you’re left standing in a small pile of finely powdered optical glass.
  • Photographers who choose to become known only by one name deserve all the flak that they get.  (See Zoriah and his “intimate” $4000 Haiti-based earthquake masterclasses.)
  • News photographers keep the British stepladder industry alive through a combination of forgetfulness and desperation.
  • For some reason, Canon and Nikon both give away huge bulky camera bags at events rather than something really useful like laptop shades or monopods.  I know you shouldn’t look a gift-horse in the mouth but surely there won’t be that many photographers who travel to the venue with all of their gear in carrier bags on the off-chance that their gamble might pay off.
  • Having said that, ebay will always manage to find someone who wants to pay rather a lot of money for team sheets, programmes, press passes and, yes, camera bags.
  • Heart surgeons are nothing compared to the photographer who decides to clean the sensor in his/her brand new £4,500 camera for the first time.
  • Jolyan Turrall‘s law of  “Subject Gravity”  means that all photographers will end up 6 inches from the subject matter, even if the shoot started with everyone 20 feet away.
  • As soon as your local Council starts accepting a “photo credit” as a valid form of payment for your council tax, you can start giving away your pictures to all those people who enquire about using them without payment.
  • When using a busy urinal during the working day, turn off your cameras before squeezing in between the other users.  This particularly applies if your camera has a fast motordrive and a delicate trigger action.
  • If you actually prepare for the bad weather for once and get fully waterproofed up, by the time you arrive at the tube station in central London, you’ll emerge to blistering sunshine.  The same also applies in reverse.
  • You will see the politician that you waited 10 hours outside the House of Commons for on a daily basis as soon as the story that involved him/her has passed.
  • A celebrity on the red carpet that points at an individual camera is incredibly irritating to forty six photographers and very pleasing to one.
  • The kid who got the blurry picture of the burning building on his 4mm ultra-wide angle camera phone never quite understands that the image isn’t worth a grand.
  • The first casualties of press photography are your lens caps.
  • A standard “Grip and Grin” photo inside Downing Street lasts around 10 seconds. When the press officer tells you “this will be a quick one”, be concerned.
  • The Met Police do actually have rules to follow, regarding the working relationship with photographers.
  • There are only so many times that you can manage to genuinely laugh when a passer-by “amusingly” offers to swap their Praktica sure-shot for your full-frame DSLR with 300mm f2.8 lens.
  • Nobody wears photographer vests (See also “Wanker jackets”).
  • Your friends and family don’t care about the 15-month project that you’re doing on inner city deprivation but will want to hear all about the 8 seconds that you spent photographing David Beckham at the launch of his new branded Thermos flask.
  • Try to lead by example and make sure you wear deodorant when shooting London Fashion Week.
  • No matter how many times they’ve been shot, the Politico Top Trumps cards given away during party conference season are always a must.
  • Mentioning the name “Paul Delmar” is the press photographers equivalent to the masonic handshake.
  • When you’re slapping your laptop for only connecting at 7kb/s when wiring a job in the countryside, remember that it was only a few years ago when you’d have been high-fiving anyone close to you for getting such blistering speeds.
  • Nothing redresses the balance with PRs better than a full photographer walk-out.
  • The free photo recovery software that you get with your memory cards is no good to you uninstalled, sitting at the bottom of your desk drawer at home when things go wrong.
  • When shooting boxing, don’t assume that you’ll have the first round to get your settings adjusted.
  • When trying to board a plane with a very large camera kit as hand luggage, they may weigh your peli-case, but they won’t weigh your extra-pocketed jacket (but always consider “the wanker jacket”).
  • Nail your tight, bright and shite before you paint with light.
  • A photograph taken using Hipstamatic is not necessarily a great photograph.  It is more than likely a very average picture of an old car, slathered in faux retro image filters. (See also “fashions and trends”)
  • It’s good practice to get on with all the photographers you come across as it’s guaranteed that you’ll end up stuck on a doorstep for three days with the one you told to piss off.
  • Stand next to the loudest shouter at film premieres. (See “Ian West”)
  • Even if the object that we’ve been sent to shoot is stationary and there’s an hour available for pictures, photographers will instinctively end up scrambling into the room and monstering it.
  • If Nikon or Canon brought out a single pocket-sized camera that did everything, we’d still be inclined to carry the whole stockroom of Jacobs camera store on our backs most of the time.
  • Playing the age old game of “Where a photographer can and can’t take pictures” with the private security that work in office blocks and company headquarters is the modern equivalent of bear-baiting.  As a vague hint, if you’re on the public pavement and you’re on the outside edge of any studded boundary markers on the ground, snap away.  This may not apply if you’re doing a project on “The security systems of the MI5 building”.
  • Cameras may have been around since 1814 but every year, manufacturers manage to create exciting new ways to make photographers spend their wages.
  • Don’t expect to get eye-contact from the baked bean.
  • There’s only so much you can do with an old painting, a pair of white gloves and an auction house assistant.  See also “For Sale” signs, burning gas hobs, petrol pumps and credit cards.
  • Fashions and trends are just as common in the world of photography as anywhere else.  Lens babies, old film cameras, tilt & shifts and all-prime lens kits anyone?
  • Some photographers are just always in the right place.  These people are known as gits.
  • Freebies make the dullest job a little better.  The only exception being the 128mb USB stick.  I mean, come on…
  • Remember to take advantage of the incredible access that the job gives you.  If you’re somewhere cool, get a picture for yourself.  If you’re shooting someone you like, get a picture with them.  You’ll only regret it if you don’t.
  • The general public has no idea. If you’re stood with a 5d over your shoulder with a 50mm lens on, you will be asked which television channel you’re filming for.
  • The most anticipated jobs are often the biggest let-down for quality images and vice-versa.
  • Never think that you’re a better photographer than anyone else as someone with a sure-shot will come along and spank you (photographically speaking).
  • There’s no point in being a photographer if your camera isn’t ready.
  • Photographers that smoke can make any overdue event happen by simply putting their camera down and lighting a cigarette.
  • Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium is the best stadium.  This has nothing to do with any team preference and everything to do with the free wifi, three course meal before the match, personal editing areas with power points and free mini portions of fish and chips after the game.  If only I didn’t have to shoot football to get in.
  • Legendary stories can be found in the bar during Party conference season, listening to incredible stories of Fleet Street photographer history from one of the old guard.
  • The moment you stop shooting to entertain and satisfy yourself, you might as well go and work in an office.
  • Not much can compare to feeling the first hot rays from the sun as you leave Downing Street on a Summer’s day after an 8 hour stakeout.
  • No matter how sure you are of the job, the longer you wait for it to happen, the more likely you are to feel the need to frantically change your lens at the last moment.
  • The occurrences of Photoshop locking up and causing a system reboot is directly related to how urgently the pictures are needed by your picture desk. See also Laptop battery-life.
  • The habit of saving all of your newspaper cuttings grows less important as you realise that your house is beginning to resemble something from “Life of Grime“.
  • Working London photographers are walking encyclopaedias of where the nearest free toilets, wi-fi or shelter can be found at any time.
  • First three songs, no flash.
  • Every camera is designed to randomly refocus at the moment that the subject looks directly at you for the first time during the critical press conference.
  • Jacobs, not Jessops.
  • If you’re covering a story in a dodgy area of town, the first thing that the ever-so-friendly youth who comes over to chat will ask you is “how much is your gear worth?”  The answer is always “..about £300.  It’s all years old and knackered.  Your phones probably got a better camera”, even if you’re actually holding both of your D5 bodies with a 400mm f2 lens on each.
  • The silhouette is the last bastion of the charlatan. (Edward Mulholland 2004)
  • Anyone accepting a job on any picture desk automatically has their sense of time/distance awareness removed.
  • The photographer’s life is one constant rollercoaster of going from having the photographic Midas touch to feeling like an Amateur Photographer also-ran.  This is rarely a reflection on your actual abilities.  Dem’s da breaks.
  • There’s a very good reason that PR photography pays so well.
  • 250th/sec, f8, 1/4 power, manually focused to a metre and 45 degrees to the glass.
  • If you decide to pad out your filed images from a job with a few of lesser quality, they’re the ones that’ll be all over the papers the next day with your name in a larger than normal font.
  • Opposite number 10, Downing Street and the road outside the Old Bailey are the coldest places on Earth.
  • However long you’ve been doing it, there’s nothing like seeing a stranger really studying one of your published pictures in the paper.
  • “Only fools rush in” could have been written about digital camera purchasers.  When firmware version 1.2 comes out, they might have finally managed to get rid of the “freak-out during operation” glitch.
  • No matter how distinctive the person you’re all waiting for is, the collective of photographers will get more and more random with their choices of “possibles” to hose down as time goes on.
  • If all else fails, just whack it on f1.4 and make art.

Oct 03, 2011 | Categories: Thoughts | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments »

Tripoli’s, like, fantastic

With my self-preservation system in full effect, I was assigned to covering the events and features of Tripoli and after weeks of extensive coverage by my colleagues, it was getting harder to find new angles to cover.  Still, while ever I wasn’t being shot at, I could always look on the positive side!

One of the things that’s interested me since my arrival here is the youth culture in Libya. Coming from the UK where bars, pubs and nightclubs can be found everywhere, it’s surprisingly shocking to spend time in a culture that has nothing along these lines for the young people. While the lack of drinking venues is due to the ban on alcohol, my interest was in the lack of social opportunities for people. Aside from privately organised parties, the young people simply cruise the streets of gather outside coffee shops. Having spent the majority of my teens in practise rooms and venues, I wanted to look into music and thanks to some assistance from a local fixer, found Ausman.

When the revolution started, Ausman spent time fighting with the anti-Kadhafi forces before returning to Tripoli. During the last weeks of Kadhafi’s control, he spent his evenings writing and recording anti-regime music in his bedroom with his friend Aimen. An added complication came from the Government offices directly opposite his house. With the building in such close proximity, the songs had to be rehearsed and recorded in hushed tones before being released anonymously on YouTube. With the NTC now in power, they can finally share their music openly.  The fact that he had a huge collection of Iron Maiden served only to make him even cooler in my opinion.

The next day was another feel-good story as the fighter pilots that had defected to Malta after refusing to fire on unarmed protestors received the heroes welcome that they deserved. As was the way with nearly every official event that I covered in Libya, no-one really knew what was going on and after monstering the people getting off a completely unrelated jet, the media found the right target. With soldiers and police holding everyone back, I managed to slip the cordon and get a few personal moments before the rest of the crowds broke through.

Having opted to keep away from the front lines, the evening provided a little reminder of where I was as I made a phone call on the hotel balcony. Halfway through my conversation, I heard the now-familiar “zyip” of a bullet passing close by. Cue comical slow sinking from view and sharp exit from the balcony. Speaking to an NTC fighter later on, I was told of the continuing problem of snipers within the capital. While most of the day to day life seems to be a million miles away from the fighting, the continued presence of NTC roadblocks and threat of random sniper fire shows the work remaining for the new Government.

Continuing with the feature ideas, I visited a former Kadhafi weapons store underneath a building site in central Tripoli. Now burnt-out, it was clear from the hundreds of AK-47 clips and remains of packing crates that it had previously held some SERIOUS firepower.  With a bullets now cheaper than cartons of milk at 1 Libyan Dinar each, it can only lead to further trouble in years to come.

Next on the list of possible stories was a visit to the notorious Abu Salim prison.  Human Rights Watch believe that over 1200 prisoners were killed in 1996 and many political prisoners were held there for lengthy terms under the previous government. Now, like the former stronghold Bab Al-Azizir, the prison has become a tourist attraction but, more than that, a chance for those who were previously held here to show others what they endured. I bumped into one such man during my visit who was visiting the site with his son.  Thanks to hearing his story, I could begin to appreciate what the previous inmates went through. Cells that I’d initially thought cramped for one were actually for three and hearing of the forty+ rats that they caught one day in the communal area was quite an eye-opener.  Throughout the brutal conditions, the inside of the some of the cell doors had been decorated with pictures torn from magazines of tropical islands and even commercial passenger planes in flight.  The prisoner that I talked to told me that  he would never have believed that he would be visiting as a free man today.

That night, I received bad news. Following my previous comments on the dangers of Libyan roads and a very near-miss that we encountered on the roads to the East of Tripoli, I received a call that our Sirte team had been involved in a serious car crash while driving from Sirte back to Misrata. With the roads changing from smooth new tarmac to foot-deep holes and ruuble with no warning, I feared that this would have been the cause but instead it was simply stupidity on another driver’s part. While they were overtaking at speed, the other car decided to turn in front of them. With injuries including a fractured pelvis, dislocated shoulder and deep cuts, it truly is a miracle that they survived. Having been rescued from the wreckage, they were transported back to the medical centre that they’d only just evacuated due to increasing amounts of incoming shell-fire. As one of those involved told me afterwards, luck was on their side in so many ways that day. My thoughts and wishes for a speedy recovery to all of those involved.

While normality slowly returned to life in some areas of the city, the examples of wartime chaos continued to stand out with children playing on the beach next to a sandcastle sculpture built around an explosive missile and empty shell cases littering the floor wherever you walk.

Every day, those who are cover the frontline fighting are returning with shocking stories that would sound comical if they weren’t so tragic. While one guy accidentally set his AK-47 to automatic, spraying bullets everywhere at a checkpoint without knowing how to stop it (but thankfully killing no-one), others weren’t so lucky. A photographer witnessed a truck carrying three fighters explode into pieces after one fighter accidentally fired his RPG into his own vehicle, immediately killing two of his comrades. Combining the total lack of weapons training on some in the NTC side with the highly-skilled techniques of those former soldiers and mercenaries fighting on the pro-Kadhafi side results in the frontline being a very dangerous place to work.

After covering the re-opening of the US Embassy in central Tripoli (complete with a live performance of the American National anthem that had that subtle dischordant touch, worthy of a Terry Gilliam film), I headed to Zawiya to shoot a feature on the re-opening of the oil and gas production facilities. With oil production making up 96% of the country’s income (and most of the final 4% coming from gas), getting the output up to speed again was of huge importance. While even last week, I’d have been able to drive straight into the facility, the red tape monster has begun to weave it’s official nastiness through society again so I had a long wait as we worked our way through office after office of people claiming to be in charge but invariably unable to permit entry. By now, I’d got a handful of shots but was too deep to escape so when the permission was granted, my driver and I had to endure a thorough and totally unecessary tour of the site, complete with “v for victory” gestures and uncomfortable poses from everyone we passed. Sheesh…

Saturday arrived and it was time to fly home to Blighty. After already covering the story of the re-introduction of flights to Turkey from Tripoli, I booked tickets on Turkish Airlines to fly me back to London via Istanbul. I should have known really. A few days before, I’d gone down to Matiga then Tripoli International airports to record the first planes arriving only to find that they were cancelled. Despite enjoying the last moments of bureaucratic freedom that saw us given permission to wander around freely on an active international runway, there was no sign of any commercial flights. Heavy with hope and assurances from Turkish Airlines that they were now flying, I headed to Matiga to begin the long trip home. Nope. They were still selling tickets and confident assurances to those wanting to fly out of Tripoli, despite them still not having flown or landed a single international flight in Tripoli since their grand announcement. What a complete waste of time and money.

So that looks like that’s it.  I write this from the hotel with one extra day to cover before beginning the very long journey home via Tunisia.  It’s certainly been a hell of an experience of both the good and bad flavour.  If Libya plays it’s card right, the future could be very bright indeed.  Aside from it’s huge oil reserves, cashing in on the tourist dollar is a real possibility.  While to some in the West, Libya has previously been seen as a secretive country filled with people running around in bomb vests, it’s been a real pleasure to to see this proved so wrong and to witness the early days of a whole new country.  With this much optimism in the air, my fingers are well and truly crossed for you all.

Parts one and two of the assignment can be found here;

http://www.leonneal.com/blog/2011/09/17/life-in-libya-september-2011/

http://www.leonneal.com/blog/2011/09/19/fear-and-reloading-in-libya/

Sep 24, 2011 | Categories: Global positions | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments »

Fear and reloading in Libya

As my assignment to Libya has continued, I’ve fallen into the routine of a day in the city followed by a day on the checkpoints with the latter involving a lot of waiting and a lot of guns.  When I say a lot, I mean a LOT.  I’m continually expecting to see Mel Gibson and Tina Turner wandering through the gatherings  as the NTC have converted all of their cars and pick-up trucks into weapons of war.  While some are armed with the right gear for the job, others have rocket launchers from the underside of military jets while the most scary of the lot seem to be drainpipes stuffed with high explosive rockets.

The biggest fear out of here is that of friendly fire.  While Kadhafi’s dwindling forces are essentially trained mercenaries and soldiers, the NTC is an army of the public with former lawyers fighting side-by-side with heavily armed teenage boys.  In the week that I’ve been here, I’ve heard of a guard at our hotel taking most of his hand off through lack of basic safety protocol while an NTC fighter on the frontline managed to lose his front teeth (but thankfully not his head) after using a live bullet as a hammer.

After all that gung-ho stuff, I had a short burst of normality when the political roadshow rolled into town.  British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy became the first world leaders to visit Libya since Tripoli’s fall causing much excitement and general security panic.  As they were holding the press conference in our hotel (handy, that), we simply had to wait for the show to start.  In a bit of a busman’s holiday, I found myself waiting with Pete Nicholls from The Times, Stefan Rousseau from PA and Jamie Wiseman from The Mail for the PM to rock up; basically a regular day in Downing Street!  For once, it was nice to actually be able to feel my fingertips though due to the lovely 35 degree heat.

With the day of politics over, it was back to the frontline.  With news coming through that the fighting in Sirte had begun, we gathered up our armour and hit the road.  To break up the seven hour journey to Kadhafi’s hometown, we stopped off briefly in Misrata, the city that was absolutely destroyed during fighting earlier in the month and the place where Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros were killed.  I cannot begin to explain how much damage there was to see.  Block after block of homes and businesses were riddled with bullet holes and whole streets had been burned to the ground.  Due to it’s strategic importance in connecting roads between Tripoli, Bani Walid, Sirte and other major cities, the Pro-Kadhafi forces had fought tooth and nail to keep it, totally destroying it in the process.

Outside the remains of a shopping street, a temporary exhibition has now been set up to show the range of weapons and firepower that was unleashed on this urban non-military area.  Truly horrifying.

So that was the “relaxing break” over with and we got back in the car to complete our journey.  As we got further from the capital, the checkpoints became more “Wild West” with massive shipping containers filled with sand blocking the dual carriageway at random points.  Heavily armed soldiers guarded each one with some waving you through without a glance while others searched the car, inspected our papers and demanded extra forms and letters to prove that our vehicle was worthy of handling off-road driving.  As it was, we were in a Chrysler PT Cruiser; an adults equivalant of one of the 50p-a-go Noddy Cars that kids ride in supermarkets.  Miraculously, we were eventually allowed to pass as long as we wore our body armour from that point onwards.

As we passed through the final checkpoint, the guard waved us through with a smile, saying something to us as we passed.  On asking for a translation, Mohammed Ali, an Arabic-speaking AFP journalist explained that he’d said “Welcome to Sirte.  I hope you don’t die here”.

By now, I’m hoping that I’ve managed to give you even the smallest idea of how I was feeling.  This really wasn’t much fun.  As we progress down the road, we stopped as we passed every group to see how much further we could go.  For some reason, I always thought of a frontline as being something more “solid” than how it actually is.  As we got closer, we were told that just 30 minutes before, the area that was now filled with soldiers relaxing and eating had been the frontline and could just as easily be the scene of fighting again in another thirty minutes.  After a tentative approach, we finally reached what we knew to be the final “safe point” where fighters and medics were gathering after brief probes into the centre.

Within five minutes, we were united with the other AFP team in the area including AFP’s Lisbon photographer Fransisco Leong.  After a brief hello, the fresh arrivals got into their pick-up truck while they stayed behind to wire their work and headed to the front.  As soon as we arrived on the main street to the airport, I could see that the far end was just a mass of smoke as both sides fought to take control of the strategic point.  Most of the fire was outgoing so after a few minutes, we began to move forward to see what was happening. Suddenly, the tide turned and the NTC were in retreat.  We ran to the pickup and dashed back to the safety point.

After gathering our thoughts, we headed back in, following a massive convoy of post-Apocalyptic trucks and cars, mounted with every sort of gun.  On reaching a major roundabout, they drew to a standstill and seemed to begin classing it as a safepoint.  Then the incoming fire began.  Coming from the Sirte police headquarters nearby, the roundabout was less than a kilometre away and everyone rushed to turn their vehicles around to return fire.  The sound was unbelievable with rocket launchers firing over our heads as anti-aircraft cannons tore through the foliage between where we were and the headquarters.  The expected clatter and whoosh of weapons was joined by other screeches and metallic tearing sounds as ultra-high speed cannons began firing.

As we worked our way between the trucks, the pro-Kadhafi started to fire on us from behind and a two seperate sprays of bullets zipped over our aheads and into the vehicles around us.  Everyone dived for cover with the advice to take cover behind the bulk of the car’s engine thankfully coming to mind at the right time.  Within a few minutes, the sheer amount of firepower unleashed on the police building was enough to silence the return fire and we were able to regroup and head to the safety point on the outskirts.

When I got back to the drop-off area, I downloaded my images and looked through them to find just how lacking they were in telling the story of what I’d just been through.  The thing about shooting this kind of thing is that it’s nearly impossible to capture the sights, sounds and chaos of what’s going on with a still image.  While I shot frame after frame of people shooting and returning fire, inevitably, they’d be someone in the foreground, walking across the shot, looking as though they were heading to the shops on a Saturday afternoon.  When I came out to Libya, I had no intention of covering the bangbang aspect of the story but due to the fluid way things were happening, I found myself putting my life in danger on the frontline. Not good.  Speaking to people who actually enjoy shooting this kind of thing afterwards, they all agreed that it mainly lends itself to video and that a strong action picture from a firefight is actually incredibly rare.

With my stress levels just about returning to normality, we jumped in the car to begin the long drive back to Misrata before nightfall due to security concerns on the roads.  Halfway along the journey, we were running low on fuel so stopped off at a garage in the middle of the desert to fill up.  Since the fighting began, Libya’s largest petrol company has been providing free fuel to the rebel forces as was the case here with journalists also allowed to take advantage.  Due to the high demand, rather than fill up the forecourt tanks, a man was standing with a hosepipe, straight out of the back of a fuel tanker.  On the end, was an empty water bottle, acting a funnel and when he turned the hose over to go into the vehicle’s tank, fuel was spilling everywhere freely.  Basically, it was a direct line to the whole reservoir in the truck.  Yikes.  I got out of the car on seeing this and casually sauntered away while filling took place.  On returning to the car, my initial relief at getting through the re-fuel turned to panic as I noticed that the guy doing the filling was actually smoking a cigarette.  My jaw dropped and I didn’t know whether to run away or towards the car.  I started waving frantically at him, gesturing for him to stop.  His response?  He smiled at me, took his cigarette from his mouth…

…and tapped the burning ash into the end of the main fuelpipe.

When they say that cats have nine lives, I hope humans have many more as I just managed to use up at least four in a single day.

*****

I have no idea why but, for some reason, this post went out without the part that I added onto the end before hitting “publish” so here it is as an update.  On returning to Tripoli, I decided that I wasn’t prepared to risk it again and so informed AFP that I’d be unable to cover the frontline stuff any more.  A beautiful girlfriend and the magnificent Max are two very good reasons as to why I’m not prepared to risk my life for a picture.  I’m based in the capital for the rest of the assignment.  Relax, Mum!  :)

*****

Part one of this assignment can be found here.

 

Sep 19, 2011 | Categories: Global positions | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 32 Comments »

Life in Libya, September 2011

I was recently asked what my ideal situation would be, regarding how I’d like to work and after some thought I settled on having the freedom to spend longer on jobs that have a deeper back story without the need to feel that I was there at the start.  Speaking to Tom Stoddart recently, he stated that he really enjoyed covering the story after the “breaking news” teams had moved on to the next story and I agree that having the luxury to cover a story at my own pace sounds very tempting.

When I was offered the chance to head to Libya to work on the unfolding story of a country finding it’s feet after over forty years under tight and often brutal rule, I couldn’t really say no.


Despite the idea of having freedom to look for my own features in this massive story, the nerves built as the day of travel got closer.  Coming as it did so soon after my last blog post on the fundraiser for a photographer who was killed covering the story, I didn’t want to find myself the subject of similar charitable endeavours.
The trip into Libya proved to be the expected welcome to North African life with an attempted bribe situation at the Tunisian border (Euros? Yes, I have plenty thanks. Euros? Why do you ask?  Euros? No.) and my taxi driver who turned out just to be some random bloke with a car trying (and failing) to charge me the equivalant of £280 for my journey.
The hotel that I was assigned was reportedly strongly pro-Kadhafi ahead of his political demise and appeared to be making up for their loss by tearing the world’s media’s daily food allowances to shreds.  A few days before I arrived, there had been no running water for the guests and, rather dubiously, the day they drained the swimming pool, the kitchen started serving pasta (or “elastopasta”, as I decided to brand it, due to the strong possibility of finding a verruca plaster in your carbonara).  All this for a mere £145 a night and £35 per dodgy buffet.  War is hell.  The only sign that I was in a warzone on that first night was the guy sat on a table nearby with twin 7.62 calibre bullet belts acroos his shoulders as he tucked into the trifle.

By way of getting to know the location/see the sights, I headed into town with AFP video journalist Paul Barber and discovered our first features including young Libyan art students painting anti-Kadhafi murals on city centre walls and the obligatory tour of Tripoli’s new theme park (AKA the Colonel’s massive compound Bab al-Azizia), complete with a web of underground tunnels and bunkers.

Arriving as we did a few weeks after the initial rush, souvenirs were scarce on the ground but a chandelier had been helpfully smashed to smithereens, carpeting the floor with fake diamond crystals.  It beats a postcard, I guess.  The sprawling compound has now become a hub of social activity with some coming to celebrate the political change while others just enjoy the green open spaces.  Walking among the rubble and debris, a Libyan man walked over to me and, in the broadest Yorkshire accent you can imagine, told me he was “dead chuffed to be here”.  My heart sang.   The other odd discovery was a copy of the free catalogue from the British cosmetics store “Lush Times“.  Already known by men around the world as “that place that smells a bit like chemical warfare in the local shooping centre”, I personally think they should bring out a bathbomb in his honour but I’m not sure how tasteful that would be…


Communications in Libya have proved massively problematic with British phone carriers unable to roam on local networks and most stores in the city closed.  Aside from using satphones such as the Thuraya, the only other way is to buy on the black market which, at best, gets you a £2.50 sim card for £60 and at worst gets you a sim card taken from someone who is missing or dead.  Journalists I spoke to talked of receiving calls at all times of the day and night from relatives, asking in Arabic for news on the phone’s original owner.  A lovely touch to the working day.


Travelling around in Libya is done with the help of local drivers and fixers who use their abundant local knowledge to get you to the places and people you need to see.  Having a good fixer can really make or break your day as became clear as I worked my way through the regular guys we were using.  While one man was straight on the phone after every request, sorting and arranging before rushing me to exactly the right spot, another guy took sanctuary under the nearest tree until it was time to go home.  The roads in Libya can prove quite an electrifying experience too with most feeling like that patch of “no man’s land” after a toll booth where there are no road markings and everyone just floors it in all directions, the difference being this is all of the time, on all of the roads.

To break the boredom for those journalists who have been in Libya for months, the jobs are divided up on a rotational basis.  This means that for me for every day that I get to spend in the capital chasing feature ideas, I have to balance that with a day on the front line.
120km due South of Tripoli is one of the few remaining strongholds of the pro-Kadhafi loyalists, Bani Walid.  Made up of 52 villages combined into one town, the place itself is stuck right in the middle of the desert.  Reachable only by a handful of roads, the area is filled with heavily armed soldiers and snipers so is a decidedly dangerous place to be.  On the first day that I arrived, I bumped into a colleague from the London bureau who had just returned from here after a group of media trucks came under fire from soldiers on the hillside.  While it’s now thought that they were firing at the NTC positions over the heads of the journalists, it still made for a hell of a scary experience for them.


Thankfully for me, the situation has improved due to increased security around the town and the checkpoint that media are allowed to get to being moved further away from town.  While it’s safer, it also means that there is a distinct possibility of death through boredom.  Located in the bottom of a valley, the checkpoint becomes a little media village as each day wears on with the bigger crews having vans and tents while the rest of us search desperately for shade from the midday sun.  All that’s left for the media to do is photograph the soldiers on guard and the families fleeing the threat of attack.

Having got the guns and bullets out of my system within a few hours, the first day there provided a little bonus when journalist Dominique and myself (AKA The Kickass Katiba) were invited to sit with a group of fighters as they ate.

After shooting a few portraits of them, a senior figure in the NTC army arrived with a briefcase full of money and started to pay the troops right in front of us, underneath a bridge on a dried-up riverbed.  With the fighting dragging on longer than hoped, the fighters are struggling to survive with families at home in need of income so supporters have raised money by selling their posessions and sending the funds to the frontline.

While the money was a welcome sight, it was heartening to see that a good percentage of those that were paid simply gave the home addresses of their families and parents, asking for the money to go straight to them.  One guy said he’d only need a tiny part of the cash as the NTC were providing everything he needed; “food, a bed and cigarettes”.

On returning to the hotel in Tripoli, we were alerted to shouting in the lobby and fearing the worst, dashed down to find what passes for normality in the midst of this fractured society; a literal shotgun wedding (or an AK-47 one if you want to be picky.)  Here’s to the next eleven days!

 

Sep 17, 2011 | Categories: Global positions | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 19 Comments »

Anton Hammerl

Yesterday, I got an email from London photographer Teri Pengilley, regarding her decision to attempt to raise some money for the family of freelance photographer Anton Hammerl who was killed in the Libyan desert while covering the recent fighting.  Here’s what Teri has to say about her plan;

“Next Saturday, September 3rd, I am going to attempt to swim 10km along the river Dart – and I need your support.
Five months ago a freelance photographer, Anton Hammerl, was fatally wounded in the Libyan desert, leaving behind his widow Penny and their three children, Aurora, 11; Neo, 7, and baby Hiro.
Many of you are photographers or freelancers or both, and have experienced the incredible support that this community gives in times and places of need.
Anton was not backed by a big media corporation. This fund is to provide for three young children who have lost their father, a man passionately committed to the truth, to giving a voice to the voiceless.
Next weekend I shall be plunging into the murky and bracing waters of the river Dart at Totnes and attempting to swim ten kilometres to Dittisham, and I am hoping that you will pledge your sponsorship here.
I haven’t got one of those pages that ask you to pay up front – that way I could paddle off to sip scrumpy as soon as you transfer your hard-earned pennies. I want you to sponsor me in the old-fashioned way where each kilometre I complete costs you more money, and raises more for Anton’s family. So please pledge here; it’s for a very good cause.”

As you can see from this, it’s a very worthy cause and something that you should really consider donating to, whatever the amount.

Unfortunately, as Teri isn’t a registered charity, she’s hit a bit of a brick wall regarding setting up a “Just Giving”-type donation page so is having to go all old-school and rely on human decency to follow up with their kind offers.

If you want to support her fantastic mission of insanity, please head over to the Facebook page that she set up here to donate.

More of Anton’s work from Libya can be found at his photoshelter page here.

Aug 30, 2011 | Categories: Random oddity | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

The flying cocks of Wembley

 

From “bad-men-in-town” to just plain badminton.  Oh the puns…  So many many puns…


Following the weight of last week’s work, it was quite a nice break to be sent to cover something new for me; the Yonex BWF World Badminton Championships 2011 at Wembley Arena in London.  Regular readers will know of my complete disinterest in all things sporting but with this big Olympic thingamajig on the horizon, I’m being thrown at all sorts of test events in an attempt to find something that I’ll enjoy.  First on the cards was badminton so off to Wembley I went.

Like my first moments of covering tennis recently, the immediate concern was working out how the game worked and how it scored.  This may seem laughable, but not only am I totally ignorant of the game but if you don’t understand the time-line of a game, you’ll miss the chance to spot the critical moments.  For those who need the info, it’s as follows; two sets of first to 21 or above with three clear points with a break after the eleventh point each time.  If there’s no winner after the two sets, it goes to a third with the players swapping ends at the eleventh point.  I’m already expecting the majority of emails that I receive on this post to be corrections on my woefully inadequate grasp of the rules.

Having shot two weeks of tennis at Wimbledon, I thought that I may have an idea of how fast it was going to be but I was left in shock by how fast the player’s reactions are.  It was hard enough to follow with the eye, never mind the hand.  By the end of the second day, a common phrase heard from the photographer’s area was a self-berating “stop watching and shoot, damn it!”.  When the opponents break into a fast-paced rally, it really is a sight to behold.  Definitely a sport that would not mix well with a hangover.

Even with only two days of badminton to shoot, I still managed to get a bit bored so played around with what I could see.  The chap below is Peter Gade of Denmark, demonstrating his rather startling technique of collecting all of his sweat on his hand, then flicking it towards the photographers.  I’m hoping it wasn’t intentionally aimed but it certainly made you keep your eye on him between points.

With China such a dominant force in the world badminton leagues, it was quite a shock to see a team from Great Britain making their way into the finals of the mixed doubles.  Chris Adcock and Imogen Bankier looked for a while like being the only chance that the chap who pressed play on the CD player might have of loading something other than “Now that’s what I call the Chinese National Anthem IV” into his player.  In the end, as is the way that we’ve come to know and expect, the Chinese were simply too strong and romped to victory.  Ah well, it gave us another chance to enjoy that stone-cold classic “March of the Volunteers” one more time…


By the end of the final day, we’d been treated to the Chinese National Anthem five times; a clean sweep of every match.  I think the rest of the world may need to get a few more practise sessions in before 2012.

Aug 15, 2011 | Categories: The working day | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments »