For sub-editors on Reuters Singapore Picture Desk, one of this year’s performance targets is a “shooting assignment”. They have to select and plan a valid photographic assignment and then shoot pictures for the wire. The exercise is intended to give them practical insight into the working lives of busy photographers in the field and the decisions and operational challenges they face on a daily basis. 

Shahida Patail is one such sub-editor.

Up until now my picture taking had been limited to holiday snaps and friends’ weddings but the thought of shooting a picture for the Reuters wire was certainly appealing.

In my eagerness I decided to go to Arab Street and on a working day to boot. There was no concrete idea in my head, but I kept thinking of the colourful shop houses and the much-photographed Sultan Mosque and felt confident that I’d be able to find a subject. Luckily, before leaving the office, my boss Pedja Kujundzic suggested a possible angle - old buildings contrasted with new buildings.

Off I went only to find all my enthusiasm melted in the searing heat as I realized I had no idea what to shoot. I ended up taking random images. I couldn’t seem to find the right angle to deliver the shots I had in mind. The shop houses suddenly seemed more dirty than colourful, and every building seemed to be blocked by those blasted trees and lampposts.

And every time I tried to take a photo with people in it, they would quickly turn or walk away. My hopes were raised when I saw one foreign worker sitting in a corner of an old shop house, tiffin carrier in hand as he prepared to eat his lunch. I was already fantasizing  about the wonderful portrait picture it would make, when he saw me and got up rather menacingly. Panicked, I abruptly turned my camera away and pretended to be shooting an adjacent building. When I felt brave enough to look back in his direction again, he was gone.

Memo to self:  

-Plan the assignment properly. Have some idea of what you are looking for - unless you wanna walk around for hours in the heat uselessly lugging heavy equipment!

-Bring a trolley back or backpack - the weight of the equipment is an issue particularly if you are not used to it. 

-Go do the assignment on an off day, not a working day. You need plenty of time and patience to wait for that picture to come, and it’s best to do it while the mind is still fresh.

After my rather unproductive maiden shoot, I was ready for another go. This time, I was better prepared. I picked a day that I wasn’t working, I dressed comfortably, I brought along a lightweight backpack.

Earlier, I had discussed possible ideas with Editor in Charge David Loh, who brought to my attention the railway track running through the Portsdown area. He told me of families living in the nearby HDB estate who had made the area near the track their private little “gardens”, growing food and plants. So my theme for the day would be the railway and its little communities.

My first stop was the railway station in Tanjong Pagar. This is the starting point for trains leaving Singapore. I arrived before 8am, and started taking shots of passengers buying tickets and waiting for the train. When the first train finally pulled into the station at about 8.30am, I followed the hordes of people onto the platform - five minutes later I had been unceremoniously ushered back into the waiting hall by a fierce-looking train conductor. “No photography on the platform,” he said in a booming voice that made nearby heads turn in my direction. At that moment I wished that the 20D (plus grip) was a lot less conspicuous.

So I turned my attention to the station building. It’s a nice building, built in 1932 in a distinctly European style. After taking a few shots there, I took a taxi to Portsdown.

Armed with a street directory, I thought I could easily find the track that runs through the area. I was wrong. The taxi made a few wrong turns, and finally I decided to explore on foot. Kind Mr Taxi Driver agreed to wait for me as I trekked across a field towards the railway track partially hidden by long grass. Yes, there were old HDB buildings across the track, but there was no one and certainly no “gardens”. The whole area was quite desolate. Plus all sorts of insects were having a go at me, so I ran back to the taxi. Luckily, Mr Taxi Driver told me the track ran through the nearby Jalan Hang Jebat, so we went there. This time, access to the track wasn’t hampered by overgrown vegetation or bloodthirsty insects, but there was no sight of the train. After taking a few shots, I slowly walked back to the waiting taxi. I was about 50 metres away from the track when I heard the chugging of the train. I turned and ran back - too late. The train was too fast for me, and by the time I raised my camera the train was gone. Determined to catch the train, I went to Bukit Timah, where there was a small station. I waited for a long time for the train to appear, and finally gave up.

So my rail theme wasn’t working out. I then remembered David mentioning that the high-rise buildings in Telok Blangah offered spectacular views of the port. I tried my luck, but the tiny corridors gave a very restricted view.

Desperate now, I thought hard and decided that Mount Faber would have good views of the port. So I headed there, and realised the hill had decent views of the city and residential skyline. I took some shots, and on my way back took some photos of the cable cars travelling to and from the hill.

It was evening when I got back to our office at Science Park Drive, but the day had been fruitful - 2 pictures were moved to the wire, and 5 others to the RPA archive.

 Memo to self - 2:

- When faced with challenges, improvise! I should have bought a train ticket and hopped onto the train; it would have offered plenty of shots and the conductor would have no reason to chase me away. And I should have knocked on doors at that Telok Blangah flat…

- If there’s time, recce the place you’re intending to shoot. Things change and people move, so a little bit of research beforehand doesn’t hurt.

- Enough trains!

It was third time lucky and thing really started to come together at the day-care centre for elderly folks. It was cramped and messy, and it was a challenge for me to find a suitable place to position myself and take decent shots. But the patients at the centre were all lovely and smiley and really made my shoot worthwhile.

This is my favourite shot - a therapist massaging a patient. When I saw the clean background behind the therapist, I knew immediately I could compose something worthwhile here. What was a bonus for me was that the patient’s face was quite expressive, but I did not notice this when I first took the shot ‘cos it was dark. And of course the camera LCD screen is small. When I opened the picture in Photoshop back in the office, I was pleased with the result. 

I was extremely nervous when taking these shots of the patients undergoing pet therapy. The dogs that were brought in were MASSIVE, and they were barking a lot. Of course they’re harmless but I’ve never been surrounded by so many big dogs in my life. Every time I crouched down to take a picture, I was afraid of accidentally stepping on a dog’s tail, because the space was so tight.

An interesting challenge is how to tell the story without including the subject in the photographs. It’s interesting because, by avoiding the obvious and familiar, sometimes a greater sense of the occasion, and the emotions involved,  can be conveyed.

For example, take the current visit by Pope Benedict XVI to the United States.  Clearly the Pope was the centre of attention, and there are very good photographs of him that were taken and published in newspapers and on websites around the world. Photographs of him bring pleasure and comfort to millions.

 The fact that he is in the States is of interest too, and it is important to take photographs that locate him there. On the other hand we are familiar with photographs that show the Pope in person, and what strikes me when looking at the Reuters coverage of the current visit is just how much the passion, reverence and joy felt by so many, can be conveyed in photographs that don’t show him in at all.

Jason Reed’s photograph of the red carpet being unrolled at Andrews Air Force Base sets the scene for the arrival of a VIP

But it’s the facial expressions that truly convey the emotion felt - simply put, pure joy.

Erin Siegal’s photograph of a nun waiting for the Pope to arrive at a rally in New York conveys the joy perfectly

Max Rossi captures the uninhibited emotions of a nun at the same event

This girl can’t contain her emotions any longer as the Pope arrives at the New York rally, captured by Max Rossi.

But it isn’t just faces that convey emotion - there other scenes that are just as graphic. However, I was trying to choose photographs that do not actually show the Pope, but as this is a photograph of a photograph,  I don’t really think it’s cheating!

Brian Snyder’s photograph of a woman holding up a greeting  at the New York rally conveys an emotion in a very simple way.

For the photographer there are numerous rich images to observe and capture, that serve to convey the emotion in a very elegant manner.

Max Rossi’s photograph shows a bishop waiting for the arrival of the Pope at the Saint Joseph seminary in New York

Brian Snyder’ photograph, shot at the same event,  gives an idea of the length of time people were prepared to wait to see the Pope

This photograph by Larry Downing speaks for itself, although I have left the original caption to give all the facts any picture editor could need -

“Sister Chantal Peyton of the Little Sisters of the Poor, in Newark, Delaware, (L), uses a pair of binoculars next to Sister Julie Horseman of the Little Sisters of the Poor, in Washington D.C., in the stadium before Pope Benedict XVI conducts Mass in Washington Nationals Park during his visit to the United States, April 17, 2008″

Of course, a Papal visit attracts people with a variety of views, and the photograph below conveys emotion too, albeit different from any of the other pictures here.

Larry Downing’s photograph shows demonstrators waving signs in front of the White House as the Pope leaves after attending a welcome ceremony

…and finally, here a photograph of the Pope (even though you can’t see him), which is aesthetically pleasing - but the heavy security reminds us that a visit by the Pope arouses emotions in some people who might want to take their feeling further than waving banners.

Carlos Barria’s photograph shows the Pope, in the Popemobile,  passing St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York on April 19

Japan’s sleepy town of Iga offered an opportunity for me to write my first story for the news wire. Iga is known to many Japanese as one of the traditional home towns of the ninja. I was looking forward to seeing tens of thousands ninja clad enthusiasts, the ninja themed-train and a house with secret escape passages - the home of a real ninja.

The hardest part was knowing where to start - that and deciding on what the story’s ’selling point’ would be in text terms rather than pictures. Would I be able to persuade people to give me both tantelising ninja tidbits and interesting quotes?

I first interviewed the self-proclaimed grandson of a real ninja who told me that his grandfather was always out on the lookout for ways to further his skills had even mastered the art of hypnotism. A museum curator  that the web of myth and mystery surrounding the world of the ninja fired people’s imaginations and for this reason the ninja lives on.

These were details that could only be related in words rather than pictures.

Shooting and writing have many things in common. Whether writer or photographer, one must think, “what would keep the viewer’s attention for at least one more second?” “Is it this angle? Should I crop the picture like this?” or, “which quote is more interesting? What headline is catchier?”

Needless to say both disciplines call for ethics and accuracy.

But shooting requires instantaneous reactions and concentration - the time it takes to make or break a picture. We can’t ask the subject to smile again, and goals and penalties on the soccer field cannot be replayed in real life. Writers can draft, rewrite and call sources back to check details again but they also need to have an overall view of an issue, information from all sides and different perspectives to balance their offerings, which is often something photographers cannot provide.

So, which is more difficult?

May I haven’t fully experienced the obstacles and challenges which face one of our text writers, but for me every photographic assignment is a battle because there are no real answers. There is no handbook for creativity.

We photographers need eyes in the back of our heads and although we may generate most of it ourselves we work under enormous pressure to distill the essence of the story and capture it in a moment.

For those who may have missed it, this is the Reuters story reporting the killing of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. It is a tragic loss and I would like to add my condolences to his family, friends and colleagues.

Reuters cameraman killed in Gaza 

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - A Reuters cameraman was killed in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday in what appeared to be an Israeli military strike.

Fadel Shana, 23, was covering events in the enclave for the international news agency on a day of intense violence when 16 other Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers were also killed.

Two youths passing by died in the same explosion that killed Shana, witnesses said. The cameraman had stepped from his car to film an Israeli tank dug in several hundred meters (yards) away.

Video from Shana’s camera showed the tank opening fire. Two seconds after the shot raises dust around its gun, the tape goes blank — seemingly at the moment Shana was hit.

Reuters soundman Wafa Abu Mizyed, 25, sustained a shrapnel wound and was being treated in a Gaza hospital.

The Israeli army declined immediate comment on what caused Shana’s death. It expressed sorrow but also said journalists were putting their lives at risk in areas of combat.

The Reuters vehicle was an unarmored sport utility vehicle bearing “TV” and “Press” markings. The blast on a country back road left the car shattered and ablaze. Shana’s body amour had been partially torn off. Abu Mizyed had no recollection of the incident, which occurred in good light around 5 p.m. (1400 GMT).

An Israeli military spokeswoman, Major Avital Leibovich, said there had been clashes there throughout the day after the three Israeli troops had been killed overnight in the same area. 

A military official said: “We wish to express sorrow for the death of the Palestinian cameraman… It should be emphasized that the area in which the cameraman was hurt is an area in which ongoing fighting against armed, extreme and dangerous terrorist organizations occurs on a daily basis.”

“The presence of media, photographers and other uninvolved individuals in areas of warfare is extremely dangerous and poses a threat to their lives.”

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s spokesman said: “In our operations we try to be as surgical as possible and make every effort not to see innocent people caught up in the fighting.”

CALL FOR INVESTIGATION

Reuters Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger called for an investigation: “This tragic incident shows the risks journalists take every day to report the news. All governments and organizations have a responsibility to take the utmost care to protect professionals trying to do their jobs,” he said.

“Our thoughts are with his family. We request an immediate investigation into the incident by the Israeli defense forces.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who was visiting Moscow, telephoned Reuters in Gaza to express his condolences.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Paris-based Reporters Without Borders mourned Shana’s death.

“We are asking the Israeli authorities to publicly commit to carrying out an exhaustive investigation into this incident and to make its findings public,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon in a statement. 

Shana, who had worked for Reuters in Gaza for more than three years, was wounded in 2006 when an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at a Reuters vehicle. That car also carried markings showing it was operated by the media organization.

Shana, who was unmarried, was a gentle and popular figure among the 15-strong Reuters news team in the Gaza Strip. The bureau was honored by Britain’s Royal Television Society for its coverage of last year’s factional fighting in Gaza.

Hundreds of journalists and well-wishers flocked to the hospital where Shana’s body was taken. The family planned to hold a funeral on Thursday.

Journalists have become casualties on numerous occasions in the Palestinian territories. Media watchdogs estimate that nine have been killed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 2000.

An Israeli soldier shot a Reuters photographer in the leg in Gaza in October. Two Reuters journalists were wounded by an Israeli tank shell in the enclave in 2003.

Also in 2003, one of the most widely renowned Palestinian journalists to work for Reuters, television cameraman Mazen Dana, was shot dead by a U.S. soldier in Baghdad. Six other Reuters journalists have been killed in that conflict.

The casual observer could be forgiven for wondering whatever happened to the Italian election. For a country which prides itself on the “colourful” antics of its political class, this year the vote was devoid of spectacle and celebration, which photographers prey upon. Silvio Berlusconi won the prime minister’s post after Walter Veltroni conceded defeat in a deadpan speech in Rome, and the best Silvio could do was telephone a few TV stations to say he was “moved”. I pleaded with our staff photographers to provide reaction pictures from party supporters either on the winning or losing side, but it was the equivalent of an emotional dustbowl in the streets of Rome. The only things missing were tumbleweeds blowing through the streets like in a Spaghetti Western. I’ve seen countless election campaigns in my career but this goes into the books as the dullest one… As a colleague noted, due to the stagnant economy this was probably a good election to lose, which may explain the lack of fanfare. 

 
On the plus side, freelance photographers will be happy at the result. Whether or not one supports him, one thing is as sure as the sun rises — Silvio Berlusconi sells photos. Freelancers tell me that their incomes go up significantly during a Berlusconi term, now his third, because he creates news. The grey outgoing prime minister, Romano Prodi, failed to generate the same amount of editorial interest as his predecessor. Now, although the Italian economy may be in the doldrums, at least some of my colleagues can benefit.

     Well……..I don’t believe it!!! It’s happened. If you’ve read my last blog, ‘The Road West of Kangding’ you know that I called that particular road ‘the worst road in the world’. Well….guess what….there is much worse.

     Travelling with Chris Buckley, Reuters Beijing-base correspondent, we flew to Chengdu in Sichuan Province in China’s south-west to try and get into areas where we had heard that violent demonstrations regarding Tibet had occurred. The reports stated that buildings had been damaged, thousands of riot police and soliders had been deployed, hundreds of local Tibetans had been arrested and Buddhist temples were surrounded. So with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao telling the world that such troubles were over less than a week after these reports, and there were no independent witnesses to verify this, we wanted to find out.

     We decided to travel on a local bus north-east from Chengdu to the city of Mianyang, from where we would decide what to do next. Looking back, we should have realised that the number of police roadblocks we saw, just going that far, was an indication of what we would encounter over the next few days.

     We found a local driver, and after staying just a few hours at a hotel (in case the local police became aware of our presence), we headed north. The roads out of town were wonderful. Slowly winding their way through the valley floors and then up into the mountains.

      We needed to speak to some local farmers and chose to stop for the night at a small rural township known as Baima, located around 250 kilometres north of Mianyang. Life was continuing pretty much normally for these lovely, very hospitable people. They showed us proudly around their homes, and told us we were expected for dinner at 7pm. I very quickly got our driver to take me 30 kilometres down the road to get a CDMA signal to file some pictures to the Singapore desk, but thankfully managed to make it back on time.

     The array of local dishes was spectacular. But it did come at a cost - the cost of consuming of 3 cups of local wine in less than one minute, and the singing of a song that both Chris and I knew after we were honoured with a local Tibetan welcoming song. The only song we both really knew was the Australian national anthem, (just a note, Chris has spent 10 years in China and sadly, I had to help him a little, tut tut Chris) but hopefully no recordings were made and that rendition will never be heard again.

     The next morning we got up, and it had been snowing. Around one foot of pristine, white snow blanketed the trees. Beautiful perhaps, buy not a good start when you have to travel on mountain roads that day. We had gone barely five kilometre when we had to get out and remove rocks from our path. The steep banks above the road could barely hold together at the best of times, and with the slowly melting snow adding weight to the soil, this was not exactly safe. The further we went, the more the road seemed to take on a menacing look, with places that just 24 hours earlier had seemed quite safe, now looking like they would give way and result in us tumbling into the valley some 400 metres below. But again, in hindsight, this was nothing.

     To get where we needed to go, we had to start going up into the mountains. And with a foot of snow in the valleys, what could we expect up there. Well, our questions were soon answered - two foot of snow and lots and lots of ice. Our inexperienced driver had to go back and get chains after we started sliding backwards - not enjoyable when u look over the edge of the road which now had a drop of some 600 metres.

      Slowly but surely we continued, through a harsh but extremely beautiful landscape of snow-covered trees and mountains. The treacherous conditions had taken their toll on numerous cars and buses, their engines and I suspect their brakes overheating, and a truck which had fallen on it’s side and lost it’s load over the edge (see picture).

    After 5 tedious hours, we had made it to the next town.

    We met up with our new driver, a man who proved himself irreplaceable time and time again, and started heading further north into Gansu Province. And this is where my new ‘world’s worst road’ (I will call it the WWR from now on for comparisons)  comes into the story. In order for us to get through the countless police and military roadblocks, we would have to travel on back-roads. This provided us with views of the most amazing rural landscapes, but these views came at a cost - our heads, our kidneys, the muscles in our arms and legs from holding on so tightly, but most of all, our sanity. The pot-holes this time were triple the size and a much much more often than the previous WWR. The police presence was at least ten times that of the previous WWR, meaning our ‘ducking down’ skills had to be repeated more and more often the further we got into the troubled areas. But to top it all off, the whole experience lasted four times longer than the previous WWR trip. Total time in the car was nearly 36 hours, and when your driver snores for 4 of those hours barely 3 feet from your head, its not very enjoyable.

       Eventually, after much agonising and wondering if we would ever get to where we needed to be, we made it to the township of Zhuoni. Here we managed to talk to monks in a temple and I managed to take a few frames without disrupting their prayer session. The feeling was tense, as the military had only in the last day stopped surrounding the temple grounds. We hurridly left after we suspected that we were being watched, and made it into the car. I quickly sent 6 pictures so that in the event that we were caught, we would have something to show for our efforts.

      We drove further on down the road, and the roadblocks became more and more numerous. I counted at least 20, and on six occasions, the police stopped the car and asked the driver to step out. At one, a riot policeman even tapped on the window and put his face to the glass to see in. All Chris and I could do was lie down on the back seat and wait. As I said earlier, our driver proved to be amazing.

       We managed to go further into the troubled spots and I managed to photograph a burned-down school, riot police and soldiers on township streets, and another Buddhist monastery located near the township of Xiahe, where the most violent protests had occurred just a week earlier. We even very quickly stopped at a very small Tibetan village where the whole trip for me became worthwhile. Chris finally managed to find a villager that spoke Chinese, everyone spoke Tibetan, and after a few broad questions about the riots in Lhasa and surrounding areas and what he thought about them, Chris asked him what he thought of the Dalai Lama. This ordinary, hard-working farmer who toiled in the fields 12 hours-a-day, every day, said ‘The Dalai Lama is like a member of the family that can’t come home’.

        So our trip down my new WWR was finally completed, after we went through yet another 5 or 6 roadblocks of course,  we checked into our hotel in Lanzhou and I laid out flat for what seemed like the first time in ages.

        Hopefully, this dusty, pot-hold riddled ‘track’ in south-western China will be the final winner of my little WWR award otherwise I will have to broaden the parameters a little to perhaps the ‘Worst Road in the Universe’…….?? To do that, I would definitely have to check with Douglas Adams first I think………

                                                                     
       PICTURE CAPTIONS:

 Pic1 -An elderly Tibetan woman dressed in traditional Qiang minority dress sits in her home in Baima Township

 Pic2 -  The township of Baima in the early morning after snowfall

 Pic3 - A truck that lost it’s load on the treacherous icy road over the mountains

 Pic4 - Farming land near the Tibetan village on the outskirts of the township of Hezuo

 Pic5 - A young boy sits in a cart in a Tibetan village on the outskirts of the township of Hezuo

 Pic6 - Standing with friendly Monks in the Deer Long Temple on the outskirts of the township of Xiahe
        
  

On Tuesday last week, family members, friends and colleagues of Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk gathered at Kiev to remember the fifth anniversay of his death in Baghdad.  After a church ceremony flowers were laid on his grave and a toast drunk to him in accordance with local custom. 

Taras was killed along with Telecinco cameraman Jose Couso by an American tank shell fired at the Reuters office in the Palestine Hotel. The shell also severly injured his Reuters colleagues Samia Nakhoul, Paul Pasquale and Faleh Kheiber.

Taras’s widow Lydia and nephew Andriy stand at his grave.

The circumstances of Taras’s death are still an issue in Ukraine and the memorial celebrations were prominently covered by local television and newspapers. 

A Ukrainian man places his handprint on a portrait of the late journalist Taras Protsyuk near the U.S. embassy in Kiev, April 8, 2006 on the third anniversary of the death of the journalist killed when a U.S. tank shell hit the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad as troops entered the Iraqi capital in 2003. REUTERS/Ivan Chernichkin

I, for one, will never forget that day.

Taras and son Denis - picture by Sergei Karazy.

My thanks to Mykhailo Chernichkin for the graveside pictures and to Sergei Karazy and Yann Tessier who were there.   

I’d like to add my own congratulations to the plaudits being lauded on Adrees Latif who has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography. It is one hell of a picture.

The following images are unlikely prize-winners but serve to demonstrate the delight with which news of his win has been received by his Reuters colleagues. In the first Paul Barker, Editor Asia News Pictures and Asia Chief Photographer Russell Boyce toast his image;

while in the second the editorial team from text, TV, graphics and pictures at Reuters Asia HQ in Singapore drink his health as Adrees himself listens-in via the telephone on the desk to the right of the frame, from his assignment in Nepal.  

I bet he’s pleased now that he diversified beyond basketball and maybe at long last my spell-checker will stop trying to correct his name to ‘Address’.

http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news  /2008/04/pulitzer.html

Reuters Bangkok senior photographer Adrees Latif tells how he took the pictures which won him a Pulitzer Prize. The pictures were taken in Myanmar during the protests in September last year and include the photo of Japanese video journalist Kenji Nagai being shot.

“Tipped off by protests against soaring fuel prices, I landed in Yangon on 23 September, 2007, with some old clothes, a Canon 5D camera, two fixed lenses and a laptop.

For the next four days, I went to Shwedagon Pagoda, two-three kilometres from the centre of town and waited for the monks who had been gathering there daily at noon.

Since I was at the same pagoda every day, dozens of people, including monks, asked me who I was and what I was doing. As the ruling military regime is notoriously secretive, my replies were guarded.

Barefoot in maroon robes, and ringed by civilians, the monks chanted and prayed before starting their two-kilometre march to the Sule Pagoda in downtown Yangon. Each day their numbers grew, from hundreds to thousands.

By 27 September, the city had become packed with troops. Soldiers and government agents stood at street corners.

Finding the Shwedagon Pagoda sealed off, I went to the middle of town to find groups of young people taunting soldiers at Sule.

Within minutes, the crowd swelled from hundreds to a few thousand. The soldiers threw barbed wire coils across the roads.

Knowing that hundreds of people were gunned down in similar circumstances in a 1988 uprising, I climbed an old crosswalk directly overhead, to get to one of the few spots offering a clear view.

Below me, protesters were singing and waving flags; to the side, young men were thrusting their pelvises at the soldiers.

At about 1.30pm local time, two dark green, open-top army trucks approached, followed by dozens more packed with riot police. They were hit by a barrage of water bottles, fruit and abuse from the crowd.

I had already locked on my 135mm lens and set my camera shutter speed to 1000, aperture to F/7.1 and ISO at 800. With the camera on manual, I wanted to stop any movement while offering as much depth-of-field as possible.

Two minutes later, the shooting started. My eye caught a person flying backwards through the air. Instinctively, I started photographing, capturing four frames of the man on his back.

The entry point of the bullet is clear in the first frame, with a soldier in flip flops standing over the man and pointing a rifle. In the second frame, the man is reaching over to try and film.

More shots rang out. I flinched before getting off two more frames - one of the man pointing the camera at the soldier, and one of his face contorted in pain.

Beyond him, the crowd scattered before the advancing soldier. The whole incident, which went on to reverberate around the world, was over in two seconds.

I kept low on the bridge, capturing some more images from among a crowd taking cover. However, with soldiers firing shots and smoke grenades below, I had to get off the bridge.

With adrenaline pumping through my body, I put my camera in my bag and followed the protests for another hour and a half. Feeling the demonstration had lost its strength, I made my way back to my hotel via backstreets and along a railway line.

My initial caption read: “An injured man tries to photograph after police and military officials fired upon and then charged a crowd of thousands protesting in Yangon’s city center September 27, 2007.” Initially, I thought he was merely trampled. I had no idea he was dead.

Two of the frames showed the man’s face. A few hours later his colleagues in Japan had identified him as Japanese video journalist Kenji Nagai.

The images dominated front pages across the U.S. and the world. Mourners at Nagai’s funeral in Japan clutched the picture, which played a role in the public outrage that prompted Tokyo to scale back aid to the ruling military junta.”

On my way back from a routine election assignment in Hsinchu, a fellow wire photographer quizzes me on my age.

“Errr… 26″ I reply and the other wire photographer goes “Wah sey!” which translates as something like “Whoa” if there is such a word in english. He proceeds to to tell me that he can’t remember where he was when he was 26.

Which is probably also why Russell, the Asia Chief photographer, asked me to write about my newbie experience operating and planning my first big team story,  namely the Taiwan presidential election won by Nationalist candidate, Ma ying-jeou.

My plan was simple, don’t screw up and don’t miss any news. I must admit though, I would not have had such a comprehensive coverage of the elections without the guidance of Reinhard Krause and Russell Boyce (If I was an ‘Angel’, they would be Charlie).

Also, kudos to Darren Whiteside, Bobby Yip and Pichi Chuang who covered all the assignments in Taiwan with such energy and creativity. These guys really are the best!

(Darren in the centre with red bandana on the Taiwan Killer media bus, picture taken by Bobby Yip)

(A ride on the Taiwan Killer media bus gets you a shot like this)

After months of following the campaign, the big election day finally came for Taiwan.

The plan was to file early voting pix for U.S., Canada and South American clients who might have an interest in the Taiwan elections. Filing early at say 9am here would be 9pm over there, very close to or past newspaper deadlines. Also, filing early ensure your pix hit the news websites first.

Now with all the nice looking voting feature pictures done, comes the boring but mandatory pix of the presidential candidates voting. I say mandatory because if you manage to get a pic of the candidate looking victorious even before results are annouced way later at night, early edition papers or websites might use the voting pix as an alternative to the night jubo pix if the candidates do not appear till really late at night.

The big mama of elections is really getting a simple pic of the president-elect gesturing in victory. I quote “The first person to get that pic out usually gets the headlines tomorrow”.

The planning that goes behind that though is another story.

5am on election day, my assistant and I carry eight stepladders to the headquarters of both candidates to ensure that we have the best positions at night to shoot the victor. We arrive at the KMT location at 6am only to find that TV crews were already poised to attack the media stages. We lock and chain up three stepladders at different locations at Ma’s headquarters whom we expect to win. Shortly after at around 7am, AP and AFP arrive to place their stepladders too.

12 hours later, the area was packed with supporters and as planned, I got a postion in front of the stage, Reinhard shot from the right and Russell from the left. As Russell was the closest to the media centre, he would shoot for five minutes and immediately file while Reinhard and my assistans would “Speedy Gonzales” the cards to him to edit the first batch of jubo pictures.

My spot was slightly tricky though, because the organisers had rearranged the stepladders in front of the stage, I was forced slightly further back, which made my shot messy, while AP and AFP had slightly off centre positions but a better angle to get a nice background which read “Moving Forward” in Chinese.

“Screwed!” I thought to myself. After much comtemplating and negotiating with a local photographer who agreed to let me move forward to the stage on the basis that I don’t stand up, I got a much better angle for an opportunity to shoot the jubo shot well. Turns out, I was the first person to kneel at the new president (who would not arrive till about an hour later ) because of my “No standing up agreement”. A good lesson to never underestimate your relations with a local newspaper photographer this was though, he saved my skin!

Ma arrives. “Get the right exposure! Horizontals and verticals! Tight and loose! Don’t screw up!” A million thoughts that across my mind. Phew.

All’s well that ends well and it’s finally time to treat myself to beer and a foot massage. In a month following the two candidates around I’ve seen more of them than I have my Mum.