Photographer Tim Chong captures the momentus Singapore Grand Prix, the first Formula One race to be held at night.

I was at the airport shooting pictures to illustrate a Singapore Airlines story when the office rang to say there was an opportunity, if we could move quickly enough, to embed with the U.S. Naval relief operation heading to cyclone hit Myanmar.

Early the next morning I was aboard a U.S. Navy supply ship heading up the Malacca Strait. There were 8 journalists on board - writers, a BBC tv reporter and cameramen, and 3 photographers. It was a 2 day trip up to the USS Essex, and with little else to do on board, I photographed the crew preparing supplies which would be transferred when we arrived. With only experience of ferries to go on I’d feared getting horribly seasick - but was holding up okay, and excited about what we’d find when we got to the Navy ships.

We transferred to the Essex by helicopter. I quickly learned to use the word “helo” - pronounced “heelow” - as no one seemed to understand me when I said “chopper”. The supply ship had been crewed by ex-navy “civilian mariners”, but I’d been warned that things would be “different” on the real Navy ship. And they were.

If there’s one thing this experience has given me it is an indelible association between US Navy ships and disinfectant. Where the supply ship had been pretty crusty, the interiors of the Essex were sparkling clean - floors, walls, celings, everything - spotless. Every time I descended a set of stairs or a ladder (of which there were many) and my nose reached the same level as the deck, I’d get a heady whiff of disinfectant. A few days ago I visited the lavatories in a Singapore shopping centre and the smell took me right back to the Essex - I guess they were both using the same floor cleaner!

On the Essex and later on the Harpers Ferry, we were always “escorted” by either Navy or Marine media liasons. Although we were ”free to move about the ship,” the reality was slightly different. This was good in some ways - on occasions when I managed to evade my escorts, I got lost in the labyrinth of corridors and hallways on each deck and it took me forever to find my way. Hunt-for-Red-October lighting at night and a flashlight strapped to my head, I’d wander around in circles.

Then there was the food. The man from the Wall Street Journal got lost and asked a passing Marine for the ”mess hall” to which he got the barked response, ”YOU MEAN THE CHOW HALL!!!” before being politely escorted to the right place on the right deck.

The “chow hall” resembled a high school cafetaria, complete  with cliques of cool and not-so-cool kids (I was later told that majority of the crew of the Essex and some 90% of the crew on the Harpers Ferry were under 21). You had to be quick when you got in line - there were dozens of hungry sailors and marines behind you, and neither they nor the chow hall folks had time for a sense of humour. If you didn’t know what you wanted, you got either dirty looks or something you really didn’t want. I became good at barking out my meal preferences in seconds: “Meatlof! Potatoes! Gravy!” It was true American cooking - and at meal times you could just smell your way to the chow hall.  I had to reset my body clock  to the ship’s meal times - breakfast at 6am, lunch at 11am and dinner at 4.30pm.

My first time in line as I got to the top of the queue, I took a plate from the stack but seeing that the cook already had a plate for me, was about to return mine to the stack when the Marine behind me behind me muttered, “You touch it, You take it!”, so I spent the next 20 minutes pretending it was perfectly normal to be carrying two plates about. 

The bunks were cramped - 4 to a tiny room, shared showers with everyone else staying in “officers county”. Our Marine escorts remarked on how luxurious this was. They were living in “trees” the next deck down, 3-stacks of bunks on either side of a two-foot corridor. I wondered how sailors and marines manage it - at sea for months at a time, no privacy and no space, on a metal hulk rocking in the waves.

Trying to tell the story of the aftermath of the cyclone from the Essex was limiting - there was only so much I could do without making landfall. We photographed the navy preparing drinking water for delivery, helicopters shackled to the decks not going anywhere, and resupply trips between ships. You could feel the frustration among the crew - everyone I talked to spoke of feeling helpless, even angry, that here was a ship loaded with clean water, food and shelter only 50 nautical miles from the disaster area, yet the stubborness of the Myanmar junta was preventing its use. 

The Navy had been prepared to let media on board in the event of an aid mission, but when it became clear that just wasn’t going to happen, we were transferred back to the crusty supply ship for the slow 2 and a half day trip back to Singapore.

On the return journey there was none of the anticipation of the journey out. Most of us felt frustrated being stuck on a ship with nothing to do and no story to tell. We resigned ourselves to the trip and found ways to keep ourselves busy. What do journalists do on a slow boat back to Singapore? They play the American version of Trivial Pursuit against one another, they play ping pong against the crew, they count down the hours until the next chow time, they read books while trying not to look at the clock too often.

The hardest thing of all was once back on terra firma, trying to drop off in a stationary bed, with no rocking of the boat or groan of the engines to lull you asleep.

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.