Photographers Blog

A fellow photographer of mine once said that Taiwan is different from any other country. For one, there is never enough space at any event to shoot it comfortably so if you expect to get a good spot, you have to come down at least two hours before the event.

Pichi Chuang

In a general news story you can expect more than 11 news television stations sending 20 plus cameramen with assistants. As for local newspapers, foreign newspapers and wire services, the number of photographers can chalk up to 30 odd.
 
All in all, expecting 40-50 fellow photographers and cameraman jostling for the same image with you is pretty much the norm in Taiwan for a common and very local story. 

 
You can only imagine what happens when it is a big news story.
 
To make matters worse, during elections, political parties always provide a media vehicle to give photographers and cameramen a photo opportunity as politicians ride on a similar vehicle and wave to their supporters.

Nicky Loh
 
Unlike the politicians, we do not usually have the luxury of having seatbelts fastened to us while the vehicle moves and have to watch out for low lying branches and power cables that could take our heads off or knock us off the vehicle.
 
We can only depend on our sturdy stance on the moving vehicle and pray that the subject is in the frame when we hit the shutter amidst the shakey ride.

Pichi Chuang
 
During the coverage of the Taiwan legislative elections, a Hong Kong TV correspondent fell from a press bus in Kaohsiung.
 
Ricky Li, a cameraman working for Asia Television, hit his head on the ground as he failed to jump aboard the moving press bus. Li was rushed to the Kaohsiung Veterrans General Hospital to undergo surgery for two hours to remove blood clots from his brain. 
 
He remains in a coma.

 
Even Reuters photographer Pichi Chuang was not spared the pain when a cameraman dropped his beta cam on her when the media bus braked hard.
 
The feeling of knowing that a colleague was so injured seriously disturbs me and made me realise that if this kind of freak accident could happen to him, it could happen to any of us, anytime.

Nicky Loh
 
So the next time we are passionately pursuing a news event and running after our subjects, we should also take a step back and make sure our safety is not compromised in any case.
 
As the Taiwan presidential looms closer, more of these media bus events will take place, and these pictures usually do make it to print because they are the news pictures. Though, we should ask ourselves, is this photo really worth risking our lives for and can we do it differently?