Photographers Blog

Trading fear for photos on a stricken plane

We took off smoothly for the short flight from Singapore to Jakarta, and I started falling asleep. Suddenly I was woken up by the sound of two bangs, like a bomb or truck tire blowing out. My wife gripped my hand and asked “Do you smell something burning?” Yes, there was a sharp smell stinging my nose. I realized there was something wrong because all the stewardesses ran back with the food carts.

The plane started to vibrate, harder and harder. I held my wife’s hand tightly and looked at her face as she started praying. My two younger children were asleep, after their first ever trip abroad, but not Pradipta, the eldest one. “Pra look through the window and watch outside,” I said. “I see light, I see fire, I see fire,” he said. Then the electricity was switched off.

I realized the plane, an Airbus A330, had a big problem. I was afraid because I thought we would die. Pradipta looked into my eyes and asked: “Will we die?” I was afraid and could not answer the question. I looked at all my children’s faces and held my lovely wife’s hands tightly.

During my many years of assignments as a Reuters photojournalist, when flying I have imagined being on a plane that had a problem that forced an emergency landing, and then taking pictures. But I never imagined this situation with my family. But it happened. We will die together, so we can fly to heaven together, I thought. If we die together, I will not miss my wife’s delicious cooking, I will not miss the smell of my kids’ sweat. There will be no tears among us. My thoughts, to my surprise, stopped me being afraid any more.

“Will we die?” Pradipta asked again. I looked into his eyes, held his hand tightly and said: “No, we’re alive, we’re still alive,” then I gave him a high five just as if we were playing basketball.

from Russell Boyce:

Asia – A Week in Pictures January 23 2011

Russell Boyce

Jan 23, 2011 21:51 EST

As India heads towards their Republic Day celebrations, Prime Minister Singh makes minor adjustments to his cabinet while outside on the streets people demonstrate over food and fuel price inflation and corruption. Adnan Abidi produces a great picture as a middle-aged demonstrator gets to feel the full force of a police water canon. In stark contrast, B Mathur gets a glimpse of the dress rehearsal of the full military parade planned to celebrate India's independence where the security forces are deployed in a somewhat different manner.  Danish Siddiqui added to the file this week with a well seen picture to illustrate a government spending initiative with a man pulling a pipe across a building site, the shadow creating an eye like image that almost seems to wink at the viewer.  

Police use water canons to disperse supporters of India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during a protest in New Delhi January 18, 2011. Thousands of the supporters on Tuesday in New Delhi held a protest against a recent hike in petrol prices and high inflation. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

Indian Border Security Force (BSF) soldiers ride their camels during the full dress rehearsal for the Republic Day parade in New Delhi January 23, 2011. India will celebrate its Republic Day on Wednesday. REUTERS/B Mathur

A labourer pulls an underground cable at a construction site of a commercial complex in Mumbai January 20, 2011. India plans to spend $1.5 trillion over 10 years to revamp its creaky infrastructure, which is seen as a brake on its economic growth. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

from Russell Boyce:

Asia – A Week in Pictures August 15, 2010

Russell Boyce

Aug 16, 2010 01:11 EDT

Flooding and mudslides have again dominated the week's coverage in Asia. Reports that one fifth of Pakistan is now under water and over 20 million have been affected by the rising waters. In the northwestern Chinese province of Gansu over a 1000 people lost their lives as a mudslide swept through the town of Zhouqu. It is easy to become visually tired looking at images of people wading waist deep in flood water or seeing another image of a relative weeping for a loved one. In the pictures below even the most jaded eyes and souls must feel the passion of the pictures as photographers tell the story and bring home the desperation of their subject's plight.

Adrees Latif, chief photographer Pakistan, captures a moment that if it wasn't so sad would almost be funny. People, whose lives have been shattered by flooding, loss of their homes, hunger and the risk of disease suffer the final humiliation as a relief truck sweeps by driving water over their heads, the driver oblivious of the scene. In another picture  in a  camp for the displaced  Karachi based photographer Akhtar Soomro photographs a boy sitting in isolation who hurriedly eats, his eyes glaring out of the image as he keeps guard in case someone, imagined or real, tries to steal his food.

Residents being evacuated through flood waters dodge an army truck carrying relief supplies for flood victims in Pakistan's Muzaffargarh district in Punjab province August 11, 2010. The floods have ploughed a swathe of destruction more than 1,000 km (600 miles) long from northern Pakistan to the south, killing more than 1,600 people.   REUTERS/Adrees Latif

A boy fleeing from flooded village eats his food handout in a makeshift relief camp in Sukkur at Pakistan's Sindh province August 10, 2010. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari returned home on Tuesday from official foreign visits to a chorus of criticism over his government's response to the country's worst flooding in 80 years. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

Shanghai based photographer Aly Song, flew, drove and then  finally hiked the final 5 miles into the mudslide stricken town of Zhouqu. Working closely with stringers, Aly and the team produced images that scream from the page; a man bent over and standing in isolation, holds his head in sheer grief as the search and rescue carries on behind him. The image of the girl in the red dress stopped me in my tracks as I remembered haunting "red dress" scenes in the mainly black and white Spielberg film "Schindler's List".  Two other striking images from Zhouqu are the workers resting, dwarfed by the crumpled buildings in the background and the faceless rescue workers, heads bowed, wearing full protection against airborne disease, listening to instructions from their leaders, who to me appear resigned in the accepted knowledge that they are no longer looking for survivors, but are to be employed to try and stop disease spreading from the decaying bodies.

Casinos and coasters: A Singapore life

Vivek Prakash

Mar 22, 2010 12:14 EDT

Recently I covered the opening of Singapore’s first casino with my colleague Pablo Sanchez. It’s a big change for a city where gambling used to be illegal. You might be interested to know that to pacify folks who said it would lead to the moral downfall of Singapore, the government introduced an “entrance levy” of S$100 as a deterrent.

It only applies to Singaporeans and Permanent Residents, everyone else including foreigners who work here get to enter for free. Photography is banned inside and Pablo and I had barely 15 minutes on opening day to shoot as much as we could. It was complete chaos, as every other person with a still or video camera was trying to do the same thing.

A few days ago Southeast Asia’s first Universal Studios theme park opened in Singapore, and I was lucky to be among the first people in the place. The highlight is a “dueling roller coaster”, where 2 coasters are launched at the same time and cross each other as they run on the track.

Bank picture ballet

Vivek Prakash

Dec 17, 2009 09:34 EST

Singapore can be a strange place to make pictures sometimes. As someone who’s lived here for nearly 5 years, on occasion my job as a photographer is affected in unusual ways.

Singapore is a place where  rent-a-cops often don’t know the rules, other than “you’re wrong”. They’re really good at overstepping the bounds of their legal authority, and even though you know for a fact they are wrong and should just let you go about your work, no amount of reason or logical argument means anything to them. They are like the daleks in Doctor Who, out to exterminate photographers. Their authority as gatekeepers is final.

Every few months, this results in something I like to call the “Bank Picture Ballet”, where usually 2-3 security guards and myself get involved in a ridiculous dance around each other as I try to make a perfectly legitimate picture to match an economic story.

I’ll be doing something straight and legal. Approaching a bank building while walking on a public pavement – carrying 2 camera bodies and lenses to try and illustrate an earnings story – as soon as I stop to frame a picture, dudes in black with radios in their ears and stern no-nonsense faces will be on the scene within seconds. I’ll insist I’m doing nothing wrong, that I’m on public land – yes, you can go ahead and call the cops, you’re the guys harassing a member of the public for no good reason — but the dance continues as I try to move and they try to block my picture. Sometimes, I end up sending these pictures to the wire — in anger, because they’ve left me with no other choice.

A few months ago, I was photographing another event which turned into a real song and dance. An arts group was performing in the financial district as part of the annual arts fest, dressed in black suits carrying boomboxes disguised as suitcases. The idea was to make fun of corporate culture. They briefly wandered under the canopy of a large office building as I was taking pictures. Predictably a hapless security guard hits the scene within 30 seconds and seeing me as the ringleader of a security threat starts to argue with me about things like filling out forms and seeking permission from building management. I tell him I have nothing to do with this, hello! this is an arts performance!, and can you please go away, but he hangs around abusing me, pushing my camera into my face and calling me all sorts of names until the performers start to think this is pretty funny and dance around us. Five people dressed in black suits, dancing to music around a silly argument, with a lunch time financial district crowd watching – there are times when you stop arguing despite your anger, and start smiling at the absurdity of the whole thing.

Singapore F1: A timelapse view

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

A slow boat to Myanmar – nearly

Vivek Prakash

Jun 27, 2008 05:17 EDT

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!

Stepping into photographer’s shoes…

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.