Jocko Podcast 36 with Photographer Kieran Doherty and Echo Charles |

2016-08-19T05:29:02Z

Join the conversation on Twitter: @jockowillink @echocharles @imkierandoherty 0:00:00 – Opening 0:14:17 – Belfast 0:38:58 – Iraq War 1:04:30 – Tsunami in Sri Lanka 1:29:04 – Liberia 1:48:08 – Starvation and War in the Sudan 2:02:04 – Wimbledon 2:13:36 – Wooton Bassett 2:33:55 – Closing

AI summary of episode

how's this going to be divided up every day who's going to get what you know I'm like are you looking for pictures at this point that are good pictures that you want to see or you looking for pictures that are going to be news are going to be front page newspaper which one of those two or is it both. And I tell you this is one thing that when I when we're off the coast of Liberia and you're looking at the coast and you can see the coast we were literally maybe a couple miles offshore looking at the coast and I can see that there's waves breaking some kind of thinking you know I'm a surfer I'm thinking you know those look like good waves and then you can see there's build nice big kind of hotel you can see this beautiful white beach you can see it looks like a just beautiful place I'm thinking of myself. And yeah, it was, and when it, when it finished, I didn't know how I felt because I thought, you know, when you get so used to doing something and you know, I don't want soldiers to die so that I can go down and finish a story. But the situation in the camps was incredible they were just so overcrowded and again you know back to that sort of scenario of people being cramped on top of each other and then you know that's how disease is spread and you know so on. That's a common one though, like, people, okay, because it's not like it's like, oh, shoot, you know, like, what repeat that, because that's a common one, like they'll put duh You know, by the Royal Family and they just sort of said, listen, what you've done, you've not just put wooden basso on the map, but you've shown how much dignity the British show when, you know, those that are fighting for their country are coming back and the way the whole thing. You know, you know, you're not talking about just one other individual that you know really good I asked the young doctor who was accompanying me through the slum I said you know what's the deal and he said oh she's probably after church or something you know she's in her sandy best effectively with her perfect little shoes and her skirt and her pink umbrella. About three quarters away there we got a call and it said you need to turn off to there's a a mask grave has been found at hill and you're on route while you're going to pass it on the way back into Baghdad so can you stop off and have a look and my first reaction was I was so shattered from the four days in the Jaff that I was sort of slightly resigned about having to you know. You know finding myself in the middle of a mosque as a Westerner just thinking you know how did I get in here it was just you know and we spent a month looking at the stuff that was coming out and it was invariably pictures of soldiers within sandstorms and stuff like that you know there was no action you know it was. So if you're not if you know if if it's a listen it's features today just go out and find something that you know every picture you choose not going to tell the story. I mean you obviously thought you're pretty badass when you're like you know what I'm not going for the regional paper I'm going straight to London I mean you felt like after Sri Lung you know you go to Iraq and you see the war and that's one thing and like you said you're dealing with the dead and you're seeing people that were killed. You can get in the way and the last thing you want is to compromise a unit but they set these units up and they said yep the media has to come in and you know show us what's happening but most of the time he said you have your head down and your hand in the air and you're just blindly shooting and hoping. And, uh, you know, you said a 9-11 moment, which I understand where you're coming from, from a psychological standpoint of, hey, I know what I was doing at this point on September 11, well, September 11th was 4,000, maybe 5,000 Americans killed. And you know, people that'll see like a real good picture and they'll be like, hey, that's a good, that's a cool picture. You know you look quite good is he going to start getting my shifts you know Me personally, I need to have physical, you know, no, I got my pens lined up, highlighters lined up, you know, I think it's worth the physical. So I thought nothing of it carried on shots and more pictures and I thought actually I've got I've got quite a lot of stuff here none of it I was really thinking this is really strong you know What's obvious you know it's like sometimes you're going to sit for sure it's like shooting fish in a barrel it's there pointy camera shoot And I know this was, I know I said a couple of things on the podcast that were pretty rough. I think that's good for you and you know they talk about that to the veterans in World War II when you when you came home from World War II first of all you've been at war for three or four years and when you came home you got on to a ship. You know so which but she was finding these delicate way around just like Mary Poppins with you know I remember having to get in back into the car because what had the he just witnessed was just so shocking and I was just numb going all the way back to the the office because you know I. I just hadn't anticipated anything like that happening and it just came out of the blue and I understood why I could understand the father's sentiments. and I said I can't and he said what do you mean I said well I've got a gig tonight I'm playing in London and there are 13 other people in the band and if I get on a plane they're not going to have a drama. You just got up you know if you're looking for it you'll find it you know. But if you're busy and you're out and you're traveling so a week after that I was taking anything and he even if I was being you know sent out and stuff that I thought why am I being sent to do this you know. You know, I don't know what's going on, but it didn't. And when I look through these optics the whole picture changed because now you see all these buildings that look like they literally look like big beautiful you know beach.

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jocco podcast number 36 with echoed Charles and me, Jocco Willink. Good evening, echo. Good evening.
[00:00:13] Behold.
[00:00:17] The world is a sight to behold.
[00:00:21] I'm just back from a trip to the wilderness. In the Sierra Mountains of California, and every time you open your eyes, there's a sight to behold.
[00:00:35] An image of beauty.
[00:00:38] From a distance, a mountain of solid granite almost 100 million years old, Juts up from the valley floor.
[00:00:51] Up close the roots of a newborn tree trying to find purchase, maneuvering around and over and through rock until it finds soil.
[00:01:02] And in doing so, draws an infinitely complex picture of life.
[00:01:15] Yes, the world is a beautiful place.
[00:01:18] But we also know that the world can be a horrible place, a wretched place.
[00:01:33] And in the military, I was usually sent to the bad places.
[00:01:38] And in a way, I was sent to those bad places to deal with them, to keep them away from us.
[00:01:51] Those of us lucky enough to be born in the right country with the right form of government and the right supply of water and food and energy.
[00:02:01] And it was our job as the lucky ones to keep the horror away, to shield the eyes of the blessed.
[00:02:19] But there are other people whose job it is to open eyes, to show the world not just the light, but also the darkness.
[00:02:38] And that's the life of a photographer. And like the soldier, he must travel.
[00:02:48] And like the soldier, he must take risk.
[00:02:51] And like the soldier, he must face the darkness and live with it.
[00:02:55] And like the soldier, to an even greater degree, he must detach from what is happening.
[00:03:06] He must observe from the outside, be a part of what is happening in front of him without being a part of what is happening in front of him.
[00:03:15] And we have a guest on the podcast tonight.
[00:03:21] And a friend of mine who spent his life with a camera in his hand capturing light and capturing darkness.
[00:03:39] So the podcast, Mr. Kieran, Doctor D, who in addition to being a friend, an outstanding drummer, a husband, a dad and last but not least, an award winning photographer.
[00:03:57] Welcome to the podcast, Karen.
[00:03:59] Thank you for having me. Good to have you on detected a little accent there, you're from a sending the shine sent you to take. Just a little in that.
[00:04:09] So you're from England. And how did this whole business start, how did you end up start taking pictures?
[00:04:16] How did I start taking pictures?
[00:04:18] My dad was a good photographer, always at a camera. And I think I got to my 17th birthday and he gave his cameras to my sister.
[00:04:31] Now I had no interest in the cameras at the time, but I suddenly had an interest when I found he gave him to my sister.
[00:04:37] So I demanded that I have them, I had to do some sort of swap, but I got the cameras.
[00:04:41] But I didn't really use them. I really wanted to be an artist, I wanted to paint, but I wasn't good enough in my own eyes. I was okay, but not good enough.
[00:04:53] So the camera became a tool for me to create and express myself. And I ended up, I did a degree course after school in sports science. And then I went on to do oops, yeah.
[00:05:14] I was like, hey, listen, it was a great course. I had three years playing tennis and football. I mean, come on, it was a great course.
[00:05:26] So I wasn't really good enough to get onto an outfound. They should course, I did the sports course and then I wanted to concentrate on doing course in photography.
[00:05:36] So my mum found a course for me and there's only one course in the country and they only took 12 people. And normally had to apply five or six times to get on.
[00:05:47] And so I applied for the course I went for an interview and I showed a portfolio of appalling black and white pictures that I had shot.
[00:05:55] I mean, really appalling I'd gone to a couple of music festivals and I had pictures of dribbling babies and primes. I mean, this is what I took to my interview. But they put me on the reserve list. So I was number 13.
[00:06:07] And it meant that I wasn't going to get on the course because they weren't only taking to our own. So my mum, every day, for about six months rang the head tutor and said, come on, put him on the course.
[00:06:23] And come on, put him on the course and I'll have to six months. He just stopped this woman calling me every day. Okay, okay. And he put me on his number 13.
[00:06:37] And I did the course and I ended up spending most of my weekends traveling at home down to an agency at home where I, you were really working. So the course was teaching you how to do stuff.
[00:06:54] And the job that I wanted to do, you can't learn it in a classroom really. It's a bit of common sense and just reacting to the environment around you. So I used to spend my weekends traveling home and working for a real agency and they would just send me out on stuff and I would be shooting pictures, developing transparencies black and white printing, putting it on wire drums sending it into the papers. You know, in the real one, that's what do my weekends and then I go back to the course.
[00:07:19] I just felt the course was really dragging for me. But I finished it and the route is you join a regional newspaper and then you sort of cut your teeth in the industry then you go to maybe a big provincial paper and then you head down to maybe London for a work on a national.
[00:07:42] And then maybe after the national you might consider working on an agency. Well, I didn't have time for any of that. So I just went straight to London at a college.
[00:07:52] And try to try to get a job. But I ended up what you end up doing is you go around and you just spec pictures into newspapers. So you find a job you shoot it.
[00:08:05] You ring them up and you say I have this great picture and you need to you really should have it and they would say okay, bring it in and you would take it in and they go thanks.
[00:08:14] But we had our own photographer there and blah blah blah. So I did this for two or three years not really getting anywhere and I ended up.
[00:08:23] I learned a few tricks to the trade, which is you turn up to a news event that's happening and you shoot the pictures and then you ring the desk, the wire desk wherever it is you want to sell the picture to and you say listen.
[00:08:37] Very few people were here and this is a big story and really you can't afford not to take this from me because your opposition was here.
[00:08:44] And I think you really should see this picture. So they'd say come in and I went in one so I'd shot this picture of this tank that appeared outside the high court in London.
[00:08:56] And coming out of this tank was a 20 foot Marlin.
[00:09:00] It was just the most ridiculous thing. And it was some guy protesting about a divorce he was going through.
[00:09:06] Sorry just loaded up the tank. I just headed out the court. And I drove I was driving past with a friend and I thought I better shoot that picture and I shot that picture and I rang up and I said listen associated press were here.
[00:09:22] Reuters you really should take this picture of me and I went in and it was such a ridiculous looking image that they said great we'll take it. And so they just snip the negatives because it was filming those days they take three negatives the one in the middle they want to piss the one they scan.
[00:09:40] And I just thought right I need to keep doing this. So if I come in here with a picture, do you give me 75 pounds every time I come in they said well every picture we take will pay you 75 pounds.
[00:09:54] So of course I just kept ringing them and kept ringing them and eventually they caught them on to the amount of 75 pounds they were giving me in a day and they said okay listen we'll put you on shift. So we will pay you 100 pounds and you will work five shifts we will stop paying you five times 75 every time you get in.
[00:10:14] And that's how it started and so it's a bit of luck and a bit of determination and yeah that's how that's how I got into it and if I'm totally honest I really didn't know that that sort of job existed.
[00:10:33] I'd seen magazines by photographers like Don McCullen who used to shoot the troubles in Northern Ireland in the early days and I used to see his spread on the Sunday times but it never dawned on I used to look at the images was mesmerized by these black and white images.
[00:10:48] But never put them together and work so this is obviously a job and somebody does this and he's paid to do this. And so yeah it sort of don't do me this this this is an existence that I really quite like because I don't have to wear a suit.
[00:11:02] I can wear jeans in a t-shirt and I can just shoot and create and I can un-erliving and that's really how it started. And then you ended up staying at Reuters for what 10 years.
[00:11:17] No from 1993 to 2008. So I was freelance until 2000 and then in 2000 when which was really for tutors because my first doors was born they made me staff so there was this security of the job there.
[00:11:34] And then I resigned in 2008 so I sort of done my stintestuff and I decided that I wanted to move on to other things. But yeah it was a bumpy road but it was and I couldn't have asked for a better grounding into further journalism than working for a while.
[00:11:52] But I was just going to cover everything from spot news from something that was happening in Downing Street to covering Wimbledon to covering World Cups Olympic Games, all zones.
[00:12:08] You name it there was nothing a wire in Cifatore ever didn't cover and so you know literally you could you could come off from shooting a Champions League football match and the next day you could be in Afghanistan.
[00:12:21] Shooting a shooting a new story that's how it worked and that's incredibly intoxicating especially when you're a young guy you know I mean I didn't get to travel immediately obviously I had to cut my teeth and they had to trust that they could send me away and I must admit it took a couple of years.
[00:12:40] And in fact my first assignment by my line manager he just said to me one Friday night I need to go to Belfast there for July the 12th for the troubles and I said I can't and he said what do you mean I said well I've got a gig tonight I'm playing in London and there are 13 other people in the band and if I get on a plane they're not going to have a drama.
[00:13:03] So you went to Belfast? No you didn't be held the gig.
[00:13:12] Bro, I didn't realize I was too naive to realize the implications of why why you know I sorry this guy wants to work for artists and I'm going to send them to Belfast to cover the troubles and he wants to play drums in a club.
[00:13:29] Yeah, so I learnt that lesson pretty quick. How long did it take to get another offer to travel like that? I think the Belfast offer was 95 and then I ended up traveling literally 98.
[00:13:45] So to put you on the bench for three years. I mean yeah totally but when I did get to go he waited to lie bit married a month and then said to me I need you to go away for four months.
[00:13:54] And I just married you know I've been married for a month and you want me to go any and it was the Caribbean believe it or not to photograph cricket England against the West Indies. So it wasn't that tough.
[00:14:09] Yeah and I ended up being able to take my life with me as well. So yeah you can't complain about that at all not at all at all. We had a great time. So tell me about like a little bit about the times where you went to Belfast and what that was like for the first time where you're going okay.
[00:14:26] Do you feel that tension for the first time you feel kind of the presence of violence around you? I was in over-surek and bearing in mind that I had lived in Belfast. So I lived in there during the sort of the troubles and for me five or six years in my life I was there.
[00:14:45] Although I never experienced any of the troubles it was very protected from it but yeah I mean you know I went back and I was petrified I thought where do I go where can I not go and I was very conscious of my name.
[00:14:59] Very Catholic name and there are certain there's a bit of privacy don't know Karen's name is is the same name as one of the the heroes of the IRA.
[00:15:10] And who actually died in prison from a from a hunger strike so then that's your name. So there's no that's my name.
[00:15:18] Absolutely and you know of course just a clarifier was not named after him but just coincident but the remurals all over Belfast with Karen Doctor.
[00:15:28] So there are certain areas of Belfast I could walk into very easily and there are certain areas of Belfast that I didn't really want to be caught with my press card in my pocket.
[00:15:37] So yeah it was yeah I was I was petrified you know there's no it's no author of a scribe it.
[00:15:48] And did you start thanking yourself well maybe this isn't a job for me or did you or you thinking yourself I'm scared but this is awesome.
[00:15:54] Yeah absolutely yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that's that's sort of the typical you know when I talk to obviously all on my friend the military that's everyone's feeling you know hey I was scared but that was awesome yeah that's when everybody wants to do it I mean as a photographer when you're in there and there's.
[00:16:12] The potential to have those shots those moments of of human existence that only happened at that place at that time and you've got that opportunity that yeah I mean you're waiting.
[00:16:27] The worst thing is you get over there and there's nothing happening because that's what happens that you know.
[00:16:33] Leading up to July the 12th and there may be the pockets of violence and that happened usually in the evenings after the pubs closed.
[00:16:43] It and the one thing it did it made the flames really stand out when they did throw those petro bombs you know but what you were doing was.
[00:17:04] It's just to sort of justify the air flight out here and whatnot so and it would be really tough and so those were the toughest moments because you were having to find images that sort of.
[00:17:15] It's a total of story but they weren't really the reason why you were there you were sent there because they were expecting trouble and then.
[00:17:38] I mean physical happening in front of you it's almost as if you needed to get one under your belt to calm down because then you're able to set a care produced something from here that's not worthy and newsworthy.
[00:17:51] And sometimes you go on this trip and there'd be nothing for a week and you'd be sitting in your own and you're out there and there'd be nothing for a week and that that was the worst but as soon as something did happen it was then a catalyst.
[00:18:07] Something happening that night there was always the clear up the next morning so that was then the catalyst for actually what would maybe happen during the week and one thing would lead to another.
[00:18:20] And you'd end up beginning to feel a little bit more confident and you know I was just watching the guys that were a lot older than me and far more experienced and I just sort of hung around with those guys sort of you just trying to work out what do you do.
[00:18:33] And that's how you learn you just watch how these other photographers are doing it and you just think okay long remember that next time and because these guys came in and they just looked immensely cool and.
[00:18:45] You know they sort of knew what they were doing and also just did you ever have a time period where you thought you were more badass than you were or you always pretty humble about hey you know what these guys they they know more than me I'm just going to watch them and learn.
[00:18:58] I mean you obviously thought you're pretty badass when you're like you know what I'm not going for the regional paper I'm going straight to London yeah yeah you're right but I don't know where that came from I just thought I'd lost enough time.
[00:19:11] I think I can't hang around doing you know I mean no discussion and there were no jobs going anyway the end of the course so I just thought well you know so yeah badass me probably not.
[00:19:21] I mean I'm still if I'm I'm not really want to work with other photographers now but when you're working in Fleet Street and you're working for a news agency you can't help but be in the pack and you're always working with other photographers and there are.
[00:19:37] It's time goes by the there are sort of few of photographers that you begin to sort of look to you can sort of work out which are the ones that are doing something similar to the way you want to be doing it.
[00:19:49] And there are others that do their own thing because it all photographers are completely different you can have ten photographers standing next to each other and they can all shoot the same picture but every single image will be completely different because each photographer has decided.
[00:20:00] There's a different part of what's happening in front of him that he wants to concentrate on. So and that's what I found you know was happening a lot which especially with you sent down to down extreme to do the prime minister the prime minister just walked the door open the prime minister walk out of the door and get into the car and drive off.
[00:20:15] And that was seven pictures yeah and the guy next to you could be a could be a a trainee and he will stand in he'll shoot the same. imagery with the same cameras and same lens and that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a guy who's been doing it 20 years and a trainee because.
[00:20:32] And that's a very sort of orchestrated theatrical moment you know and that's I didn't I wasn't really interested in that sort of stuff. I was interested in stuff that was really spontaneous sporadic and.
[00:20:44] And you had to be ready for it and you had to react to it and that's what I like to do react to what was happening did did you feel like going to Ireland. In the in the late 90s and in early 2000 did you feel that that prepared you at all for for going to Iraq for going to the other places that you went to.
[00:21:03] Good. Prepared preparatory step yeah absolutely and you know what to be totally honest. I've never even thought about that that thought has never crossed my mind until you just said it.
[00:21:14] Did you think that prepared me and I thought actually you're not you have courses did but.
[00:21:18] It's funny when you're working you don't you don't think about things like that you don't I mean if I'd kept a diary which I've never done. In fact I did when I was in Sri Lanka but if I was if I'd kept a diary.
[00:21:32] I maybe would have had a little bit more self awareness of my progression through my career. But when you're you know your priorities are on earning money. You know and and being able to pay the rent and am I going to get work next week or is that other guy who's coming.
[00:21:49] You know you look quite good is he going to start getting my shifts you know and so you're constantly on your toes and you're not thinking and you think if I get the art the normal island gig. I got that and he didn't that's enough you know and that's how you were thinking you weren't really that I had no structure to my career whatsoever.
[00:22:13] I think maybe because the whole thing was so new to me and I just couldn't get my head around the fact that I was actually making a living as a photographer.
[00:22:21] And that's really actually pretty similar to what I experienced on my first appointment to Iraq where never mind.
[00:22:30] Never mind anything. We were happy to be out doing operations. Like we were going to go do real operations man we were what the strategy the the danger the whatever it was like.
[00:22:42] Hey we are here we are doing operations to catch bad guys awesome.
[00:22:47] That was our focus. So it sounds like you in the mindset that similar mindset and it took me a couple months of being in Iraq and getting that out of my system before I was like okay so let's take a look at what we're actually doing here and how we're trying to affect the battle space because I was just too young and and
[00:23:08] I didn't experience and I just need to get some experience under my belt. So sounds like it and really sounds like Ireland kind of prepares you for that but I also look at.
[00:23:21] Okay so let's just go straight then to you get the call how did you know you got we're going to get the call to go to Iraq was that.
[00:23:27] Was it a lottery how do they do they just say hey we want to get you down there how did that work the way it works it was they.
[00:23:35] No photographer was ever forced to go to a hostile environment so it wasn't part of your remit that if you work for a lawyer you must go to a hostile environment they would never like that.
[00:23:46] They you know and you can see why what they.
[00:23:49] Is it wrong for me to picture every for because I have I put my I put my personality over a guy with a camera and so I think like every guy with a camera is going I want to go to the war zone tomorrow is that not true.
[00:24:02] Yeah, that's not true. There are a lot of guys that don't want to go anywhere near a hostile environment. Okay. Yeah, see that's that's important for me to know these things because I would.
[00:24:12] In my mind everyone's just thinking I'm going to go get after them. Oh, I got a camera there's a war going on. Let's go make it happen. Yeah, I mean that was then that was yeah, 2003.
[00:24:21] I would say maybe it's slightly changed now there are a lot more photographers young photographers going to war zones, but then no it was I think if I remember rightly they.
[00:24:35] They because the build up to the war was so you know prolonged yeah I mean we knew it was going to happen and a read and immediately though those guys that wanted to.
[00:24:45] I was one that embedded with the artillery in QA so we had a month waiting QA and then just went with the artillery there were the.
[00:24:52] Reuters had very seasoned photographers very experienced in those sort of environments that would then embed with Americans or Brits and those were the guys that were being shot at on a daily basis.
[00:25:07] But extremely hard to produce imagery from those situations.
[00:25:12] And I remember I had a very good friend of mine said to me who did a lot of that stuff he said,
[00:25:17] Kieran thing about going and embedding with the soldier is that.
[00:25:22] You can get in the way and the last thing you want is to compromise a unit but they set these units up and they said yep the media has to come in and you know show us what's happening but most of the time he said you have your head down and your hand in the air and you're just blindly shooting and hoping.
[00:25:40] And he said in very early you get nothing you know I mean that's not always the case but he said majority of the time and you have to do it a lot before you're sort of hit rate.
[00:25:49] You know gets some.
[00:25:51] Get some moved up and and.
[00:25:53] If you're embedded I think you struggle if you go unilaterally which is the really unsafe way to do it so you're on your own.
[00:26:00] You're on your own.
[00:26:01] You're on your own.
[00:26:02] Yeah, they're there you've got the chance of getting something and again it's being in the right place at the right time.
[00:26:07] So they'd said they had certain guys in place that stuck their hands up straight away yep I'm doing that that's me I'll be embedded there.
[00:26:15] And I'll do this and I'll do that and we spent a month looking at the stuff that was coming out and it was invariably pictures of soldiers within sandstorms and stuff like that you know there was no action you know it was.
[00:26:28] I wouldn't say that was true from all of them but the majority of the case was very difficult to produce imagery when you're embedded.
[00:26:34] I certainly wasn't interested in being a unilateral that time at all but I was really interested in.
[00:26:43] Going and doing what happens after the war so what interests me is the people afterwards I was 10 to think that people going and shoot what's happening and that moves on and then the photographer was moving on with them and I wanted to just.
[00:26:58] Going in that backdrop and photograph what was happening. Life wise after you know soldiers have been in there and and that's exactly what I said I said I'd be happy.
[00:27:10] To go to bad dad you know pretty much almost once it's secure.
[00:27:16] It didn't quite work out that way I think we went a little bit earlier.
[00:27:20] Yeah and it never is a security think and I remember I think I got the the day after the the statue of Saddam was pulled down and it was.
[00:27:35] It was a moment if you for a bagad and I just thought hey you know what this isn't.
[00:27:42] I mean my first trip to Belfast was worse than this this is okay but we'd had but we turned up and had the.
[00:27:50] Face with the problem of one of our camera men had just been killed it under friendly fire.
[00:27:56] And that had taken a huge hit on the roators and that really hit home that actually this is really not safe place.
[00:28:06] And it's a really good place because it's still an awful lot going on and there's still an awful lot of misunderstanding and.
[00:28:14] And so that was a real level or me go out there and.
[00:28:19] And staying in the Palestine hotel was incredibly exciting because it was just there were just photographers and journalists and just buzzing around everywhere and.
[00:28:30] There are care I'm here now so what am I going to do and it's almost as if I had to get out there and start shooting and I didn't care what it was that I started shooting I just I'm here now I need to start shooting something as well as the feeling that I had.
[00:28:44] I'm going to let's go.
[00:28:46] Yeah yeah so and and I said to them I said to my the chief photographer there said Jack what what do you want me to do he said I don't know what kind of the square and see what's happening.
[00:28:57] And I walked out into the square and there were kids playing around in the in the main square in the fountain because and you kind of go out we were talking about this earlier today but you and you just said the work you for it right and a lot of people because the the the war and Iraq actually still going on right now.
[00:29:12] But it's really easy to forget the initial.
[00:29:15] I don't know four or five weeks after it started when we had crushed. You know, Saddam's regime and now the people were.
[00:29:25] Wave in American flags they're acupy were wave in American flags they were hugging they were happy and it's really easy to forget that because things turned.
[00:29:36] So bad really you know with them within a couple months they turned bad and then they went down from there.
[00:29:43] Yeah, but you were just like, oh, you know what I'm going to go out in the outside the palace on hotel which is which is by the way across the river from the green zone but still was a very well protected.
[00:29:53] Yeah, fairly well protected hotel that a lot of Westerners stayed in and.
[00:29:59] You just said, oh, I'm going to walk outside and check it out no security no security. Just get nothing. Yeah, just what can I shoot and yeah and I and I found this picture of this kid and I I still have that picture on my website.
[00:30:14] But it's a little kid and he just pulls his head out of the water and he's swimming in this fountain that and you wouldn't believe what was in the fountain. I couldn't believe these kids are swimming in it, but he just sort of popped his head out and stood there and flexed his muscles.
[00:30:27] And it was just a young nine ten year old guy just flexing his muscles and the light was fantastic and it just made such a beautiful image. I mean, it really did and I thought, okay. I just got here and I've shot a really nice picture. I felt really proud of myself and I thought, okay, and I just walked that back in and of course it was mayhem happening.
[00:30:48] And all the more people were actually doing was in there and the press is moving out of the Palestine hotel to a house that they'd rented because we were then becoming quite a big outfit and the Palestine hotel was never going to house it.
[00:31:02] But staff that we had so we were moving out to a big house just a couple of blocks away but again it was like bell fast. I had got something under my belt and I felt pretty good about it and I thought, okay, right, let's bring it on.
[00:31:17] Let's see how many places I can get to, how many stories I can shoot every day and I didn't want to stop shooting. I just, I wanted to get up at seven in the morning and go and work with the light and then.
[00:31:32] So the day was never really a good time to shoot because the light was dreadful and then I'd wait for the sort of late afternoon and the gold now, which became tricky because we were never really allowed to be out at dark. So I just wanted to shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot and of course it doesn't.
[00:31:51] Quite a workout that way because there are certain responsibilities on a photographer whose first language is English when you go into a place like Baghdad where the captioning on images is extremely important and it's extremely important that the captioning is correct.
[00:32:10] It's valid verified and it has no spelling mistakes and of course being the only photographer in there that first language is English I ended up.
[00:32:21] Where are most of the photographers from? Well we had, I mean all over Europe, we had different you know and there was maybe only four, four was in there at a time three or four was in there at a time.
[00:32:32] And I've got a friend, your guy, German, Croatian, yeah absolutely and we were all looking for you know we're all we're all looking for those great pictures so you know you began to wonder okay how's this going to be divided up every day who's going to get what you know I'm like are you looking for pictures at this point that are good pictures that you want to see or you looking for pictures that are going to be news are going to be front page newspaper which one of those two or is it both.
[00:33:01] Primarily if I'm completely honest because because a picture of like when you describe that picture of a kid.
[00:33:07] Poena's had out of this dirty water he's ten years old and he's flexing that's just an awesome image right and I'm sure that's a great picture.
[00:33:14] That picture is not going on the front page of newspapers though is it absolutely no but you don't but that's your focus is I want to get good pictures that are capturing the images of what you're seeing around you as opposed to.
[00:33:27] Hey I just want this front page picture yeah I mean I was never really one for looking for publications I was always shooting for me.
[00:33:34] I mean somebody wants to ask me to interview who's your biggest audience I'm not looking to please.
[00:33:43] Editors or whatever obviously it helps if they're with what you have done yeah but I was primarily looking to satisfy myself and I've never.
[00:33:53] I never that's never changed with me and so yeah I totally understand that you know when you're in a situation I say that but obviously we'll get on to something later that showed I completely didn't understand but.
[00:34:08] I understand when there's the front page I understand the impacts and I understand what they mean to the company totally and don't get me wrong when I was getting front pages it was a great feeling you know it's sort of verified you're.
[00:34:20] I just defined the fact that you were out there and you were doing it.
[00:34:24] But you know there are so many other agencies out there and so many other photographers out there you have to get really lucky you just have to get that one image that separates it from everyone else and I knew how you know how difficult that is.
[00:34:36] So I never concerned myself with looking for that image.
[00:34:41] So to begin to think listen if I think the image is strong. You have a bit of confidence in your own ability to judge whether or not an image is strong or not and whether or not it has a good chance of making.
[00:34:55] So if you're not if you know if if it's a listen it's features today just go out and find something that you know every picture you choose not going to tell the story.
[00:35:04] Of what's happening in Iraq but for me that picture of that boy that day three days after whatever bagad had been liberated.
[00:35:12] I should have kept playing in the water and looking feeling happy and I thought yeah do you know what that's what's happening that whatever's happening in bagad now is being.
[00:35:22] That child is a conduit for a capsule.
[00:35:25] Yeah captures the emotion and the spirit of what's going on around you. Yeah and that's it's a good overall I think.
[00:35:35] Add it to have with everyone any of you hear this all the time right. You say you know do what you're going with your heart is basically what you're saying absolutely and I'm going to agree with you.
[00:35:42] I mean and again we've talked about this before even just with what we're doing here.
[00:35:47] This is based on what we want to do in our toughest audience or our most important on interest like us you know what do we want to do what can we.
[00:35:57] How do we feel about making this and how does it feel to record it and how does it feel when I put the headphones on and listen to it is it what I want to hear.
[00:36:04] Because that's you know that's so I'm doing it and we're doing it more for the value of itself rather than I mean there's no doubt that we're not saying hey.
[00:36:14] Everybody listen to this you know because we know that this isn't everybody and we're okay with that and I think that's a good attitude to have.
[00:36:23] Yeah that's usually how it turns out the best anyway because you know what you like and you know what's going to make what you like good or look good in case.
[00:36:34] If you try to estimate what everyone else likes all you have is this like.
[00:36:40] You know, you know, you're not talking about just one other individual that you know really good you talk about a bunch of people so.
[00:36:48] A lot of times people and it turns out real obvious when they're trying to please other people with what they're doing and she goes for so many things just like how you're saying.
[00:36:57] So you know they're trying to basically play for the cheap seats they're trying you know they're trying to.
[00:37:02] This where the goal should be doing a good job doing the best that you can do and we talk about it with jitter with everything that the belt isn't the goal the front page.
[00:37:12] That's not the goal the goal is to do the best that you can do for your work you know.
[00:37:17] Yeah and like I said if you if you if you don't do it that way man it just you can smell it from one from my little way man.
[00:37:24] I don't know that there are any apart from even even the image that did make all the front swars in Iraq.
[00:37:33] I don't think in my career there's one image that's made a front page that I would keep and put in a portfolio of images.
[00:37:40] So that just shows you that the stuff that I really like is really the stuff that most people don't see and it's you know people will say.
[00:37:49] You shot that picture yeah and I really like that picture and I have really weird reasons for really liking that picture but and that's the stuff that I really enjoy doing is most people never see that stuff.
[00:38:01] You know and they're surprised when they do see it.
[00:38:04] But I this I don't think there is a picture that I would take from front page that I've had that I would want to keep and show.
[00:38:12] And and that's one thing I know from knowing you and things you told me there's times where you're looking at a picture and you're saying.
[00:38:19] There's a tragedy here.
[00:38:21] This is a person's life being destroyed.
[00:38:24] I'm not going to sell this picture I'm not going to publish this picture I'm going to delete this picture.
[00:38:30] You know you you have your own personal standard to which I have the utmost respect for that you're not going to I mean there's so many people in me especially now with.
[00:38:39] Social media and everyone's everyone's photographer now because that has an iPhone and people just shoot I mean there's whole websites that are dedicated to.
[00:38:48] Debasing people right you know and and the fact that you're a professional you you draw you do that line a long time ago is very respectable.
[00:39:01] So you got some kids and you got some nice things about the euphoria of Iraq as it kicks off and they're liberated in.
[00:39:11] There's also some some horror mixed in there as well.
[00:39:15] Yeah absolutely just and it always comes when you least expect it.
[00:39:23] And we we just moved into this new house in Baghdad and everything was set up on all the comms are set up and I know it's about five o'clock in the afternoon and a call came in and the call just said a photographer and a.
[00:39:44] TV guy need to get to this address in Baghdad and I was sitting there in jacks head here and you know off you go and take take it obviously take a vest and a hat we always have to travel those and we travel the down with vehicles everywhere.
[00:40:02] So we we went to the address and I sort of I got out onto the pavement and I was looking around and I we had no idea we'd know I do why we've been called.
[00:40:16] And somebody came running up to me since this is all the cameras and they said a euphoria from noises and I said yeah and they said okay.
[00:40:29] I a gentleman he came out and he was. I could not stand where he was saying and there was somebody there sort of translating and it soon came to pass that his son had just been killed from.
[00:40:44] I was blown up while he was in his friends were playing with it and it was the young it was a kid that was killed his son and the father just.
[00:40:59] I was in the same bag with a plastic bag and I wasn't even up until that moment I just wasn't aware of what was what was going on.
[00:41:15] I was a little bit more surprised that he was a little bit more surprised that he was a little bit quicker than me and he started to produce body parts from the bag that was you know.
[00:41:30] I was a little bit more surprised that he was a little bit more comfortable as body parts but they were coming out of this bag and and interpret as saying he needs you to photograph this because he wants you to show.
[00:41:45] He doesn't want his son's death to be in vain and he can't start grieving until you take these pictures.
[00:41:57] I think I took six or seven pictures and he ended up putting the plastic bag back down on the floor and he just said thank you and it was just Chokran and he just then he walked in and interpreted now he can start to grieve.
[00:42:17] I noticed that the TV journalist Cameron was he was Iraqi and he just completely collapsed.
[00:42:29] I remember having to get in back into the car because what had the he just witnessed was just so shocking and I was just numb going all the way back to the the office because you know I.
[00:42:46] I just hadn't anticipated anything like that happening and it just came out of the blue and I understood why I could understand the father's sentiments.
[00:42:59] I totally got what he was trying to do but at the same time I totally understood that this you know those images weren't couldn't go on the wire they were just so utterly horrific and graphic and I remember.
[00:43:15] I was shooting it I just I wasn't even looking so I had my I remember my I was the camera but I wasn't even looking at what was you know so if you were to apart from the first moment if you were to say to me you know what I couldn't tell you I just knew that it was just coming out and being held up and being put back.
[00:43:34] I couldn't bring myself to look and then I sort of got back and I the first thing I did was just delete.
[00:43:46] And I never actually said to my bosses there that I deleted those images I just thought I am not putting those images on the wire I sort of took an executive decision.
[00:43:56] I know that time I didn't mention anything to anyone else there and the only thing I had was that I kept was just a portrait of the father so we could move the portrait of the father and talk about the story.
[00:44:09] And I think I then spoke to my dad that night and I sort of you know took the vegan saffron and just rang him and I just told him what had just happened and we were sitting in the garden and then that night.
[00:44:29] And I wanted to give the staff a break and so they'd organised the barbecue and there was you know there was going to be some there was a belly down certain up.
[00:44:41] And it was an amazing night because all the Iraqis that had not been able to party in 40 years were all sitting on the roofs of their houses surrounding the house that we were on and they were just listening to the music and it was an incredible thing to see.
[00:44:55] And from something that happened like that at five o'clock to something barbecue that was happening at seven p.m.
[00:45:03] And those moments were incredibly difficult to sort of disseminate and work out what was going on because and of course it was something I kept myself apart from that I think maybe they found out maybe the TV journalists had said something but I just didn't want to speak to anyone.
[00:45:20] And I think that the actors to the office about what had just happened you know.
[00:45:26] And I don't and I think to be honest they would have completely agreed that this is not imagery that we can put out you know so there's no purpose and it's just you know just not injured that they would move.
[00:45:38] So yeah there was there was plenty of that in Iraq and you sort of had to just take it in your stride because the next day.
[00:45:49] You'd be up and there'd be the next story and you'd sort of move on to that but that would still be in the back of your mind you know and then you know quite honestly soon enough you know if you're busy and you're doing a lot of stuff when you're sitting around not doing anything that's when you really begin to think about stuff.
[00:46:05] But if you're busy and you're out and you're traveling so a week after that I was taking anything and he even if I was being you know sent out and stuff that I thought why am I being sent to do this you know.
[00:46:18] I didn't mind I just I'll take it better than sitting around and yeah just with your own totally totally yeah absolutely.
[00:46:27] And and it's also weird and it's hard for people that haven't been in a war zone before to understand how things like what you're talking about this obviously everyone anticipates or expects that there's the horror of war but then understand the barbecue part like that that's a hard thing for people understand that you can be what just three months.
[00:46:47] Just three months into this war and we've got the Reuters staff having a staff party I mean okay and people in America know what a little staff office party is hey guys we're gonna go and order some pizzas.
[00:47:00] They do that they do that in these war zones and and the military does it the the I mean I've talked about it about it about you mean these big bases that we had eventually built had.
[00:47:10] Subway sandwiches the company subway and the company Burger King and the company Starbucks were on these bases so if you want to have a little subway party for your boys you could do that fire up the grill have you know.
[00:47:22] So it's really a hard dichotomy for people to understand that inside the.
[00:47:27] Protected areas we carve out little chunks of America little chunks of freedom did you take any pictures of the Iraqis looking at the party.
[00:47:39] Yeah I did that was pretty almost but you know what they weren't great pictures because.
[00:47:42] It was so dark.
[00:47:44] And it was I took a few and I saw and of course the other photographer was there that was taking stuff as well you know.
[00:47:53] So yeah I did and I I've always thought about that I remember those pictures but they didn't we didn't they weren't good enough I just I just didn't shoot it well enough you know I just didn't have the right lens and I just yeah and and I think that was sort of a you know.
[00:48:09] That might have been as a result of what had happened earlier but.
[00:48:13] Yeah I now have thought about that I have thought about those and and.
[00:48:18] And that that remains with me as a memory that I saw because I think it's like any of you concentrate so hard on taking pictures of stuff you never actually take anything in.
[00:48:28] But that was a moment that I really wanted to take in because it was just incredible to see.
[00:48:33] These people out on their rules just enjoying the music and not being afraid and you know somebody said to me this is not happened in 40 years and I just thought that was just.
[00:48:45] Incredible and those are the people that I talk about you know I was I always end up trying to explain to people that there's that the normal citizen I rack is a normal person.
[00:48:55] That wants to have a job raise their kids have a house and that's what they want to do and it's really hard I mean America does a terrible job of showing that I mean America media does a terrible job of showing what that is.
[00:49:11] You know all you see is the crazy all you see is the extremists.
[00:49:15] But that's a great example of people going hey know what we've been impressed for 40 years they're listening to music this is awesome let's let's watch them and.
[00:49:23] And yeah and those are the people that wanted to take Iraq and the right direction.
[00:49:30] Yeah you did end up getting some pretty important I mean important well maybe important but you ended up with some some pictures that did end up on the on the front pages of.
[00:49:42] Yeah that's right it was some.
[00:49:46] Coming off the back of another amazing story where I'd been to Najaf to follow a cleric who was coming back who'd been exiled 40 years before.
[00:49:54] By Saddam and he was coming back to Najaf and I'd spent two or three days down there waiting for him and that whole scenario of him turning up with thousands of followers and being pushed into the mosque as I'm trying to photograph him and.
[00:50:15] You know finding myself in the middle of a mosque as a Westerner just thinking you know how did I get in here it was just you know and and that's what happens when you stand in front of the door and wait for the guy to turn up you're just going to get taken in with him.
[00:50:30] And I done that and I'd really enjoyed that job and that and the sort of anticipation of waiting for this guy to turn up and it wasn't incredible moment.
[00:50:45] And I was just in the Jaff back to the hotel which was probably a mile you know and I know you didn't think twice had all my camera gear around you just didn't think twice about walking down that street.
[00:51:01] About three quarters away there we got a call and it said you need to turn off to there's a a mask grave has been found at hill and you're on route while you're going to pass it on the way back into Baghdad so can you stop off and have a look and my first reaction was I was so shattered from the four days in the Jaff that I was sort of slightly resigned about having to you know.
[00:51:28] Really because we have to be back in Baghdad before it's dark and you know.
[00:51:35] I just I had a really sort of ambivalent attitude to it so we we found this place and we pulled up and everyone said right hey guys you've got literally 40 minutes because but we got to be out of here before the sun's down.
[00:51:49] So we got out and I just sort of walked over this mound and as I walked over the mound that was here there was just hundreds of bodies just laid out in front of me and they'd been there.
[00:52:03] I think it was probably about four or five days I think it was obvious how long they've been there because you can see how many bodies that they pulled out of the pit that they dug there and it was obviously an execution spot where sedams had taken them.
[00:52:17] I've been in a how many years before and they'd all been executed just a bullet to the back of the head all men and they were they dug them up and pulled the bodies out and I imagine the relatives had obviously had an idea of where they were but they were never able to do anything until.
[00:52:33] You know they were in a position Baghdad had been liberated and they felt it was safe enough now to go and try and I think they knew sedams on the run.
[00:52:40] So they were excavating this area and they'd found all these bodies and they put these bodies into plastic bags and they had a name tag on each body and.
[00:52:53] That's when I realized okay that this is this is probably quite well this is bigger than any other mass grave that I'd shot during my time there.
[00:53:05] So I started shooting and I knew the light was going down and the light was incredible it was just incredible the lights on the sand and everything and I just started shooting and I started shooting the women that were sitting around the edge behind the barbed wire so it obviously made the women sit round and then when they'd finished digging the women were able to walk through the bodies and try and identify.
[00:53:23] And they were just picking up ID cards and you know trying to sort of figure out who was who and I remember there was one really.
[00:53:36] The bizarre moment where somebody had taken a body all sorts of means of the skeleton and the corpse and they laid it out in the shape of somebody just lying on the ground it wasn't a case of.
[00:53:50] The remains were put into a plastic bag they had actually almost constructed this person as they were and so they were laid out and it looked like a person lying on the ground with their arms out and their legs and the correct position and they head to one side.
[00:54:04] And I just remember a young kid just walking past holding his dad's hand just staring at this and I thought that must be unbelievable thing for a kid that aged to be staring at.
[00:54:15] And I remember taking that picture and it's I remember thinking that I've never seen anything like that and I thought somebody has actually gone to the trouble of trying to do this and I couldn't work out why and I thought why have they done this.
[00:54:32] You know I was pretty sure that it didn't help with the identification of that person but somebody had gone to the trouble of laying this this corpse out so I shot that picture and.
[00:54:42] And I started moving around and shooting the women and the women were crying and I found I subsequently found out they were only.
[00:54:50] And I was crying because I had turned up with a camera so I had altered that situation and when they realized that I was no longer interested in shooting them because they were.
[00:55:00] They were crying because they thought this is what this photographer needs to see.
[00:55:05] Yeah, I just I they went back to playing with their dice and so I sort of moved away I thought why won't we be taking any more pictures of that.
[00:55:14] And so and they had and I know this isn't the right word but remind me, Jocca what's the American version of a JCB or backo a backo so they had a backo in this pit pulling out the bodies and they had a couple of kids underneath collecting.
[00:55:29] And so the remains and just put into one side and these kids were doing it as if it was just another day you know it was no it was impossible to see.
[00:55:44] And I remember seeing a skull roll off the claw of this backo and this kid caught it.
[00:56:01] Just called it like a goalkeeper would catch your football and then just put it into a bag.
[00:56:06] Yeah, I watched that one, I didn't actually shoot that one.
[00:56:08] And so it was a case of getting the job done as quickly as possible,
[00:56:15] getting back in the van, and getting back to back there.
[00:56:18] And I got back to back there.
[00:56:20] And I moved, I think, four or five images,
[00:56:23] because I was never really a person to move a lot of imagery.
[00:56:27] I thought, if I had some really good stuff,
[00:56:29] I didn't want to dilute it with stuff that I thought was inferior.
[00:56:31] So I just put the four or five best images out.
[00:56:35] And was just hanging around when the chief came in and he said,
[00:56:39] listen, how many pictures did you move of that story?
[00:56:43] And I said, maybe four or five.
[00:56:44] And he said, right, can you better move some more?
[00:56:47] Because it's become the number one story in the world.
[00:56:50] And I think there was over 2,000 bodies they discovered at this place.
[00:56:56] And of course, I then thought, cheese, OK, right.
[00:57:00] And then I just sort of slightly panicked,
[00:57:02] because I thought, well, I've just edited my stuff.
[00:57:04] I've moved five pictures of what am I now going to find in there
[00:57:08] that's going to improve the file.
[00:57:12] So I went through my computer screen just going through the pictures
[00:57:16] and thinking, oh, do you know what?
[00:57:20] I really wish that I'd spend it in a more time shooting that moment
[00:57:25] because I'd shot it until, actually, you know what?
[00:57:27] I'm going to get something a bit stronger than that in a minute.
[00:57:30] So I just, and I saw, and then I'd see another image.
[00:57:33] And I'd work it through and I think, OK, I think the fourth image
[00:57:36] in this sequence is going to be the one.
[00:57:38] And then I realized there wasn't the fourth image.
[00:57:40] And I just kept saying, oh, so what were you doing?
[00:57:45] And of course, at the time, I had no idea that this was going to be
[00:57:48] the number one story in the world.
[00:57:51] And so I ended up moving.
[00:57:53] I think I ended up moving maybe 15 pictures, maybe more from this.
[00:57:57] And every time I put a picture, I thought, you know,
[00:58:00] what?
[00:58:00] And it just so annoyed me that I hadn't.
[00:58:03] Maybe approach the job as in the right manner.
[00:58:08] I just had seen the light.
[00:58:11] And I'd shot what I thought would be really strong.
[00:58:13] And like I say, you know, in my career,
[00:58:16] I miss as many pictures as I get.
[00:58:18] In fact, I miss more than I get.
[00:58:20] And I can tell you about all the great pictures I didn't take.
[00:58:24] And that would make a great book.
[00:58:26] But so I was just really angry with myself and angry that I'd
[00:58:32] had this opportunity and I'd maybe blown it.
[00:58:35] And I thought, well, this is why I'm here.
[00:58:36] I'm here to shoot this.
[00:58:38] I'm here to show the world that this is why this is what's
[00:58:40] happening.
[00:58:41] And how could I have been so stupid as to not have concentrated
[00:58:47] a little bit harder while I was there?
[00:58:48] And I know we only had half an hour to 40 minutes.
[00:58:51] But still, I could have shot five times as much in that time.
[00:58:54] But I didn't.
[00:58:54] I just chose to meticulously walk through pick my moments
[00:58:58] and shoot them.
[00:58:59] So we moved these pictures and fortunately the next day,
[00:59:02] I think one of the, it was an image of a woman
[00:59:07] in a walking past a skull that was just,
[00:59:11] and I shot it from really low down on the ground.
[00:59:13] And it was really up and upright.
[00:59:15] And that's what suited most of the papers
[00:59:16] as an upright image of vertical.
[00:59:19] And that was what got used on all the New York Times,
[00:59:23] everywhere, the just the Washington Post,
[00:59:26] all the British newspapers, everywhere around the world,
[00:59:28] had run with this story.
[00:59:30] And although we were the first guy there,
[00:59:32] there were a couple of other photographers
[00:59:34] that were there at the time with me,
[00:59:36] but they didn't work for an international wire agency.
[00:59:41] And that's the beauty about working
[00:59:42] for an international wire agency is that they're rich
[00:59:45] and they're clout.
[00:59:46] It's just phenomenal.
[00:59:47] It doesn't matter whether you're working for a newspaper,
[00:59:49] but as soon as you work for an international wire agency,
[00:59:52] particularly one as good as Royce's,
[00:59:54] you then realize actually,
[00:59:57] when I've got this picture,
[00:59:58] it's really gonna get out there.
[01:00:01] Everybody is gonna see it, you know?
[01:00:03] And that's a huge buzz.
[01:00:06] And it did, and it made,
[01:00:09] the play was incredible.
[01:00:11] And then my chief said to me,
[01:00:14] okay, Kirin, well, you know where you're going back
[01:00:16] to tomorrow.
[01:00:17] And again, I thought, yeah, but you know what,
[01:00:20] I've just been there.
[01:00:22] And I had pretty much the place to myself.
[01:00:25] And I knew going down the next day
[01:00:27] when I drove there, it was a zoo.
[01:00:30] There was just every photographer
[01:00:31] and every cameraman in Iraq was at Hilla.
[01:00:36] And you couldn't shoot anything
[01:00:39] without getting another photographer
[01:00:41] or a cameraman or a sound boom
[01:00:43] because of the,
[01:00:44] and I think I did take a couple of pictures that day,
[01:00:47] some very strong, a couple of strong pictures
[01:00:50] of a woman that I just discovered a husband
[01:00:52] and she was surrounded by a family.
[01:00:53] And the pain of every photographer's life
[01:00:59] is the sound man's boom.
[01:01:02] And this woman was making this,
[01:01:07] she was, it was a stressful way.
[01:01:08] I mean, I still remember it now.
[01:01:10] It was awful.
[01:01:10] The noise she was making,
[01:01:12] it was really guttural.
[01:01:15] And it really went right through
[01:01:18] and I remember being really down low and in close
[01:01:22] and trying to photograph this
[01:01:23] and the next thing, this furry boom just comes over, microphone.
[01:01:27] And he's trying to record the sound.
[01:01:31] And that's what it was like.
[01:01:33] And you're getting annoyed at a sound man
[01:01:34] who's just stepped in and trying to do something
[01:01:37] when you were trying it and you think,
[01:01:38] and I'm getting annoyed with a guy
[01:01:40] who's trying to record a woman who's
[01:01:42] and plumbing the depth of grief.
[01:01:45] And I'm annoyed at him and I'm not thinking, well listen,
[01:01:48] what about her?
[01:01:49] You know, and in those situations
[01:01:50] you're not thinking about that,
[01:01:51] you'll just, I need to shoot this picture.
[01:01:55] So yep, the next day it was a zoo.
[01:01:58] And but I was able to stand back and think,
[01:02:01] you know, I got lucky yesterday.
[01:02:06] And I learned a really valuable lesson,
[01:02:08] which is going to every situation like that
[01:02:12] as if you're never gonna see a situation like that again.
[01:02:15] I mean, actually even further back,
[01:02:17] there was a chance that you could have said,
[01:02:19] I know we can't make it, we won't be home
[01:02:20] before dark so we're just gonna head back back there.
[01:02:23] And of course, but that's right.
[01:02:25] And but ultimately in that car,
[01:02:27] that wasn't, that probably wasn't gonna be my call.
[01:02:30] So the somebody in the car,
[01:02:33] and I think I was with three or four others,
[01:02:35] somebody at the maybe the journalist
[01:02:36] might have been the most senior in the,
[01:02:38] in the, in the, in the,
[01:02:39] I'm to vehicle at the time and she would have made that call.
[01:02:41] And she would have just said, listen,
[01:02:43] if this is what they want, we need to go under, you know.
[01:02:46] So yep, it came out, okay, at the end,
[01:02:50] but it was, that was close.
[01:02:53] And I had a, whatever, when I was in my first seal
[01:02:56] up until my leading petty officer who is the senior,
[01:03:02] well, not even the senior,
[01:03:03] but the second senior of the,
[01:03:04] listed guys anyways, he had this,
[01:03:07] this mantra and the mantra was always go out.
[01:03:12] Now when he said always go out,
[01:03:15] what he meant was always go out to the barn.
[01:03:18] Always go out, you know,
[01:03:20] you can, you pull in somewhere for a night, go out,
[01:03:22] you know, that's always go out.
[01:03:23] There's always some fun to be had.
[01:03:25] And I actually, my mind, I always twisted that mantra
[01:03:29] from his always go out to go to the bar
[01:03:32] or go to the club.
[01:03:34] I changed it to just always go out period.
[01:03:37] So if there's an opportunity,
[01:03:39] there's an operation coming, go out.
[01:03:40] If there's a, if you, if there's a bar to go to,
[01:03:42] go out.
[01:03:43] If there's something to do, go and do it.
[01:03:45] It's just a little, you know,
[01:03:47] a little something to think about.
[01:03:48] And remind when you're sitting there saying,
[01:03:50] and you know, maybe, maybe wouldn't have been your call,
[01:03:52] but if it was your call, maybe would have sluffed it off.
[01:03:55] And if you had the attitude, if you know what,
[01:03:56] always go out.
[01:03:58] Okay.
[01:03:58] Then you would have been there 100%.
[01:04:01] Yeah.
[01:04:01] Yeah.
[01:04:02] Absolutely.
[01:04:04] And, and,
[01:04:07] you get, I don't want to cut, I rack short,
[01:04:11] but at the same time, there's so much stuff
[01:04:13] I want to talk to you about and hear other people
[01:04:16] talk about, but you get home from Iraq.
[01:04:21] And, you go back to your kind of normal day to day.
[01:04:28] You said you were, you saw some stuff,
[01:04:30] but it wasn't like a major psychological effect
[01:04:33] that you noticed out of the gate.
[01:04:34] You came home, hey, that was my job, I did my job.
[01:04:40] Next call you get, big call, is to go to Sri Lanka,
[01:04:45] which you mentioned briefly there.
[01:04:47] And in Sri Lanka, you were going because of the horrible tsunami
[01:04:52] that hit on boxing day in Americans,
[01:04:55] don't know what boxing day is.
[01:04:56] That's a day after Christmas in England.
[01:04:58] You know, boxing day, and you get the call
[01:05:02] to go out to Sri Lanka and shoot.
[01:05:08] Yeah, that was some, I remember the, the, the,
[01:05:14] the, the desk working on boxing day called me.
[01:05:19] And I was around at my parents with my kids.
[01:05:21] And we were all just about to start opening Christmas presents.
[01:05:25] And, um, she said,
[01:05:29] here, you need to get on a plane and you need to go to Columbus,
[01:05:32] literally, um, straight away.
[01:05:35] And I said, uh, why?
[01:05:38] And she said, well, I've been not heard.
[01:05:40] And I said, I heard what?
[01:05:42] And she said turn on the TV.
[01:05:43] So I turned on the TV.
[01:05:45] And, uh, yeah, it was like a 9-11 moment,
[01:05:49] you know, when you're sitting and you're looking, you just think,
[01:05:52] I had no idea.
[01:05:54] And, uh, and by the way, just to just to kind of give some basic facts on this,
[01:05:59] the tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean had the approximate energy of 23,000
[01:06:07] hero shima atomic bombs.
[01:06:14] It was a magnitude 9.0.
[01:06:14] The rupture was 600 miles long.
[01:06:17] It displaced the sea floor by 10 yards.
[01:06:22] 600 miles 10 yards.
[01:06:24] So, uh, trillions of trillions of tons of rocks moved.
[01:06:31] It's the largest earthquake in 40 years.
[01:06:34] And within hours, the killer waves started arriving.
[01:06:38] And unfortunately, because of lack of communication and no warning systems in place,
[01:06:43] people were just not, they weren't prepared for it throughout Asia.
[01:06:47] And they just got crushed.
[01:06:50] Absolutely crushed.
[01:06:52] And, uh, you know, you said a 9-11 moment, which I understand where you're coming from,
[01:06:56] from a psychological standpoint of, hey, I know what I was doing at this point on September 11,
[01:07:03] well, September 11th was 4,000, maybe 5,000 Americans killed.
[01:07:10] The tsunami resulted in almost a quarter million dead.
[01:07:14] I mean, just a massive destruction.
[01:07:18] And you got the call.
[01:07:21] So you got the call.
[01:07:23] And it just happened to be because I was the guy on call.
[01:07:27] Oh, okay.
[01:07:28] So it could have gone to any photographer in London.
[01:07:32] So, and they, they roaches head sort of,
[01:07:36] there were photographers that had gone to Bandar at Cheyenne,
[01:07:39] and other places, and they needed somebody to go to Sri Lanka because they had an idea that Sri Lanka had been pretty badly hit.
[01:07:45] And because it was my name on the scared for boxing day, that's why I got the call.
[01:07:49] And I ended up going out the following, I think it was the 27th.
[01:07:53] I flew out.
[01:07:54] And, uh, yeah, just one of those stories where you have to hit the ground running.
[01:08:00] So you're off the plane, you get three customs, and you're straight into a car,
[01:08:04] and you're into the office, and you're speaking to the bureau chief there.
[01:08:08] And you say, right, I'm here.
[01:08:10] So where am I going?
[01:08:12] And they are still trying to figure out what's happened,
[01:08:16] and where the, you know, the most severe damages,
[01:08:20] and pretty much, you know, most of the coastline of Sri Lanka had been hit.
[01:08:24] So it didn't really matter where you went.
[01:08:28] You were always going to find something.
[01:08:30] So they were trying to, I said, I really want to get over to the other coast.
[01:08:34] I don't want to get over to this stay here where all the tourists come.
[01:08:37] I want to get over to the other side.
[01:08:39] So we were literally trying to find a helicopter that would get me straight over there.
[01:08:43] But in the meantime, while they were trying to work that out,
[01:08:45] I just got in the car and I just drove down from kind of just straight down through gold
[01:08:49] to just see what was going on.
[01:08:51] And again, to get something under my belt, and I just started shooting.
[01:08:55] And then came back to the office.
[01:08:58] How did you have your business really awkward before?
[01:09:00] I'd never been trying to.
[01:09:01] No.
[01:09:02] So, got back to the office, and I said, listen, what's happening with the chopper?
[01:09:10] They said, well, you know, it's not really happening,
[01:09:12] but there might be a government minister that's going to go across.
[01:09:15] So myself and a journalist go in the car,
[01:09:17] we went to the government minister's office.
[01:09:19] And he was going to get in the chopper and get over.
[01:09:24] To the other side, the other coastline.
[01:09:27] But before he did that, we were going to sit down and have lunch.
[01:09:31] And I was just thinking, okay, listen, do you know what?
[01:09:34] I really don't want to sit here and have lunch.
[01:09:37] Why don't we just get in that chopper and get going?
[01:09:41] But we had to go through this whole ring roll.
[01:09:44] And then eventually we got to the chopper and we got up for about three minutes.
[01:09:49] And a storm from came in.
[01:09:51] Chopper came back down.
[01:09:53] So that was that avenue of getting across.
[01:09:55] And we would have been there in an hour.
[01:09:57] So we had to work out another way.
[01:09:59] So we drove to Candy in one of those.
[01:10:04] We found a car, a guy who drove us from Columbia.
[01:10:08] Drivers all the way through the centre of Shalanko to Candy.
[01:10:12] And we got to Candy.
[01:10:13] And I remember that was New Year's Eve.
[01:10:15] When we got there, myself and the journalist.
[01:10:18] And the coincident with the journalist that was with me,
[01:10:20] she was flying back from a holiday.
[01:10:23] And she'd heard about the tsunami and she stopped off.
[01:10:25] And she was a lobby journalist that worked for Reuters.
[01:10:29] But so she was used to dealing with the politicians.
[01:10:33] And she just said, listen, I'm a journalist and I need to,
[01:10:37] This is a story that I need to cover.
[01:10:39] So she came in and she said, listen.
[01:10:42] And I knew her and I said, wow, what are you doing here?
[01:10:45] And she said, wow, can I be of help?
[01:10:48] So I said, let's go.
[01:10:50] You know, we got in this car and we went.
[01:10:53] And she had such an amazingly fresh take on a story like that.
[01:11:00] Purely because she was used to covering lobby and back in the UK.
[01:11:07] And because she wasn't a seasoned sort of,
[01:11:10] I don't know, hostile environment journalist.
[01:11:14] The way she would write stories and find stories was just like,
[01:11:17] you just wouldn't have got it from a, you know,
[01:11:19] she just had a completely different angle on it.
[01:11:22] So it was so refreshing to work with someone who just saw everything from a completely different viewpoint.
[01:11:28] Everything was new to her, but that meant that her writing and everything was really fresh and vibrant.
[01:11:33] So she was an absolute pleasure to work with.
[01:11:35] And we sort of just teamed up and we got to the other side.
[01:11:38] And as soon as we got to the other coast,
[01:11:40] it flooded the whole area flooded,
[01:11:45] which meant no one could get in to that side of Sri Lanka.
[01:11:49] And we had that place to ourselves for over a week.
[01:11:53] And we were staying in a hotel where the floors were just to feed high and water.
[01:11:57] I mean, but they still managed to get us rice every night.
[01:12:01] I mean, it was just incredible how these people just managed.
[01:12:04] And of course you get out there in your,
[01:12:06] you're, you're okay, right, where do we go?
[01:12:10] So let's just walk down to the coastline and let's just see what the situation is.
[01:12:14] And of course, you go down as a,
[01:12:17] as a Westerner and these people just think that you're,
[01:12:21] you can help them.
[01:12:22] So they're coming up when they're showing you documentation in their passports.
[01:12:25] And can you take this to the American embassy?
[01:12:27] And can we get off the country?
[01:12:28] And I have, I have relatives that live in the UK and relatives that live in America.
[01:12:32] And I can leave.
[01:12:33] And you, I've never felt so helpless in my life.
[01:12:37] Never felt so helpless.
[01:12:39] And I've spent a fair amount of time in Sri Lanka back in the day.
[01:12:44] And the Sri Lankan people are just the nicest,
[01:12:48] yeah, absolutely.
[01:12:49] Kindest, but hard working, I mean,
[01:12:52] just it's just a beautiful, and a country side itself is absolutely stunning, beautiful.
[01:12:58] And so I can imagine them doing going,
[01:13:01] jumping through hoops and doing what I had to do to get you a bowl of rice when you came home.
[01:13:05] Yeah, it is a shame to get her to go.
[01:13:07] And then you would meet the people that were living on the beach,
[01:13:11] their homes are on the beach, and they've been hit by the wave.
[01:13:16] And they were just immediately rebuilding.
[01:13:20] It was just, okay, listen, this is what we've got to do.
[01:13:23] And they start rebuilding.
[01:13:25] And I'll never forget wandering around at that point on the tip,
[01:13:31] on the east and tip.
[01:13:33] And I found just it was a wall, just a wall left of a house.
[01:13:39] So I imagine it was the wall where there was the door,
[01:13:41] and everything else had gone, it was one brick wall just standing up his own.
[01:13:45] And if you sort of walked through this door,
[01:13:48] you just saw Golden Sand and Pantry,
[01:13:52] and there was a dresser.
[01:13:54] Just a one wooden dresser against this back wall.
[01:13:57] And the young guy came up to me and he'd said,
[01:14:00] you're photography and where are you from and the usual.
[01:14:06] And I sort of got chatting to him and he said,
[01:14:09] can I get you a drink?
[01:14:11] And I said, and then listen, I'm fine.
[01:14:13] Seriously, don't worry about it.
[01:14:15] I'm absolutely fine, but thank you.
[01:14:17] He said, no, no, no, listen, I can run to the store,
[01:14:19] which was about a mile in land.
[01:14:21] Yeah, and I can get you a diet, coke, or a coke, whatever it is.
[01:14:24] I said, please listen, I'm, I'm, seriously, I'm absolutely fine.
[01:14:28] He said, okay, well, please sit and he pulled up a crate,
[01:14:31] and we just sat it down and I'm sitting in what used to be his main room of his house.
[01:14:37] And he puts, let's get to the crate and let's me sit on it.
[01:14:42] And then he just shimmies up the coke and up tree,
[01:14:45] and he just pulls a coke and up off the top of the tree,
[01:14:48] shimmies back down.
[01:14:49] And I'm thinking, and I really don't like coke and up there.
[01:14:53] I mean, I, but because it really doesn't agree with me,
[01:14:56] so I just thought, okay, but you know, he's gone to this effort.
[01:15:00] So he cut down this and he took the top off,
[01:15:02] and then he went to the dresser,
[01:15:04] and he opened the drawer and he pulled out a tiny silver platter.
[01:15:10] And he put the coke in it on the platter,
[01:15:12] and then he handed it to me.
[01:15:14] And he'd even got a straw, and he put a straw in it.
[01:15:18] And he said, please, you know, you're in my home.
[01:15:21] And I'm looking at the one wall that's left of his home with his dresser.
[01:15:26] And so I take a sip of this drink and I said,
[01:15:29] so tell me, what, I mean, this is your home.
[01:15:34] I mean, you know, the water was 25 feet away.
[01:15:38] There's the golden sand I said, what happened.
[01:15:40] And he said, the wave came in and destroyed my house.
[01:15:44] And it took away my parents, my wife,
[01:15:48] my brothers and sisters and my six kids, they're gone.
[01:15:53] And all I can think of is that he has tried to find some way for me to sit.
[01:16:01] It's gone up a tree to get me a coconut and put it on the silver platter.
[01:16:05] The only thing that's left in his house is this chest of drawers,
[01:16:10] or the dresser with a silver platter in it.
[01:16:12] And he's more concerned about my welfare at that moment.
[01:16:16] And this is what had happened to him about five days earlier.
[01:16:20] And I remember thinking, when I got back from Shalainka,
[01:16:26] I couldn't stop thinking about that conversation.
[01:16:30] And I think that was the time when it really hit me.
[01:16:34] It really hit me about what had happened.
[01:16:37] And I can't even begin to describe.
[01:16:42] I think I had a numbness, similar to the sort of numbness that I had in Iraq.
[01:16:46] But this was a different kind of numbness because the thing about the tsunami was you were dealing with the living.
[01:16:54] And it was the living that affected you.
[01:16:57] It wasn't the death and it wasn't the bodies that had been swept.
[01:17:03] A mile in land and ended up in people's houses and stuff like that.
[01:17:07] It wasn't the way you would cover the funnels of all the different religious types there.
[01:17:13] You just, it's when you're speaking to the people that survived that you,
[01:17:19] it was a real, a real living.
[01:17:22] And well, that just about sums up my, you know, that story about that guy.
[01:17:29] I mean, first of all, anybody that hears that story has to think to themselves,
[01:17:35] you know, am I really doing the best I can to number one, have a positive attitude.
[01:17:41] Number two, put other people before me.
[01:17:43] I mean, what a, what a, what a saint.
[01:17:45] I mean, that's just unbelievable.
[01:17:47] And I remember actually as you were telling that story.
[01:17:49] I remember that when I was in Sri Lanka, there was guys that, you know,
[01:17:53] they've been fighting in war against the Tamile Tigers for many years.
[01:17:55] And so we, that's who we were working with these guys.
[01:17:58] And they would, they would be telling these war stories with,
[01:18:03] and they'd be showing you, you know, there's a guy that couldn't move his arm.
[01:18:06] He got shot in the arm with an AK-47.
[01:18:08] So now he was working as, like, a secretary in the, in the army.
[01:18:12] And he's just got this big smile on his face.
[01:18:14] And he's telling me, yeah, you know, and, and I, I got shot.
[01:18:18] And, and now my arm doesn't work, but, you know, being a secretary is a pretty,
[01:18:22] a pretty good job too.
[01:18:23] And, and it's just good to still be in the army.
[01:18:25] And you just have this, this, this, this feeling,
[01:18:29] it probably the similar feeling that you have.
[01:18:31] Just looking at these people and you're saying, how can you be so happy?
[01:18:35] Yeah, and why can't I be that?
[01:18:37] I want to be that happy.
[01:18:39] But this is, it's just so impressive and it puts everything in so much perspective.
[01:18:44] We're talking here about somebody that's lost that much.
[01:18:48] That's going to climb that tree.
[01:18:50] That's going to climb that tree for somebody else,
[01:18:54] even though they've lost everything themselves.
[01:18:56] It's humbling.
[01:18:57] So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, that, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so...
[01:19:00] So, when you came home and you know you tell me about this earlier and you were just kind of getting into it.
[01:19:09] I mean you felt like after Sri Lung you know you go to Iraq and you see the war and that's one thing and like you said you're dealing with the dead and you're seeing people that were killed.
[01:19:20] But now you're dealing with the what's left behind.
[01:19:23] And you said that that really had more of an impact on you than that I racked it or the Northern Island did.
[01:19:32] Yeah.
[01:19:33] Did you?
[01:19:36] How did you deal with that?
[01:19:39] Well, the Roitz's policy is that when you arrive back from a situation like that you'll line manager hands you at a number.
[01:19:50] You know quite discreetly and says there's a number there if you need to call it.
[01:19:55] And it says sort of a help line you know it's sort of you have talked to a professional about what you've been through and it's sort of way of as imagine in the outweigh be the debrief.
[01:20:03] It's sort of a thing you just sort of you get that you start to talk about what it is you and I don't know I've never been in a situation like that.
[01:20:09] So I don't know what happens but I remember thinking I'm fine.
[01:20:13] I don't need that at all.
[01:20:16] So again I couldn't have been more wrong.
[01:20:21] And I ended up I had nightmares for maybe a couple of years after it's really really bizarre nightmares that involved cameras and involved tidal waves.
[01:20:34] I mean that the sort of the mix that was going on I mean if I suppose if I sit down and talk to professional about it they might find it really interesting what was going on on my head.
[01:20:45] But I came back really angry.
[01:20:48] I remember coming back really angry for the main reason being that I was coming back to my comfortable home and I thought about those millionaires living on the river bank in London and I thought whatever happened if the terms suddenly went.
[01:21:10] It just completely flooded the barriers broke and just water just how would they the effort you wouldn't know what where to start you just wouldn't know what to do and you sit and these people.
[01:21:22] You know we have lots of floods in England now and what people go through I can understand is completely an utterly miserable but they're the carpets are being ruined and all this sort of stuff and yeah I wouldn't want to go through that but.
[01:21:37] You know when you when you compare that to what happens during a tsunami it's just you know night and day it really is and so I got angry about coming back to live in a comfortable house and.
[01:21:50] I used to get angry that my cellar flooded in strutum where I lived I had a big cellar where I had my drum kit and it flooded once and.
[01:22:01] My wife tear she was down there with my daughter and she was ended up pulling my drum kit out of.
[01:22:08] Three four inches of sewage water that come into and and I'm responsible for her hurting her back because she should never have done it but she was trying to get my.
[01:22:18] All my equipment off the floor and I remember being so angry that my cellar had flooded and then you go to something like Sri Lanka anything actually come on let's put this in perspective.
[01:22:31] So yeah the anger and I think it took a while to maybe if I take a nine manages advice and run out phone number.
[01:22:40] I might have been in a different place and it might have had you know I might have got to a different place a lot quicker but I didn't and I thought I can handle this and.
[01:22:49] And even while I wasn't handling it I didn't know I wasn't handling it you know I just thought this is normal that you come back from these events and just.
[01:22:59] Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you're wife who is dealing with three really small kids and there's you in one year as you know given all this about your dreams and.
[01:23:13] You know flooding in this and there and I'm really annoyed and I should have stayed out there longer and why did they bring me back so early I had so many other stories lined up.
[01:23:23] And I course you know it then dawned on to me you know actually.
[01:23:29] My wife was my.
[01:23:30] Psychiatrist and to be fair she wasn't actually having to say anything she was just listening.
[01:23:38] And it was a case of me needing to just get all this stuff off my chest and I would just pick the bizarre as moments to do.
[01:23:47] And I had friends around and something would set me off and I don't know another thing you know and it was a bit like that.
[01:23:58] So yes I would say if maybe I'd been sort of clinically diagnosed they would have said you're suffering from some post traumatic stress.
[01:24:09] And I didn't experience that after a rock and I don't know why. I think maybe it was because I sort of wore as completely different to what you would maybe categorizes an active god so.
[01:24:25] That in a way I found quite interesting or was what happened when I got back from the tsunami a culmination of what happened in Iraq but I'd been to Iraq and at the end in between Iraq and the tsunami I had spent nine weeks in Australia for the graphing the rugby World Cup.
[01:24:45] And that was a pretty good gig and I'd had a great time. So there was that sort of huge job in between these other two huge jobs and I'm wondering maybe the distraction.
[01:24:59] Yeah had had helped you know maybe I was too busy thinking about something else I was nine weeks on a tour in Australia an amazing country having a great time shooting the rugby World Cup which England then went on to win.
[01:25:12] So yeah it was I don't know I really and to this day I'll never know but yeah dealing with that and it was interesting because I was working for the BBC in Dubai in 2010 and I was working with a producer and there was a series called Human Planet and I was out there shooting stills for the book that was going to come out with a series and we were out with this
[01:25:39] a volcano in Dubai a South African guy who trained for the end of the shoot and we were out and we were having a meal and the producer asked me he said oh
[01:25:51] I'm hearing you've got some incredible stories why don't you tell him the story about the tsunami. I thought well that's a really bizarre thing to start talking about at the end of a meal where we're celebrating finishing a shoot.
[01:26:07] But I obliged and I can't even remember I started talking and that they're just a whole table just went utter silence.
[01:26:17] I mean they were enthralled but in the end the producer came up to me after he said I'm really sorry that I asked you to talk about that because he said I can see that every time that you must talk about it you lose a piece of yourself.
[01:26:35] You know it's so entrenched in you that when you talk about it you're giving part of yourself away and he said I really apologize for that position and that had never occurred to me that was happening but he could tell that by watching how I was talking about it.
[01:26:52] I don't know if that's the case now but I don't tend to talk about it purely because it was 2004 and you know a lot has happened between then and now and so it's not something that I sit down with on a regular basis and talk to people about so.
[01:27:11] But I can imagine that even now probably at some point it's probably just a tiny bit maybe similar but not like it was closer but that was 2010 that was six years afterwards and he still spotted it was you know still very high in my sort of psyche.
[01:27:31] I think it's I think it's somewhat therapeutic to talk about the end and I think the more you talk if that guy asked you the same question once a week and you told that story once a week and you got more in depth with it and got your hands wrapped around it.
[01:27:46] I think that's good for you and you know they talk about that to the veterans in World War II when you when you came home from World War II first of all you've been at war for three or four years and when you came home you got on to a ship.
[01:28:00] I was just a little bit more in the middle of the war and then one day your doors up of 365 days you get on a plane and 24 hours later you're sitting in Main Street USA.
[01:28:27] I think that's what you said too when you told Tia you're lovely wife what was going on that's how you can talk about the things that you're talking about.
[01:28:51] I said too when you told Tia you're lovely wife what was going on that's how you know she did was listen she didn't have to she knows she had to do was listen and let you explain those thoughts.
[01:29:09] And then the next biggest I mean we've talked about a bunch of different things that you've done but one of the things and I always get drawn to things that I know a little bit about or something that I've seen.
[01:29:23] I was actually off the coast of Liberia in the late 90s when things were just going completely sideways and I pulled up a little article that captures some of the madness that was going on in Liberia doesn't article from the Guardian by Chris McGreal.
[01:29:52] What's the Guardians of UK site.
[01:29:56] A commander in Charles Taylor's Charles Taylor's malicious of Charles Taylor was this psychotic dictator of Liberia.
[01:30:07] Malicia has told a war crimes trial that the former Liberian president ordered his fighters to eat their enemies including UN peacekeepers as a means of terrorizing the population.
[01:30:21] Joseph zigzag marza chief of operations for Taylor who is on trial at the Hague also testified that he oversaw horrific crimes such as cutting the babies out of pregnant women.
[01:30:36] The former president told his men that their enemies are no longer human beings. Taylor 59 is pled not guilty to 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
[01:30:52] The government rebels in Sierra Leone which borders Liberia. Marza, this is his chief of operations who led the death squad of group of killers.
[01:31:04] Many of the victims of cannibalism were members of the crown people of the then Liberian president Samuel Doe who Taylor was attempting to overthrow.
[01:31:28] He said we could use them as pork to eat. Marza told the court, we ate a few echomog soldiers but not many, but many were executed about 68.
[01:31:40] He said Taylor said eating people set an example for the people to be afraid.
[01:31:47] There's defense lawyer asked Marza how the fighters would prepare a human being for the pot. The former commander described decapitating carving up cleaning and cooking corpses seasoned with salt and pepper.
[01:32:02] We slit your throat but your you throw away the head take the flesh and put it in a pot. Charles Taylor knows that said Marza. He told the court how rebel leaders who fell out with Taylor mediterrible end.
[01:32:18] The former commander described dismembering the body of another rebel leader known as Superman and then taking his hand to Taylor who gave him cigarette money and return.
[01:32:32] Marza said that he'd killed so many men women and children he had lost count. He described drowning and bloodshedding babies to death and murdering women with pen knives. He said when he was serving Taylor's rebel national patriotic front of Liberia he established checkpoints on roads using human intestines and severed heads mounted on sticks.
[01:32:56] As to whether Taylor knew about this Marza replied he was aware he made us understand that you have to play with human blood so that enemies would be afraid.
[01:33:06] As to how he felt about these actions now Marza said I regret nothing.
[01:33:14] Sorry I apologize that is our lifetime that is me this me sitting off the coast of Liberia while this was happening.
[01:33:41] It's just sick and I think Taylor was overthrown in 2003 obviously the country still bears the scars of that kind of darkness and evil.
[01:34:02] And that's something you talked about earlier was the fact that you're perspective and this is what I think I find very interesting about your perspective is that I'm always talking and exploring and studying the point of war where it's happening.
[01:34:20] And you end up in these places maybe you're a day behind maybe you're a week behind maybe you're a foot behind maybe you're a mile behind but you're seeing what the after effects of war is.
[01:34:35] And I think that that perspective for all of us to know is very important. So and I know you were there while you were there again I thought you were there in what year 2012.
[01:34:51] Yeah so this is I mean it was never it's never exactly going to be the most peaceful place in the world but it was relatively stable compared to when it was under Taylor.
[01:35:05] And I tell you this is one thing that when I when we're off the coast of Liberia and you're looking at the coast and you can see the coast we were literally maybe a couple miles offshore looking at the coast and I can see that there's waves breaking some kind of thinking you know I'm a surfer I'm thinking you know those look like good waves and then you can see there's build nice big kind of hotel you can see this beautiful white beach you can see it looks like a just beautiful place I'm thinking of myself.
[01:35:34] I need to go here on a on a surfer trip and then eventually you know I'm looking at this for a few hours we get a little bit closer starting to make out a little bit more.
[01:35:42] What I'm looking at and eventually I get out the big giant optics to to study where we might be landing and what's going on there.
[01:35:52] And when I look through these optics the whole picture changed because now you see all these buildings that look like they literally look like big beautiful you know beach.
[01:36:04] What's what's a big beach hotel called.
[01:36:07] Mwana surfer. Yeah something like the Mwana surfer. These big jet resorts. They look like these big giant resorts and as I put the big optics on them and sort of looking all the they're just completely gutted their destroyed it's just a nightmare and.
[01:36:26] It's so horrible to see such a beautiful place just completely destroyed by us by humans by fellow human beings have just completely destroyed it.
[01:36:41] What did you notice or what did you what was it like when you were there give us a debrief on 2012.
[01:36:50] I mean I just when you're mentioning those hotels I remember taking a trip out to the beaches and just walking along the beaches for a couple of hours and just looking at these places thinking.
[01:37:01] What's going on here.
[01:37:03] I mean my overriding.
[01:37:07] It's just that the country was just a viscerated. I mean that and it's still.
[01:37:12] I mean I was there working for an NGO and there were certain areas and certain things that they wanted covered and I had the opportunity on a couple of days to basically just go unilateral and just take a fixer and just go and do my own stuff and.
[01:37:29] On that particular trip that's when I actually shot the pictures that I thought were really quite interesting from that but that was that was looking at.
[01:37:40] Sort of Liberia as a whole but I was only in Montrovia but I had this picture of I mean we travel down to the River G County and I ran together.
[01:37:52] I mean just stunningly stunningly beautiful parts of the country. I mean just ridiculously beautiful.
[01:38:02] And the sort of the difference between living in the country and maybe living in Montrovia was was was so tangible. I mean Montrovia was it's the infrastructure has just completely disappeared and.
[01:38:19] I don't remember the figures but I just remember being blown away by the fact that the town was built for say hypothetically a million.
[01:38:32] And there's something like five million living in it. I mean those figures aren't correct but it's that sort of scale that was just mind blowing.
[01:38:40] It was such a shame because it's such a it's such a beautiful country the Liberians are such beautiful people and yet you you had this overriding sense that are they ever going to escape this is this legacy.
[01:38:58] Is it going to stay with Liberia are they are they ever going to be able to pull themselves out there are such a poor country.
[01:39:05] And I remember looking at areas where money was being spent and I was asking myself why you spending money here why you making the roads outside the mayors office look.
[01:39:18] And I remember walking through that and I never once felt intimidated.
[01:39:36] I was just incredibly vibrant places but the conditions that the people were living in there version of normality was.
[01:39:50] I can really can tell that picture you just couldn't just shoot those images to tell that story properly.
[01:39:57] I think you know it's one of those rare times when I've had a camera in my hand I think I can't tell this story with with a camera. I don't know what I can tell it with but I can't tell it with a camera.
[01:40:07] It's because the conditions were so.
[01:40:11] Yeah so so dreadful and I mean the way Monroe here is.
[01:40:16] There's built it sort of slightly on a hill and and it rains a lot in Liberia and what happens is the rain falls off the concrete and when it rains.
[01:40:26] Excuse me it really rains and it creates just torrents and these torrents just drop off the roads of Monroe and they go down into the slums and they hit the slums before they hit the sea.
[01:40:40] And the slums are I mean the floods at certain times of the year and yet the people are at the expected they know it's going to happen.
[01:40:54] So I'm spending some time in West Point, slum with a young man and his family and he is a health advisor and he has two daughters and they both want to be doctors and he is
[01:41:09] describing the conditions that they're living in and what they have to go through every day and I mean you can especially be walking through.
[01:41:20] Monroe you can see the sanitary conditions and the laboratories it's just it's it's beyond belief it really is and you know there are there are the trains that go straight into the river and they're just corrugated latrines with a door and you just go in and.
[01:41:38] The sewage goes straight into the river and three feet away the kids are just playing around in that river the way our kids would play around in a swimming pool.
[01:41:47] No idea of what is going through their systems and and of course when you catch something like dysentery or typhoid or they're one of the biggest killers of kids in Africa.
[01:42:00] And and and you look at it and you think how this is such a vicious circle how they're ever going to come out of this how are they ever going to find a way to lift themselves up because it's such a poor country.
[01:42:12] But they sort of make do with the situation that they're in and then the slum floods and they say oh yeah it's going to flood and although we're with four feet off the ground and we've got steps coming up to our.
[01:42:27] You know it's going to flood and it's going to come in so we have to just put.
[01:42:31] We sleep on on little stilts you know but they're getting up in the morning and stepping into it and coming out and then you know they don't have one in the ages.
[01:42:39] They're way through it and this goes on for and he said that I was there in August and he said who you should be here in September.
[01:42:59] I was just going to explain what it was I was looking at and I wasn't shooting it for anyone.
[01:43:11] In mind I mean the NGO take all my images they have they have access to all my images that I shoot whether I'm shooting it for them or whether I've just gone off piece so to speak to shoot so they get absolutely everything.
[01:43:17] So I was going to go to the way to document what it was that you could see and I was really struggling until there was one moment when I was wandering through the slum the flooded slum and I was up to my knees and sewage as we were walking through.
[01:43:37] I was a little flash of pink in front of me and I saw this young girl sort of just go between two buildings and she was carrying a pink umbrella and I remember thinking there's another picture of this.
[01:43:55] I asked the young doctor who was accompanying me through the slum I said you know what's the deal and he said oh she's probably after church or something you know she's in her sandy best effectively with her perfect little shoes and her skirt and her pink umbrella.
[01:44:11] So I thought nothing of it carried on shots and more pictures and I thought actually I've got I've got quite a lot of stuff here none of it I was really thinking this is really strong you know and then on the way back to the car I saw the little flash of pink.
[01:44:29] Again in front of me and it disappeared and I thought wow well this time I'm not giving up so I just started to run through this you know and you can imagine if you're running through two foot of sewage well.
[01:44:43] It's not the greatest sight in the world and you're trying to stop your cameras from going in and you're trying to and there's a couple of times that I nearly went ahead first in but I was so desperate to try and take a picture of this and my image ahead was when when she comes back through that corridor and comes back into this main corridor that I'm in of water.
[01:45:01] I just shoot her from behind like a Mary Poppins type of picture and the contrast for me was this beautiful little girl in this situation in this with her pink umbrella in this horrendous slum situation and there she was and by the time she disappeared again.
[01:45:21] I just thought this is just really not my day and then she'd obviously heard me running and she sort of popped out again and just turned around and it was almost like a little bank of sand that she was standing on between two huts and.
[01:45:38] There was about a foot and half a water in front of her and she just turned around and looked at me as if yes what do you want and I just took one picture and click.
[01:45:52] And that was it and and the second I took the picture she just turned on a heels and just walked off and tip to her away there was me in the middle of this.
[01:46:00] You know so which but she was finding these delicate way around just like Mary Poppins with you know and I didn't read and so I thought okay I hope that sharp because I'm shooting on manual focus lenses and.
[01:46:15] You know when you got one shot at it.
[01:46:18] You just really hope that you got it sharp you know because I happen in that situation when I've had one shot before I'm not got it sharp and those images want me so.
[01:46:30] I got back to the hotel.
[01:46:33] The NGO was still working on their TV film that they were doing and I put in the laptops scanned up and I looked at it and I just thought well yeah that.
[01:46:43] I don't want to remember I don't want to remember as this place that has been.
[01:46:50] If it's a rated.
[01:46:52] I want to remember it for the beauty that it has within it's you know.
[01:46:59] The human the beauty of the humanity there that's what I wanted to show because I don't want to come away from places and shoot images of people at their expense.
[01:47:08] I'm not just not me I'm I think the human race is a majestic species and if I'm out there and I want to shoot this I want to show it because it's there it's everywhere and you just have to see it you just see it and you go.
[01:47:21] That's what a human should look like and and even in the worst the worst conditions imaginable.
[01:47:29] It's there and that picture was it for me from Liberia and that's you know I have pictures from Liberia that I keep but that's the one.
[01:47:37] But I'm really proud of because it was sharp thank god but it just her beauty in that mess was what I wanted to remember and it just shows you if it there you look for it it's everywhere you just have to you have to want to find it it's easy to just go in there and shoot.
[01:47:58] What's obvious you know it's like sometimes you're going to sit for sure it's like shooting fish in a barrel it's there pointy camera shoot but you just got a.
[01:48:06] You just got up you know if you're looking for it you'll find it you know.
[01:48:12] Keep your eyes peeled yeah and you from there.
[01:48:19] You ended up also going to South Sudan and again just just a place of complete evil and darkness.
[01:48:32] For those either don't know anything about Sudan pulled a little clip.
[01:48:38] From the independent a guy named this is 2014 seal bond fenton wrote this.
[01:48:45] More than a hundred children have been killed in South Sudan.
[01:48:50] Whilst many others have been raped and castrated.
[01:48:54] According to UNICEF UNICEF says that a hundred and twenty nine children have been murdered in the last three weeks alone while surviving boys were castrated and girls were.
[01:49:01] They say that some children were even thrown into burning buildings.
[01:49:11] The executive director of UNICEF Anthony Lake said the violence against children in South Sudan has reached a new level of brutality.
[01:49:21] The details of the worsening violence against children are unspeakable but we must speak of them.
[01:49:30] Survivors report that boys have been castrated and left to bleed the death girls as young as eight have been gang raped and murdered.
[01:49:39] Children have been tied together before their attackers slit their throats.
[01:49:44] Others have been thrown into burning buildings.
[01:49:56] Just a nightmare scenario.
[01:50:01] And you and you're going to clarify one thing you're working for an NGO.
[01:50:05] Those of you don't know what that is.
[01:50:07] It's a non government organization.
[01:50:10] Generally you're talking about some kind of a benevolent organization that is trying to do good in the world such as the red cross is a.
[01:50:17] This is probably the premier example.
[01:50:19] I know you weren't specifically working for the red cross but you were working for another benevolent organization.
[01:50:25] When they called you up and brought you down to.
[01:50:30] South Sudan and again you're not.
[01:50:34] For the most part.
[01:50:36] Going to the front lines and capturing the action of the war.
[01:50:40] What you're capturing is the results of the war.
[01:50:44] Sure.
[01:50:45] And what did you see when you got to.
[01:50:48] When you got to sit down.
[01:50:51] Well we flew into Juba.
[01:50:56] And what we were looking at were UN camps.
[01:51:00] So the situation in South Sudan was that the two tribes, the Dinka tribe and the Nure tribe were at war with each other.
[01:51:09] And there was a lot of fighting and killing going on.
[01:51:13] And what the UN was trying to do.
[01:51:18] Was segregate the tribes from each other in certain areas so that they just stopped killing each other.
[01:51:25] Because until the killing stopped then really they politically they were never going to come to.
[01:51:30] And you had the president and the vice president.
[01:51:33] One was a Dinka and one was a Nure and whatever was happening between them was being mirrored.
[01:51:38] You know on the street so to speak.
[01:51:40] So and there was never any trust between those two men.
[01:51:43] They have a lot of history and there was never too much trust.
[01:51:46] It was when they got their independence.
[01:51:49] I think Sudan was only three years.
[01:51:52] It had been independent for three years.
[01:51:54] So we were visiting camps that were you know had segregated the tribes.
[01:52:03] And Juba was probably the most aggressive camp in that.
[01:52:11] The only time we ever had any trouble was maybe if some couple of guys had got to hold us a mile.
[01:52:18] Got hold and they wanted to know who are you doing here.
[01:52:22] You know in this place why you here.
[01:52:26] Why are you taking that.
[01:52:28] And what you have to remember is these people don't want to be photographed in this situation.
[01:52:32] This is not a good situation for them.
[01:52:35] And it's very easy as a journalist to go into a situation.
[01:52:40] So I have to document this and I have to show what's going on.
[01:52:43] But you have to understand that the dignity of these people needs to be taken into consideration.
[01:52:48] And you know some people are fine.
[01:52:50] They're fine to let you photograph and they go yep well this is where I am at the moment.
[01:52:56] And so yeah I'm quite happy for you to photograph me and others quite plain the aren't.
[01:53:02] So apart from the sort of criteria that the the NGO was looking for.
[01:53:09] And the NGO was effectively providing water for these camps because and they worked out some sort of desalination process and they were able to produce water on a regular basis for the camps.
[01:53:23] But the situation in the camps was incredible they were just so overcrowded and again you know back to that sort of scenario of people being cramped on top of each other and then you know that's how disease is spread and you know so on.
[01:53:37] So we then I there were obviously certain parts of south Sudan that I wanted to travel to because I knew that the situation in it up in those parts of the country was it was even worse than you know.
[01:53:55] And the jubber was relatively stable compared to other parts of Sudan. There was a there was a place called Benty that I wanted to get to and there's a lot of oil up there and both trying to try to control the oil.
[01:54:07] That's what they need to get hold of and and as we were sort of I'd see listen let's go there and the NGO security would say you can't because there's fighting and we don't we're not allowing staff.
[01:54:19] And the only the only time aid is getting to these places is there is helicopter drops but no one's touching the ground and you know and and.
[01:54:28] The NGO are very hot on security.
[01:54:35] I mean it's ox fan the NGO is ox fan and they're incredibly professional organization and they're very hot on security.
[01:54:44] Anywhere you go if you go to any country working for ox fan the first thing you get is a security briefing and they tell you what the situation is.
[01:54:52] What you can't do where they advise that we don't go and these are the regulations and the stipulations that they make and you have to adhere to them because you're there.
[01:55:00] As a member of staff with even I'm a freelancer I can technically do what I like you have to really sort of bear in mind that you are out there working with ox fan staff and ox fan staff have traveled out from the UK with you.
[01:55:13] So you really can't just go off-piece and start doing what you like because you could put other people's lives in jeopardy.
[01:55:23] So everywhere we wanted to go I particularly wanted to go we couldn't and it was just always the case I wanted to go here no you can't go there but you can go here.
[01:55:34] So we ended up traveling to areas that weren't where the the security risk was pretty low and these were camps you in camps you in mission camps that were created to where the fighting was at its worst and they were trying to stop the tribes from killing each other.
[01:55:54] And one of the places we went to which I will never forget is a place called ball and we sort of flew in in a small plane and we got I think it was a helicopter and a small plane and fortunately we didn't have to drive.
[01:56:12] Because I've been on a few journeys through Africa you know maybe ten forty now as in a car where there's no road. So we were grateful to be able to fly in and you could always fly and we'd always get in that maybe a you and helicopter that was dropping something and we just get in there and fly up with them and we got to this place and.
[01:56:31] Oxfam were working there and they were providing water and they had this situation where where the camp was being run by the current the South Koreans and they were sort of the they were physically building the camp and they were in charge of at the time and they had created this space maybe the size of two British football pictures or maybe a couple of American football pictures similar sort of thing.
[01:56:54] And so for people to live on and in this you had South Sudanese they were the new a tribe living in here and.
[01:57:03] You had you had wealthy.
[01:57:07] You had middle class and you had very poor living alongside each other in the camp so there was a real mix of people in the camp and.
[01:57:17] Oxfam were providing water and there was a huge reservoir but it wasn't a reservoir it was just a huge pit of water that had gone stagnant.
[01:57:27] And every time it rained it was flood and flood into the camp so they were having to control that and keep making sure that never got flooded.
[01:57:35] And at the same time they were producing water with this filtration system and providing pumps that people could you know and then basically centre listen if you want to come to the pump and take water you got to learn how to clean your bucket.
[01:57:45] And so they would in installing discipline into them.
[01:57:49] So you know and support that absolutely.
[01:57:53] And so.
[01:57:55] But it wasn't as simple as us turning up with.
[01:57:59] I was able to film maker a journalist and myself that with three of us and it wasn't as simple as just marching into the camp and saying hey.
[01:58:06] We're oxfam and we're here to take some pictures and shoot some film.
[01:58:11] So oxfam were working there in a capacity so we had to go through the route of talking to the elder and the elder was a doctor who worked in Canada who'd come all the way back from Canada and he described his journey to me.
[01:58:21] Of how he got to ball in south Sudan from Canada and I thought it was bad enough me coming from London.
[01:58:29] He threw to get to south to see that it was just I think it took him 11 days of pure travel to get from.
[01:58:36] Yeah it was it was unbelievable.
[01:58:38] And he was complaining about that traffic on the floor.
[01:58:41] Yeah totally it was it was just it was humbling and he was there to rescue his mother and and get her safe.
[01:58:47] And this was a camp so we had to talk to him and he wanted to know a little bit about us and he said you're fine.
[01:58:53] You can come in when we don't let any journalists in here.
[01:58:55] The journalists just come here and they do their story and they leave at our expense and we don't have that but you.
[01:59:02] You guys can come in and so we had.
[01:59:09] The elder has granted these guys a cool.
[01:59:12] They're fine do you like so this was a camp that had been attacked by the dynkah tribe a month earlier and.
[01:59:24] You know to try and build your picture if you can imagine the two football pictures.
[01:59:34] You had the you and camp and then within the you and camp there was this other camp that they were living in and it had a perimeter around it was just barbed wire and a perimeter and it was about the size of two football.
[01:59:43] And they were wanting the Koreans were meant to be building another space because the latrine said collapse because of the rain and they you know it was just it was it was the conditions were were abomnable.
[01:59:55] But this perimeter was on the outside of this perimeter was dynkah land and the dynkah said come in and they had attacked one night they had just still on the.
[02:00:05] On the outside over the fence and with machine guns just shot away and they killed a hundred of the tribe.
[02:00:13] Women children kids I mean we were talking to kids were bullets were coming through I mean they just live in it's a it's literally a couple of bamboo poles and some just white material that's what these people were living in but if you went into these.
[02:00:26] And then you realize again the dignity that you know you have to be you just have to be so careful as you just don't wander around gunhoo just you know that these they're a very they these are very proud people and they're in this situation and what's more.
[02:00:44] They can't get out because if they try and leave this camp they'll just they'll just be shot dead.
[02:00:56] You know by the opposing tribe and it was like that throughout Sudan so it didn't it wasn't necessarily just one tribe being protected it was the dynkah in one camp it was neural and the other and they've been protecting us and they were.
[02:01:06] I remember you say no they're joking did you ever notice the.
[02:01:14] The state of their lives or their fear ever being etched on their faces.
[02:01:16] Wherever you've traveled and if this was one place that I saw it.
[02:01:20] It was in this camp and they were petrified that this was going to happen again.
[02:01:25] Because the the UN hadn't reacted in time when the first attack happened and so they just thought this is just going to happen again and who's going to protect us.
[02:01:35] So that is a again a situation where you're thinking when I leave this place I'm getting on my plane and I'm going to fly home and yet they are still going to be in that camp and they're still not going to be able to leave.
[02:01:50] And in this camp you're talking to young guys that were professionals working in jubber and you know you're it's.
[02:02:00] Yeah that was the closest I had as an experience to Sri Lanka was sounds it done and you brought that attitude.
[02:02:13] And you're next as you. Yeah your next assignment that you shot oddly enough for something that you had scheduled. Six months prior you said you know what. I'm going to go and just take a breather.
[02:02:27] I'm going to go and shoot Wimbleton the tennis tournament in England on grass courts.
[02:02:32] You'd scheduled that and the meantime you you go to Sudan you experience this when you get home and this was just on your own you just schedule it for yourself to show you.
[02:02:40] Yeah, non-commission and you brought this back with you and what what did that do to your your Wimbleton shoot.
[02:02:49] Well originally I I think it was a couple of weeks before Wimbleton started and I was not in the slightest bit interested in going to shoot the story and I'd go on to all this trouble to get this accreditation and the.
[02:03:08] The the photographer that runs.
[02:03:12] The Wimbleton is also very very highly respected sports photographer who also runs the photographer with the Olympics and he'd said, Karen listen.
[02:03:22] I'd be happy for you to come in and shoot whatever it is you want to shoot.
[02:03:27] And I'd gone to all that trouble to get that and he'd given it his blessing and I thought, you know what I'm just going to turn and I said, Bob, I don't really don't fancy this because I've just been in South Sudan living with with with these people in these camps.
[02:03:37] And the idea of going to Wimbleton shooting people eating drinking champagne and eating strawberries and cream.
[02:03:43] It really that's I'm just that's what echo and I like the call of love.
[02:03:47] Yeah, yeah and on top of that it was a self commission so you know it's a freelancer self commissioning and not only any money it's not really the greatest idea in the world, but.
[02:04:00] But but over time as we got closer, I just thought, I, you know, what, hey, why yeah, okay, maybe I'll go and do this. So I went for the first couple of days and.
[02:04:13] I just.
[02:04:15] I had an idea.
[02:04:16] I wanted to see if Wimbleton still had any charm because I went with my dad when I was 10 years old and I never forgot it. I got to see John McEnroe and Peter Peter Fleming.
[02:04:26] Yeah, Peter Fleming not even Fleming play doubles.
[02:04:30] I bumped into John Lloyd a British tennis player at the time.
[02:04:34] Just and I just remember thinking that was a magical afternoon. I had with my dad for my birthday when I was 10 years old.
[02:04:42] Let's see if Wimbleton still has that magic.
[02:04:46] I had bearing in mind that I had shot 15 Wimbleton's previously in my career as a professional sitting on court shooting the tennis.
[02:04:56] You know, I was there when Venus when I first.
[02:04:58] I was there when Roger Federer beat Sampress, you know, the seminal moments and sport.
[02:05:04] So I just wanted to see if I had any charm. Now that was my original intention when I got the press graduation six months only.
[02:05:11] That completely went out the window. I wasn't interested in one of them. I don't need charm or not.
[02:05:17] I just thought I'm going to go up and I'm going to photograph those people that can't just get.
[02:05:24] You can get the cheapest ticket and get in and just wander around the outside courts.
[02:05:28] I don't want to see a tennis player.
[02:05:30] I don't want to go anywhere near the show courts.
[02:05:32] I just want to see what it's like to be a punter because when I came up when I was 10 years old, that's what I was with my dad.
[02:05:38] We were just two punters that managed to sneak two tickets to get into show court to see McEnroe and Fleming play doubles.
[02:05:46] So in a way, I was, well, I maybe trying to see if I did have a bit of charm.
[02:05:51] I think so, but I had really gone out of my head. So I turned up and I just started walking around.
[02:05:56] And the my attitude was, what you know what?
[02:06:01] It doesn't matter if I don't get a picture because who's going to shout at me?
[02:06:05] Who's going to say, Cure, what have you got today? No one, only me.
[02:06:10] So I just, my mind's changed dramatically and I just started wanting around.
[02:06:15] I remember I used to hang around in the, I had a press conference.
[02:06:18] I just went to the media hall with where my, all my mates were working.
[02:06:24] You know, slogging they got out covering the tennis because it sounds really glamorous.
[02:06:29] But it's, it's full on shooting tennis at one point. It really is full on.
[02:06:35] And they just, you say, hang around in the calf a lot.
[02:06:40] I said, yeah, I know because I'm just waiting for the light and I just can't see what the rear is.
[02:06:45] You know, and then I got out of, I've got to go and sit on center court for another four hours.
[02:06:49] And then Andy Murray's going to come on a plane. The roof's going to come over.
[02:06:52] And I'm not going to go out of here till 10 o'clock.
[02:06:54] And I really, yeah, I'll be gone by six, you know, because the light will have gone then.
[02:06:59] And there'll be no need for me to be here. And I'd have another cup of coffee and wander out and just wander around.
[02:07:03] And I just had one camera and one lens, just a small like a 35 mil.
[02:07:09] And I'd wander and wander and wander and first couple of days.
[02:07:13] Didn't get anything.
[02:07:15] Okay.
[02:07:16] So I decided, okay, let's go on day three and I went on day three.
[02:07:19] And I remember walking around and what had happened at this window is that,
[02:07:22] the window is the occasion they build a new court.
[02:07:24] And when they build a new court, it means the dynamics of that area since last year have changed.
[02:07:30] So walls have gone up and in the wind, they're not walls.
[02:07:35] They put sort of green sheeting, very thick heavy sheeting across to sort of delineate.
[02:07:41] This is a new court.
[02:07:42] Well, what that means is that the security guards who are employed, who are just young guys looking for a summer job,
[02:07:49] you know, they're employed. They haven't got a clue what the dynamics are of this court,
[02:07:53] because this is the court only existed this year and all these new things have been put in place.
[02:07:57] And so I remember just coming around the corner and I saw this guy standing with his face right up to the green base like this.
[02:08:09] And I thought, it's as if he'd been sent to the naughty step.
[02:08:13] Oh, what is it? You know, face the walls on.
[02:08:16] I thought what is going on here.
[02:08:18] So I've sort of watching and I took a few pictures and I thought, okay, I need to get another bit closer here.
[02:08:22] And as I did that, somebody else walked past me and just went straight up to the wall and put there like this.
[02:08:29] And I thought, God, there must be a pinpricks in the material that allows them to put their eye right up to it and they can see the whole court.
[02:08:40] And, you know, I thought that's what they're doing.
[02:08:44] Okay, right, I get it now. So I thought, well, I need this for 10 people to just do this and I've got a picture.
[02:08:50] So as I'm doing this, as I'm waiting for this moment to evolve thinking, I haven't got a picture yet,
[02:08:58] I've been able to, and this could be my first. So I'm going to, I'm going to let this one mature and see what happens.
[02:09:06] And as I did that, this guy turns up, young guy turns up with a prime and he takes his kid out of the prime and his kid has this shock of red hair and he's maybe eight months old.
[02:09:18] No, maybe a year old, a bit older than that, yeah, but a year old, still a really tiny baby.
[02:09:24] And his wife walks past and his wife goes to join the three other people appearing through like this.
[02:09:30] And I thought, okay, right, God, listen, there's four people there and this and then I don't know what this guy's doing with this baby.
[02:09:36] I mean, you know, but this baby's got such an amazing shock of red hair. It looked fantastic against the green.
[02:09:42] So I've got it, this, what's going to happen and this guy just picked the baby up and shoved the baby's head over the top of the base.
[02:09:51] And before I took a picture, I thought, why are you doing that?
[02:09:56] Because the baby can't see anything. And you certainly, and I think in his mind, he thought, if I shove the baby's head over the top, I'll be able to see something as if it was like a periscope.
[02:10:08] And it was so bizarre and he kept it there and I thought, right, it's time to take a picture.
[02:10:13] So I took this picture and as I took the picture, there was an old boy standing behind me, selling programs and he went,
[02:10:19] hmm, that's a hell of a picture you've got there and I thought, yeah, it is, and let's, I'm just going to see if something else happens with the baby.
[02:10:27] You know, I don't know what's going on, but it didn't. And I had my picture, but what I really wanted was to have been on the other side of that court and just seen that baby's head.
[02:10:37] I'm pretty at over the top. So that was my first picture.
[02:10:40] And I thought, okay, this has, and that's how I normally work, get one on the belt and build on it and I thought, that's a very funny picture.
[02:10:50] That is how I am going to look at this story. I'm going to find the humorous elements of being a punter in Wimbledon and I want to shoot it as if you,
[02:11:03] you, so when you look at the pictures, you think, why has he shot that picture with those two heads in the way?
[02:11:12] And I can only just see that tennis player. And my point is, well, if you're a punter at Wimbledon, that's exactly how you see it.
[02:11:19] You don't cheat seats, you don't have a punter at all.
[02:11:22] Yeah, absolutely. So, and most of these seats, so you just walk around and stand. So you're always crouching and trying to see.
[02:11:30] And I just thought, and of course, I, I have very rarely looked through the camera. I'd see a situation and just go, there you go.
[02:11:36] Because I didn't care. I actually didn't care whether I got anything that was any good.
[02:11:41] I just thought, you know, this is a nice feeling to just wander around and just click away.
[02:11:48] And I wasn't framing anything. I was framing, but framing in a way for a purpose, but I didn't care.
[02:11:54] And if somebody said to me, is that the result of two weeks at Wimbledon, I would have said, yeah, you know, I don't care.
[02:12:00] And I, I really, really don't care. So that was, that was the attitude with which I shot it.
[02:12:08] And yeah, so to finish the story, so come, that was June 2014.
[02:12:21] And come January 2015, are the big.
[02:12:25] In the world of photojournalists and the world press photo awards. And I, the world, those are like the, the Oscars.
[02:12:32] Yeah, for photojournalists and yeah, they're the big ones. And I remember when I was a young kid, I always used to print my stuff up, you know, when I was starting and send it in and then look at the stuff and go, why didn't I win anything?
[02:12:43] Well, that's because, you know, my stuff was just crap. And that's why I didn't win anything.
[02:12:48] So I sort of stopped entering competitions when I resigned from Reuters in 2008. It just didn't really interest me anymore.
[02:12:55] But I found a mind-wring me up and he said, you have entered those London pictures into WordPress for it. I said, no.
[02:13:03] And he said, I'll kill you and you've got to do their amazing pictures. You and I thought, were you the only one that thinks that they're amazing pictures? I was happy with them.
[02:13:12] But, you know, and he said, no, no, no, do it. So I did, and I had to submit 10 pictures. And I found 14 images that were potential and I got down to seven.
[02:13:23] And then I called Teary and I said, to Teary, listen, you got to find another three pictures out of this, these five or six, which three do you think should go into the set and and Teary said that one, that one and that one.
[02:13:34] Is it great? Was it an in it went? And the long behold, it won.
[02:13:40] So yeah. And the irony of the story was self-commission yourself and I know money and you went a big award.
[02:13:54] I want to cover one more thing before you wrap this up and one more series of images that you took and I'm going to start this off with a poem.
[02:14:03] The poem is called Repatriation. Then I'm just going to do an excerpt from it.
[02:14:09] The coffin draped in Union Jack is slowly carried out the back out of the dark and into the light, slowly down the ramp and to the right.
[02:14:22] The six approached the hers all black and placed the hero gently in the back.
[02:14:28] The six then turned and march away.
[02:14:32] Their duty has been done this day.
[02:14:36] Politicians usually have much to say, no sign of them near here this day.
[02:14:44] They hide away and out of danger.
[02:14:47] Much easier if the hero is a stranger.
[02:14:52] The hers with its precious load move slowly out onto the road.
[02:14:58] The floral tributes line the route while comrades snap a smart salute.
[02:15:07] At the edge of a wheelchair town, the courted slows its pace right down.
[02:15:13] The streets are packed many deep, some throw flowers, most just weep.
[02:15:21] The crowd have come to say farewell. The church bell rings a low death now.
[02:15:29] Regimental standards are lower down as the hero passed through the town.
[02:15:36] The courted stops and silence rains.
[02:15:41] The towns folk feel the families pain.
[02:15:45] The nation's flag lowered to half-master. Our brave hero is home at last.
[02:15:57] That was written by Sergeant Andrew McFarlane in 2009 about a place in England called Wudenbassett,
[02:16:10] which is where all British soldiers and service members that were killed in action were brought back home to England.
[02:16:22] And you shot some amazing photographs of that.
[02:16:28] And this was actually when I first got to know you, this was the first thing I found out was that you shot these photos.
[02:16:39] And they're just incredible and they represent really to me just an incredible view of England and what England is in the world.
[02:17:04] And how did you end up there once again with your camera in your hand?
[02:17:14] I was assigned the first time I ever went to Wudenbassett, it was an assignment.
[02:17:21] And I turned up and I was told the only information I was given was bring a really tall ladder because you'll need it.
[02:17:31] And I didn't understand the dynamics of what was happening on the street.
[02:17:37] So it was my first time and I got there and the traffic was awful and I literally arrived maybe 20 minutes before the the Quotege came through.
[02:17:47] So I was running down the street with my ladder trying to, and I thought, okay, here were the other photographers.
[02:17:51] So we would do a ladder up here and the ladder became clear because you need to go to the top of the ladder.
[02:17:57] So when the herses come down the street and stop and the family members put their roses on the hers, you need to be able to see over the top of the hers to be able to see the grieving widow's and relatives.
[02:18:12] And you know you're standing on top of a six step ladder, you know, you're probably about 15 or 16 feet in the air and you're really quite conspicuous with the long lens.
[02:18:22] And it wasn't something that I was really comfortable doing because the click of a camera in that silence was deafening.
[02:18:33] And it was one of those things that wouldn't, the repatriations had been happening before for a while I think before I got there.
[02:18:44] And I mean years maybe 2008, 2007, but before I, you know, had actually turned up to shoot my first one.
[02:18:52] So there had been a pattern that had developed over time.
[02:18:55] And the pattern was, I was done up, they stand up a ladder, they shoot the pictures, the event finishes, and everybody goes home and the pictures are wired.
[02:19:02] And my first time I was there, I ended up the best image I shot was from the floor of a young girl holding red roses,
[02:19:09] looking down the street waiting for the, the court aged to pass. And I was really aware of the ladders and the noise of the cameras and I thought I can't, I stopped myself from shooting because it was so loud.
[02:19:22] And I thought I can't be the one and you would see something happening.
[02:19:25] And you would see a moment when maybe a wife came out and she touched the back of the hers with her hand, you know, and put her head against the glass and you, you're instinct, instinct is to shoot that and shoot as many friends.
[02:19:38] That is possible.
[02:19:39] But I had my camera on single shot, so I was click, click, click, click, click, or you could hear it.
[02:19:44] It was like machine guns of cameras and it was, and it was so invasive.
[02:19:49] And I thought, but this is, this is how the photographer has got their pictures.
[02:19:52] This is what they had to do. There was no way round it.
[02:19:55] And I decided, that's fine. I understand that, that's what, that's what we have to do to get the pictures.
[02:20:01] But I'm not going to do that anymore. I don't, I don't really want to get involved in this anymore.
[02:20:06] I found it too stressful. And what I ended up doing was not shooting when I should have shot,
[02:20:11] stopping myself because I didn't want my click to be the click that everybody heard.
[02:20:17] And even though everybody had accepted that this is what happens.
[02:20:21] I thought, well, I'm just not comfortable with this.
[02:20:23] So I decided then that this was an amazing event.
[02:20:26] And that I needed to look at this properly and bearing in mind that I had been late for relatively.
[02:20:33] I hadn't seen what had happened before the process came.
[02:20:38] I had no idea what happened. So the next time I went down, I got down there really early.
[02:20:44] And I, there was no one on the street and I watched the build up.
[02:20:47] And for those of that don't know that what the whole story about Wooden Bass, it was,
[02:20:53] the bodies of service personnel killed in action in Afghanistan were being repatriated to
[02:21:02] an air base and the only route out of the air base was through this tiny village market town.
[02:21:08] Called Wooden Bass.
[02:21:10] Called Wooden Bass.
[02:21:11] As the bodies were taken to the coroner's office in Oxford.
[02:21:15] And it was the first time this happened.
[02:21:17] The the herses came through and then I think the town may have spotted it.
[02:21:22] And he just stopped and doffed his cap as they went past.
[02:21:26] And then that just exponentially grew into you'd have thousands on the street over the years.
[02:21:34] It just grew into thousands and then the families changed their routine.
[02:21:37] The families would just go to the the basin, line them and pay their final respects.
[02:21:43] And then they would leave.
[02:21:44] But what happened was that the families would then pay their final respects.
[02:21:47] And then everybody would wait for the families to come to the street and stand on the street.
[02:21:52] And so that you could see how the whole thing was evolving into this sort of incredible ten minutes.
[02:21:59] And it started with people were turned up on the street and you'd find people that hadn't seen each other for years.
[02:22:05] And they were just,
[02:22:07] Hey, how's it going?
[02:22:09] You fancy going to the pub for a pint and they'd go and they'd have a drink and there would be this.
[02:22:13] It was almost like a party atmosphere.
[02:22:15] People were really pleased to see each other.
[02:22:17] And there was this lively, bubbly noise going on and people were laughing and joking.
[02:22:23] Then the families would turn up and everything would sort of calm down.
[02:22:30] Just a little bit and then the bells would toll on the church.
[02:22:34] And there was complete silence.
[02:22:37] And then the courtesial would come through and it would stop and it would be led by a lead sort of poor bear and it would stop.
[02:22:44] And it would give five minutes with the families and then sometimes it was just one house.
[02:22:49] Sometimes it was, I did one occasion there was six, six houses that came in.
[02:22:55] And then it would leave and then everybody would disperse and then it would happen again.
[02:23:01] And then again and it would be, it could be twice a week.
[02:23:03] It might be once a month.
[02:23:05] But I'd said every time it happens, I'm going to go down and shoot the story in a linear fashion.
[02:23:11] Because I just wanted to show everything from start to finish.
[02:23:14] So when you look at the essay of 50 pictures, it starts at the beginning with the street empty.
[02:23:19] And then it works up to the last thing you see on the street of the roses.
[02:23:24] As the horses have driven off and the roses have fallen off the horses.
[02:23:29] But I couldn't do it as a press photographer would do it.
[02:23:33] I had to find a way of doing it.
[02:23:35] And because I just wanted to get those moments.
[02:23:38] I was looking for something completely different to what maybe the newspapers and the wire agencies were looking for.
[02:23:43] So I decided to shoot on film.
[02:23:45] And I have two like at M6s and I had a 28 mil and a 50 mil and I put film in.
[02:23:50] Because I could operate and you just can't hear those cameras.
[02:23:53] It's just a.
[02:23:56] As opposed to the digital which was really loud.
[02:24:00] And I started shooting it on film.
[02:24:02] And it was really hit and miss.
[02:24:04] I'd get stuff.
[02:24:05] And I go down there on some occasions.
[02:24:08] And I'd get nothing.
[02:24:10] But every time I went down as I was building the story,
[02:24:14] I knew, okay, I'll look at the situation and work out what I'm going to get from this today and concentrate.
[02:24:19] On one thing and invariably you would concentrate on one thing.
[02:24:22] But what you would get was something that would happen somewhere else.
[02:24:26] And so it meant getting into positions that the press were not supposed to be getting into.
[02:24:33] So I would want to go on to the other side of the street which was reserved for family.
[02:24:37] I mean anyone could stand there.
[02:24:38] But the under it and all was this is for family.
[02:24:41] And I didn't want to intrude on the family.
[02:24:44] And they're grief and I wasn't there to photograph their grief from my position.
[02:24:49] Up close.
[02:24:50] I just wanted to see the reaction of people around there that I couldn't see from the other side of the road.
[02:24:57] So I was taking pictures.
[02:24:59] And I felt so conspicuous.
[02:25:00] And I was there with these two tiny cameras, but I felt so conspicuous.
[02:25:04] But no one was looking at me.
[02:25:05] And I was able to just turn the camera around and just pre-focus and shoot.
[02:25:09] I don't put it to my eye, just turn around, click, shoot.
[02:25:12] So everything was sort of one frame.
[02:25:15] And yeah, I sort of gradually sort of built the story up.
[02:25:21] And I knew that I had an ending because it.
[02:25:25] The air base that they were coming into originally before it came to Wooden Basset had been rebuilt.
[02:25:32] And all the bodies were going to be repatriated back to other air base.
[02:25:36] So I knew at some point in August 2011 there would be the last repatriation.
[02:25:43] So the fight you have with yourself when you're looking at the story and you're sitting there thinking,
[02:25:52] I think I need an image here to fill this gap.
[02:25:56] Is that you're waiting for a soldier to die in order for you to finish your story.
[02:26:05] And it's not that you're waiting for a soldier to die, but a soldier dies.
[02:26:10] And you, or in order for you to finish it yet, that there's not.
[02:26:14] I'm not even articulate enough to explain what I mean by that.
[02:26:19] But the idea that you're here on the news, two soldiers have been killed.
[02:26:24] And you think, okay, that's me going back down to Wooden Basset to finish this story.
[02:26:29] So the idea that I had a purpose of going down to a place like that was really hard to deal with because people,
[02:26:39] everyone else down there was there because they were involved in, or directly involved with the soldier,
[02:26:46] or they were people that just went to pay their respects.
[02:26:50] And so you could say in a way, if you wanted to justify to myself, you are paying your respects in a way,
[02:26:56] because I wanted to, I wanted this story to be shot from start to finish because I think it deserved that.
[02:27:02] It wasn't just about grieving family members on the other side of a hers, you know, weeping.
[02:27:10] It was so much more to that story than that.
[02:27:12] And so gradually the story began to sort of fill itself out.
[02:27:16] And then in the end, I was there for the final repatriation.
[02:27:22] And the town was then awarded Royal status, which is the first time that happened.
[02:27:30] I don't think I've ever heard of it 100 years.
[02:27:32] Because it was the way I think that they were the town, the way that it conducted itself,
[02:27:39] was recognized.
[02:27:43] You know, by the Royal Family and they just sort of said, listen, what you've done,
[02:27:48] you've not just put wooden basso on the map, but you've shown how much dignity the British show
[02:27:55] when, you know, those that are fighting for their country are coming back and the way the whole thing.
[02:28:00] And wooden basso, they didn't want the adulation, they didn't want to be known as this place.
[02:28:06] They just thought that we need to do this.
[02:28:10] And yep, it's from the heart, like we were saying earlier, there's no, there was no artillery motive from that town to do what they did.
[02:28:17] It just happened. It was organic.
[02:28:19] And I wanted to show that story.
[02:28:22] And so yeah, that was it. It took, I think it was 19 months of going down.
[02:28:28] And photographing it in every, you know, from every conceivable angle.
[02:28:35] And I was really proud of the finished set of pictures.
[02:28:38] I thought that tells the story from how I saw it, from start to finish.
[02:28:46] And yeah, it was, and when it, when it finished, I didn't know how I felt because I thought, you know,
[02:28:56] when you get so used to doing something and you know, I don't want soldiers to die so that I can go down and finish a story.
[02:29:04] But you try and work out, how do I, how do I mentally get my head around what's happening here, you know?
[02:29:13] But the thing that's come out of it is that on the final
[02:29:21] Repatriation, I wanted the pictures to be exhibited.
[02:29:27] Down there, I wanted to show wooden basket what I spent 18 months doing.
[02:29:32] But I didn't want to stick print in a room.
[02:29:35] And I didn't want, you know, I just thought these pictures, I, this is, I shot this on the street.
[02:29:41] These pictures need to be on the street.
[02:29:44] So I went down and I found a bank that said to me, you can have both double, front and windows of our bank.
[02:29:57] And you can put your images up during the final Repatriation because they thought we would love people to see this imagery.
[02:30:07] And the reaction that got, I was really quite nervous because there were 50 images going up printed on a one size in a bank shot went, you know, in the glass in the window.
[02:30:23] And I was really quite nervous as to how people would look at it. I thought would, you know, would people appreciate this and they loved it. They loved the fact that this had been done.
[02:30:33] And when I went back down to collect the images, I would say half of them, I just gave away to the pub where you have the pictures of the soldiers saluting outside the pub that everybody went to.
[02:30:46] There was the old lady standing in the glass window. There was the kid wearing the Chelsea shirt.
[02:30:50] All these pictures just went and I just said, listen, just put some money in the charity box and just take the prints because if all of them had gone, I would have thought that's fantastic because I didn't want to keep them.
[02:31:03] I just wanted to, if somebody wants that and they want it, that's amazing and a lot of them went.
[02:31:09] And that to me was vindication of having spent that time and done it, you know.
[02:31:16] And during that time as a photographer, I grew because I sort of come out of that way of shooting for the wire, which is all about a single image.
[02:31:27] Tell a story in the single image, you know, and I suppose ever from ever since the beginning I've always been a photographer who wanted to tell a story, but with a series of images not just.
[02:31:37] And there's a skill to doing what the wire guys do and I had that skill and I did it, but I wanted to just expand my palette as a photographer and that meant spending time on stories and trying to tell it as, you know, as a complete.
[02:31:56] So you could take one picture out of there and go, well, what does that mean that picture?
[02:32:01] But if you put it into the set, you go, oh, okay, now I know what it means. So you're not shooting standalone images, you're shooting images that means something when they're put together as a package.
[02:32:14] Yeah, and that was, yeah, it was very proud of those pictures.
[02:32:19] Well, like I said, those pictures are amazing and I think they did exactly what why would pass it was what was it named a royal town?
[02:32:30] Royal, Royal, wouldn't pass it. I think it reflected exactly what that, what that put forth and that is the, the pride of England, the honor of England.
[02:32:40] The respect of England and I think that was all captured not only in the town, but in the images that you took.
[02:32:48] And I think we've been going for a long time right now. And I think that's about all we've got for tonight.
[02:32:57] I do want to say obviously.
[02:33:02] Thanks for coming on. I know I worked with some photographers overseas.
[02:33:06] Some of them just took incredible risks to get the capture, to capture the moments that they captured, you know, the book, the life and I wrote.
[02:33:15] And the name Todd Pittman, who is there combat use, use a photographer and just took some incredible images and we were honored to be able to take those images and put them in the book.
[02:33:26] But I know there's many, many obviously, many photographers, journalists around the world that take great risks to report and capture the stories and get them spread around.
[02:33:37] And a lot of them are killed and you mentioned one in the beginning, but a lot there's a lot of reporters and photographers journalists that are out there in the world that they take you to risks and sometimes they pay the ultimate price for their job.
[02:33:55] And I know this was, I know I said a couple of things on the podcast that were pretty rough.
[02:34:00] I appreciate everyone for sticking through those tough moments. Appreciate you traveling to those places and sticking through those tough moments yourself.
[02:34:09] Kieran and thanks for everybody for listening to the podcast.
[02:34:14] If you do want to support the podcast.
[02:34:18] Echo. Tell them how to support it, my brother.
[02:34:23] Well, we didn't really talk much about working out or anything that would constitute much supplementation, but what about alpha brain?
[02:34:33] Alpha brain. Yeah, that's true.
[02:34:36] Yeah, because you got to be quick with your finger on the trigger of your camera.
[02:34:42] In some cases, you might want to get something out of a brain.
[02:34:44] Yeah, I was talking to, I was talking to somebody.
[02:34:49] This is like yesterday the day before about photography.
[02:34:54] And you know, people that'll see like a real good picture and they'll be like, hey, that's a good, that's a cool picture.
[02:34:59] What camera did you use? Do you ever find that insulting?
[02:35:05] I've heard it compared to like this girl in O'Holly. She's actor and a photographer.
[02:35:14] And she said it like this. When someone asked her what kind of camera she used, like, that's a great picture.
[02:35:21] What kind of camera did you use?
[02:35:23] It's like saying, hey, that's a great meal. What kind of stove did you use?
[02:35:27] Something like that.
[02:35:29] Yeah, I know I get that.
[02:35:30] Maybe it wasn't the archer. It was the bow and the area that made it a good shot.
[02:35:34] Right, exactly.
[02:35:35] I think I've had it the other way around. I've had people say that, wow, that's lovely.
[02:35:38] Looking camera. You must have shot some great pictures with that.
[02:35:41] So yeah, that's probably in like, but in reverse.
[02:35:45] Yeah, you know.
[02:35:47] But you keep it traditional too.
[02:35:51] I mean, obviously you're doing manual focus.
[02:35:55] Yeah, I'm filming a lot of times.
[02:35:57] Yeah.
[02:35:58] And on digital, this is the manual, manual focus on digital as well.
[02:36:02] Yeah, but I've been using them for 20 or 20 years.
[02:36:05] So not the like is they're not everybody's cup of tea.
[02:36:09] I know a lot of professional photographers. They're not, you know, it's not their cup of tea.
[02:36:14] And also, you know, it's a particular type of for the journalist, I think, that uses a camera like this.
[02:36:21] And when I say particular, I mean, they shoot particular stories in a particular way.
[02:36:26] It's not that, you know, they're any better than anybody else.
[02:36:29] They certainly aren't. They just choose to use a camera that doesn't have long lenses.
[02:36:33] And I like to use a camera that doesn't.
[02:36:35] My longest lens is a 50 mil.
[02:36:37] You got to spark your target.
[02:36:39] Yeah, like I'm both.
[02:36:41] I like to use these at quiet and you get in close.
[02:36:43] Yeah, see, see, like even that, that's a graphic.
[02:36:46] For like a graphic.
[02:36:47] There's so much detail to the art, you know, where, of course, equipment is something.
[02:36:52] Sure.
[02:36:53] But like artistic part of it.
[02:36:54] I think it's, I think photography gets it the most, I think.
[02:36:58] Yeah.
[02:36:58] Because it's like, like I said, I want to talk for now.
[02:37:01] Yeah, I can take a picture.
[02:37:03] Give me a good camera.
[02:37:04] Like that. Everybody can, everybody has it in them to shoot a beautiful picture.
[02:37:07] I'd firmly believe everybody can shoot a great picture.
[02:37:10] Yeah.
[02:37:11] Yeah, that's crazy.
[02:37:12] But yeah, so I'll for brain boom.
[02:37:14] Take some off of brain.
[02:37:15] Take better pictures.
[02:37:16] Yeah, there you go.
[02:37:17] Right.
[02:37:18] Yeah, the day.
[02:37:19] There you go.
[02:37:20] But you got a lug heavy camera equipment around.
[02:37:22] Yeah.
[02:37:22] And I want it.
[02:37:23] You know, there's some shrimp tack.
[02:37:24] Yeah.
[02:37:25] I'm getting some shrimp tack for that one.
[02:37:26] Yeah, running TV.
[02:37:28] The sewage that could have helped you in the later.
[02:37:31] Yeah.
[02:37:32] That's right.
[02:37:33] I'm just discovered these tonight as well.
[02:37:36] Warrior bars boom.
[02:37:37] Solid, right?
[02:37:38] Yeah.
[02:37:39] I'm not a good host.
[02:37:40] Didn't feed him.
[02:37:41] My wife.
[02:37:42] What do you do?
[02:37:43] I did.
[02:37:44] I did.
[02:37:45] What's my wife said, what is wrong with you?
[02:37:47] Why don't you feed, give him some food?
[02:37:49] And I said, okay, he needs food.
[02:37:50] Warrior bar.
[02:37:51] And she was like, wait, wait, wait, wait.
[02:37:52] No, no, no, no, no.
[02:37:53] Yeah.
[02:37:54] Dems, man.
[02:37:55] Boom.
[02:37:56] Warrior bar.
[02:37:56] So yeah.
[02:37:57] If you, if you want to get 10% off those,
[02:38:00] on it.com slash jocob, boom, 10% off.
[02:38:03] So supplement yourself.
[02:38:04] Supplement your wallet.
[02:38:06] If you will.
[02:38:07] There you go.
[02:38:08] Or if you want to support before you shop on Amazon.
[02:38:12] Go to our website, one of them.
[02:38:15] Jocob store or jocobodcast.com.
[02:38:17] Click through the Amazon link.
[02:38:19] Support passively.
[02:38:21] Passively.
[02:38:22] No.
[02:38:23] Efficiently.
[02:38:24] Yes.
[02:38:25] Passively.
[02:38:25] No.
[02:38:26] We don't write things passive here at the jocoboccast.
[02:38:28] We aggressively make things efficient.
[02:38:31] Yes.
[02:38:32] Amazon.
[02:38:33] All right.
[02:38:34] Well, you want to get more efficient.
[02:38:35] And also UK is working.
[02:38:37] Yeah.
[02:38:38] UK is up solid.
[02:38:39] German.
[02:38:40] Working.
[02:38:41] Germany is.
[02:38:43] We'll be working.
[02:38:44] Yeah.
[02:38:45] Can it up?
[02:38:46] We know.
[02:38:47] We know.
[02:38:48] We know.
[02:38:49] We know.
[02:38:50] We're working.
[02:38:51] So if you're in those countries,
[02:38:52] appreciate the support.
[02:38:53] Yeah.
[02:38:54] Click through.
[02:38:55] You know.
[02:38:56] True.
[02:38:57] Oh, I like it.
[02:38:58] Mm-hmm.
[02:38:59] We're supporting through.
[02:39:00] Amazon.
[02:39:01] Just go.
[02:39:02] Go to the website instead of the Amazon link.
[02:39:03] Click on the trooper tool.
[02:39:04] Jocobodcast.
[02:39:05] Trooper tool.
[02:39:06] Chrome extension.
[02:39:07] Boom.
[02:39:08] Add the little thing on your browser.
[02:39:09] Automatically.
[02:39:10] Support every time you.
[02:39:11] Every time you.
[02:39:12] You shop.
[02:39:13] Amazon.
[02:39:14] That's legit.
[02:39:15] Very legit.
[02:39:16] My opinion.
[02:39:17] Thanks again.
[02:39:18] Brady for that one.
[02:39:19] Tech genius.
[02:39:20] Jiu Jitsu student.
[02:39:22] And.
[02:39:23] If you were T shirts.
[02:39:25] Go to jocobstore.com.
[02:39:26] You might like some of those.
[02:39:28] You know, discipline equals freedom.
[02:39:30] Jocob's head says good backwards.
[02:39:33] The good is backwards.
[02:39:34] So when you look in the mirror,
[02:39:35] it's a message to you.
[02:39:37] That's not for other people.
[02:39:38] It's not for other people.
[02:39:39] Just like this podcast.
[02:39:40] It's for you.
[02:39:41] Everybody.
[02:39:42] This podcast is for you.
[02:39:43] That's right.
[02:39:44] Stickers.
[02:39:45] But yeah, stickers on there and travel mugs.
[02:39:48] People are posting cool.
[02:39:50] Bumper stickers.
[02:39:52] But then I'm putting them on their bumpers.
[02:39:53] No, no.
[02:39:54] They're putting them on their spot rack.
[02:39:55] Yep.
[02:39:56] Like that.
[02:39:57] You know, I go in my desk and my whiteboard.
[02:39:59] Yep.
[02:40:00] You know.
[02:40:01] Also, yeah, the stickers are bumper stickers.
[02:40:03] But they're for everything for sure.
[02:40:04] Yeah.
[02:40:05] So if you like that stuff.
[02:40:06] Um, yeah, man, you can support that way.
[02:40:08] That's a cool way.
[02:40:09] Get one of those.
[02:40:10] We'll send it to you.
[02:40:11] Another thing we got common.
[02:40:13] Little bit of jocco white tea.
[02:40:15] Pama granite style.
[02:40:17] You know,
[02:40:18] Should be coming out in the next few weeks.
[02:40:21] Just to keep checking back to the website.
[02:40:23] It comes in a cool tin.
[02:40:26] And it says jocco white tea on it.
[02:40:29] Pama granite.
[02:40:31] Because that's how I do things.
[02:40:33] People like what we need to do is come up with a really cool name for the podcast.
[02:40:37] And I go, okay, jocco podcast.
[02:40:39] But we need to come up with a cool name for the jocco white tea.
[02:40:42] Okay.
[02:40:43] Jocco white tea.
[02:40:44] Boom.
[02:40:45] Because we're not, you know,
[02:40:47] We're just doing, we're just trying to keep things simple.
[02:40:49] Yeah.
[02:40:50] You're the one of the laws of combat.
[02:40:51] How you doing now? So, so check that out.
[02:40:53] It is Pama granite.
[02:40:54] It's, well, obviously, I talked about that on the first.
[02:40:58] My introduction to the world was when Tim Ferris said,
[02:41:02] I mixed up some Pama granite and you know,
[02:41:05] Tim, he's a, he's an affectionate of tea.
[02:41:08] Did that catch that?
[02:41:09] Yeah.
[02:41:10] That too.
[02:41:11] Yeah.
[02:41:12] He has a special kettle where you press what kind of tea you're drinking.
[02:41:19] And it's going to bring it to the appropriate temperature for that type of tea.
[02:41:23] Granted tea, white tea, black tea.
[02:41:24] It's, it's going to do it right. He's got that thing.
[02:41:27] He's got like a little shelf.
[02:41:28] He's into his tea.
[02:41:29] But he, I've had the white Pama granite tea before.
[02:41:33] So when I showed up and I said,
[02:41:34] Hey, you want some of this?
[02:41:35] And so I mixed it up for him and he's drinking it.
[02:41:37] And we were starting the podcast in, you know, like,
[02:41:40] 20 minutes and 12 minutes later.
[02:41:43] He starts going, yeah.
[02:41:44] But that, what kind of tea was that?
[02:41:46] He was all kinds of fire.
[02:41:47] So then the next thing that happened was on Amazon,
[02:41:52] I would see people with order extreme ownership.
[02:41:56] And then it would be like, oh, people that brought extreme ownership.
[02:41:59] Also bought Parma granite, white tea.
[02:42:01] And then finding one of the tea people said, hey,
[02:42:04] you need to have your own tea.
[02:42:06] And I said, okay, start, I'll make my own tea.
[02:42:09] But it's going to be good.
[02:42:11] Real good.
[02:42:12] So I went through a book.
[02:42:13] It took a while because I kept saying, no, no, no, do this.
[02:42:16] No, a little bit more of that.
[02:42:17] And finally, we got to the tea that not only tastes good,
[02:42:20] but it gives you the white bomb, and we're going to deep power.
[02:42:23] So, be looking for that.
[02:42:25] Speaking of extreme ownership, you can buy that book written by myself.
[02:42:29] And my brother, Dave Babin, you can get unharred cover.
[02:42:32] Where you can make lots of notes and put little tabs in there
[02:42:35] and highlight stuff.
[02:42:36] You can buy it on digital.
[02:42:38] I think you can make notes on digital too.
[02:42:40] But it doesn't look as cool.
[02:42:42] Kindle.
[02:42:43] Yeah, you can put notes and kiddo.
[02:42:44] Like, why use the Kindle app and,
[02:42:47] I don't know what I did without.
[02:42:50] Well, I didn't really read it before that.
[02:42:52] But I'm just saying that you can do notes,
[02:42:54] color code, every all I am and all of your finger
[02:42:57] is really good.
[02:42:58] That's good.
[02:42:59] And I'm glad you did that.
[02:43:00] Me personally, I need to have physical,
[02:43:02] you know, no, I got my pens lined up,
[02:43:04] highlighters lined up, you know,
[02:43:06] I think it's worth the physical.
[02:43:07] I mean, can I really do the podcast from a Kindle?
[02:43:10] Is that going to work?
[02:43:11] No.
[02:43:12] We would have to shut down the podcast.
[02:43:13] Well, you'd have to learn how to use the Kindle first.
[02:43:16] You would, oh, I'd have to free my mind a little bit.
[02:43:19] Then also the extreme ownership,
[02:43:23] muster, which is a little conference.
[02:43:26] We're having out here in San Diego, California.
[02:43:29] If you want to talk about all this stuff in depth
[02:43:32] with some real focus,
[02:43:35] myself, lathe, running this thing out here in San Diego,
[02:43:38] California, leadership conference.
[02:43:41] But that's the one way of looking at it.
[02:43:44] Another way of looking at is frontal assault on your brain.
[02:43:50] So come and get some of that.
[02:43:51] October 20th and 21st.
[02:43:54] Check out echelonfront.com for some details on that.
[02:43:58] And also, if you want to continue this conversation,
[02:44:01] you know that we're all up upon the interwebs.
[02:44:05] Echo is at Echo Charles.
[02:44:09] And I am at Jockel Willink, Twitter, Facebook,
[02:44:15] Instagram, Karen is also on those various mediums.
[02:44:23] And he's...
[02:44:25] Suspela, spell it.
[02:44:27] Okay.
[02:44:28] It's at, I.M.
[02:44:30] K.I.E.R.A.N.
[02:44:32] D.O.H.E.R.T.Y.
[02:44:36] And it's the same on Instagram.
[02:44:40] I'm hearing D.O.H.E.R.T.R.D.
[02:44:42] I am Karen Dorses.
[02:44:44] But it's not, I am.
[02:44:45] Write it.
[02:44:45] That's a common one though, like, people,
[02:44:48] okay, because it's not like it's like,
[02:44:49] oh, shoot, you know, like, what repeat that,
[02:44:51] because that's a common one, like they'll put duh or I'm...
[02:44:54] or, like, I don't know,
[02:44:56] M.M.A.T.R.E.R.T.
[02:44:57] So that's a common one.
[02:44:58] That's not that hard to remember, is what I'm saying.
[02:45:00] India, Mike Kilo, India, Echo, on down the line.
[02:45:06] I'll put in the link.
[02:45:07] Romeo, off of November.
[02:45:09] And I'm used to Twitter, so I really need some friends.
[02:45:11] Just followers.
[02:45:14] Oh, sorry, follows.
[02:45:15] But actually, you have, you do Instagram.
[02:45:19] I do Instagram.
[02:45:19] I guess that one's a little more obvious for you
[02:45:21] since you take pictures with that.
[02:45:23] Yeah.
[02:45:23] And it's a camera thing.
[02:45:24] Yeah.
[02:45:25] Yeah.
[02:45:26] Which is all I see out.
[02:45:26] Yeah.
[02:45:27] Since you're a photographer.
[02:45:28] We want to know.
[02:45:30] And so, Karen, once again, thanks for coming on.
[02:45:33] My pleasure.
[02:45:34] Thanks for sharing these stories.
[02:45:35] There was also to talk to you and good to see you again.
[02:45:38] And of course, to the troopers out there.
[02:45:44] That'll listen to this podcast.
[02:45:45] Thanks for joining us here.
[02:45:48] Thanks for looking at the world.
[02:45:53] And even if you're not taking pictures of the world
[02:45:57] at least take the time to appreciate it, all of it.
[02:46:03] The good and the bad, the light and the dark.
[02:46:07] And while you're out there in the world, go ahead and make sure
[02:46:14] you get after it, too.
[02:46:19] So until next time, this is Karen and Echo and Jockel.
[02:46:26] Out.