25. Considerations about working as a photojournalist in tsunami devastated areas

By Filipe Morato Gomes	Where is Khao Lak?
Emotionally speaking, the tsunami was undoubtedly the most difficult moment I had in my trip. Right after the tsunami hit Thailand and Sri Lanka I went there to work as a photojournalist for a Portuguese newspaper. Many volunteers went there to help and participate in tsunami relief operations and they were braver than me. I had a hard time working with my camera. Considerations about a profession I do respect a lot: journalists.

I've always wondered how journalists could be able to work in war or natural disaster sceneries. How would a journalist be able to ask any question to a mother that had just lost her son, without looking like a vulture hovering over her head? How could a photographer point his camera to a deformed body, photograph an injured individual instead of helping him, be close to a starving child and take a photo? What do those media professionals feel when, in the presence of great emotional pressure situations, have to do their job as objectively as possible, regardless what is in their soul, regardless the suffering that may reach them.

A resort in Khao Lak, north of Phuket, Thailand, after the tsunami

I am neither a professional journalist nor a professional photographer. I do love both activities but so far I do not earn my living working as one or the other. However, I happened to work as a photojournalist in Phuket island and in Khao Lak, Thailand, and later in Galle, Sri Lanka, right after the tsunami that devastated those and many other regions of the earth. And it is just about that experience that I will drop some lines here.

The power of a lens during a tsunami-like situation

It is not easy to work under such circumstances. It is a point as obvious as true. Yet however unbelievable it may seem, the camera seems to have a very strong power over the professional who carries it. You look through the lens and do not feel the suffering of the one who has lost everything in his life; you simply try to capture it. You point your lens to a putrefied corpse and do not feel its smell, you see its colours. You look through a camera and do not see a starving child; you look for the best angle, the perfect composition instead. But as soon as you put the camera down, the suffering begins.

I remember finding a completely repulsive corpse among the debris of a resort in Khao Lak beach. I looked at the journalist I was working with and she nodded like she was saying “take the pictures, it is important”. The smell was repulsive, the sight of the corpse terrifying. I turned half way, looked aside not courageous enough to face it. I then took a deep breath and got the guts to do it. An only then I took a sequence of photos, undisturbed, unerring, from different angles, different perspectives, looking for the perfect composition for something that could, in a wildly brutal way, show what had happened in Khao Lak. I was protected by the lens of the camera.

Collecting the unbroken bricks after the tsunami have destroyed his house, Sri Lanka

I finished the sequence and stepped away from the place till a point where I could take off the mask and breathe a little of air free from that terrible smell. I stopped next to two men who, near the sea, were resting a bit after several hours of rescue volunteer work. As soon as I raise my head I burst into non-stop tears. What I had just seen had finally turned into emotions. As if the lens had the power to stop them till that moment. I lit a cigarette, cooled down as long as it was being burnt, and went on with my work in similar circumstances.

In another occasion, in Sri Lanka, a family was trying to collect good bricks among the debris of what had once been their house. Some members of the family had been killed by the tsunami; others were still considered missing persons. They asked us for water, nothing else. And they told us they had no clothes and were starving; yet water was what they really needed. In spite of their very difficult situation, they were working really hard to rebuild, as soon as possible, a shelter to sleep in. Fascinated by the image of a very young kid helping his father to collect the good bricks, I photographed non-stop. Images of strong will; images of hope in the middle of so much terror and destruction. Once again, I did my job in an unerring way.

I then walked to my car and took the only bottle of water left with me. I came back to that family and offered them the bottle of water. At that moment I could not photograph any more. I got back to the car and became silent. And again, I felt into tears. It is not easy to ignore other people's despair, whenever a man takes the place of a professional.

It will take me a long time until these and many other images disappear from my memory. I saw and photographed too many disturbing things. I really admire the professionals who face such realities and report as what they observe. Either through images or texts. Writing is not easier than photographing. I will never forget, for example, the disturbing chronicles sent everyday from East Timor by a Portuguese journalist called Luciano Alvarez, on those terrifying days of 1999, right after the referendum for the independence. I think I know what he may have suffered to write them. When you put an idea onto paper, everything comes immediately to the surface. Just like in this moment, while writing this chronicle. And, in such case, it's almost impossible not to have the eyes dimmed by commotion.

(originally written in Portuguese)

Author's note: if you can, do help tsunami survivors; NGOs still need volunteers in Sri Lanka and Indonesia for tsunami relief operations.

» Read From Chiang Mai to Phuket and Khao Lak, a change of plans right after the tsunami
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