My day as a Paparazzi doorstepping photographer

So I get an assignment. An Immigration official is soliciting sex from asylum seekers with promises to help their cases. They want me to secretly photograph him meeting a young woman from Zimbabwe after he meets her in a cafe trying to coerce her into sex in return for his help. Now normally this is not the kinda job I do. But when I was told this woman's history, that she had been raped by Robert Mugabe's thugs and her family had been subject to harrasement by the regime and then even more abused by her fellow countrymen once in Britain, well I said yes.

Now that I had joined the digital world, all I needed was a long lens, like a 300mm 2.8 with a 1.4x extender and I was off. The plan was me and the two reporters would follow "Tanya" as she met this guy in a cafe at a railway station in South London. Well when we got to the station I was immediately surrounded by Station guards who asked me what the hell was I doing taking pictures in a train station, did I not know that i couldn't take pictures in a fucking train station????....I realized that if I did not manage to get the pics for this story, one piece of the evidence against this slimeball would be missing.

"I just want to photograph the trains. I love trains! Please can I not take pictures of the trains?" suddenly the platform guards became nice " Oh You're a trainspotter!, Why didn't you say so, just go over to the station manager and get a guest pass". A Trainspotter in Britain is a very sad person. They take pictures of trains, write down in small journals the trains they saw and what time they saw them and what kind of make and model they were. They populate all the train stations in the UK and they are a really sad bunch. Like Trekkies but obsessed with trains. Like Trekkies they probably never kissed a girl or left the parental home. Of course I was very upset that they believed I was a trainspotter, never once suspecting I was a seasoned photojournalist, swashbuckling around the planet making the world safe for babies. Nope I was easily a trainspotter in their eyes.

Soon I was back on the job, pretending to photograph the trains but really keeping an eye on our young heroine as she waited to meet her tormenter for me to capture it all on camera. She soon got a call that he wanted to meet at a cafe outside the station so me and the reporters followed her and sure enough he was inside waiting for her. I quickly found the best vantage point across the street to get a picture of them inside at a table. Unfortunately too many people sat between me and them so I waited hoping to get a pic of them together as they came out of the cafe. So I waited for 2 hours across the street hiding in a parking lot behind some bushes nervously waiting theri exit. I was nervous because If the guy saw me he might A.) Run across the street and beat me up or B.) Beat her up realizing that he had just been caught in a sting and taking his anger out on her.

So I waited and waited. The parking lot I was camped out in also happened to be where Croydon's finest homeless men liked to hang out and soon they were asking what the hell was I doing? I thought there was no point bullshitting these streetwise men so I told them the truth. " I am working for the Observer newspaper and we are stalking what we think is a corrupt immigraton official who tries to have sex with vulnerable young women who are seeking asylum in this country." The men believed me and quickly took my cause by letting me mingle among them and letting me use them for cover if need be. I was one of them but with a giant lens attached to a digital camera. While awaiting my chance to "PAP" my unfortunate victim, I noticed these homeless dudes made a lot of money, they were all counting large handfuls of change that easily was £50.00 pounds, all from a day of begging. Whatever you think of beggars, they work hard for their money and frankly they may be losers but are not lazy. I certainly could not beg for a living, it takes a certain kind of courage or swallowing of one's pride to do that.

Anyway, after 2 hours my prey emerged from the cafe with the girl and BOOM! I was motoring away, shooting several frames a second trying to get as many pics as I could because I didn;t know when I would have to stop. And the whole time trying not to get noticed. And scared. In a matter of a few minutes it was over and this huge sense of relief swept over me. I got my pics, my small part in helping this guy get nailed. The last pic I shot was the 2 reporters confronting the official as they approched him with the words " Hello Mr Duwate, we are from the Observer newspaper. Is it true that you use your position .....blah blah.."

It was not "art" what I had just done. a really boring photo but one that would probably have more impact than anything I had in my portfolio. sadly. Sad to think that I have probably had little impact if any with my work in the last 18 years.

eventually the three of us and Tanya are back on the train heading back to central London congratulating ourselves on a job well done. Tanya takes off the jacket that she wore for the meeting that had a secret microphone and video camera. We check that it all work and when we hear the playback, we know we have it.

Suddenly I notice that i was still wearing the badge I had to wear to "photograph the trains" It states under reason for being on train station ...PHOTOGRAPHY-HOBBY.

http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/asylumbrit60.14194.html

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1779877,00.html

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006230444,00.html