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

Another Failed Assignment

Dear Mr. Armando,

Thanks for your time and patience in the execution of this last minute portrait. One of the great pleasures of my job is meeting human beings you admire and entering their world, even in briefly. In your case your non-air conditioned BBC office. And always with the hope that I will make a portrait of lasting quality that may well one day hang in the National Portrait gallery. These hopes are often dashed by Picture Editors who once they get you all excited by telling you who your are being commissioned to photograph, then proceed to tell you that you need him or her to hold a cucumber, or a bag of fertilizer or in your case, CDs. These makes it virtually impossible to capture the soul and spirit of the subject. Hopes of High Art are nil.

I then proceed to ask myself why am I not pursuing my dreams of making the world a better place to live by photographing wretched souls somewhere far from Stoke Newington in an attempt to wrench people from their celebrity obsessed lives and make them care about somebody probably much darker than themselves. Alas the Documentary tradition does not sell newspapers like tits do these days, so instead of haunting the backstreets of this world with my Leica, I wait in lobbies with my camera bag and lights in the vain hope of getting 5 minutes with a famous person who will never remember our encounter when someone is ghost writing his biography. I on the other hand will always be haunted by every bad photo shoot and subsequent crap photo I have ever taken.

At least you were nice.

With any luck we shall meet again with hopes of High Art in the air.

Antonio

I had a conversation with a friend who was very down about the "the business". All the talk was about giving it up and doing something more stable, more rewarding financially and less stressful. It is true that since I have been freelancing, there seems less and less commissioning for serious reportage work. Journalism today seems obsessed with celebrity and consumerism. Less concerned with what people need to know and more concerned with entertaining the readers, helping them achieve their aspirational lifestyles.

I hardly ever get sent to cover a demonstration or a news event or any kind of happening anymore. That is now the realm of the wire agencies like AP, Getty and Reuters. My work now is mostly Portraits. Profiles in newspapers and magazines keeps me alive. I am lucky in that because of my past work, picture editors know that I have no interest in movie stars and b-list celebrities, so most of my portrait work consists of writers, directors, artists and serious creative people. Today for example I did 2 portraits, one of a furniture designer from Holland and the foreign editor of channel 4 news.

But I do long to only do reportage work, to merely be an observer and record with my camera. I wished I only worked on serious news stories and long projects on issues and places that interests me. If I never did another portrait again, I would be a happy man. The photo above was shot in Bolivia, during one of my many trips there. Its a place i would love to work in now, covering the developing revolution of Evo Morales ( He just semi-renationalized the gas fields! Hoorah!!!). But everytime I mention to anyone about working there or doing a story there, I get shrugs and disinterest. My only chance of getting paid to work there is when people start killing each other (or when the Americans invade) and then everyone will want to work there.

But I have to keep a bit of perspective, My friend Lane likes to say that when he was born he already was a winner in Life's lottery. He was born a white male in the United States. With that in mind I feel I have been blessed with a lot of luck. Considering I was born in a very poor part of Mexico, to a household with a single mother working as a cleaner, I think my life has been blessed. Photography has allowed me to see a lot of the world, and witness incredible things. I have met wonderful people and live in an amazing city. I am happily married with a wonderful son and this job gives me the freedom to be spend time with them that a 9-5 existence would not. I love my job because its an incredible passport into people's lives. At its best, it can be fun and exciting.

Its true that when I first started taking pictures I had dreams that my work would somehow make the world a better place and that I would in some way be rewarded for the work I did with financial security and the plaudits of my peers. But alas I am struggling financially, always was, always will be.

So despite all the hangups, I like my job. And as long as I manage to pay my bills, I guess I will keep doing it. I doubt if I am good at anything else so why bother. I can't honestly say that I will be doing this in 10 or 20 years time, but I hope to be. Its my life.

Winter Never Ends

Asya has a view camera now. Being a parent has meant giving up a lot of her creative freedom. I don’t think she regrets a minute of our time together or as a family but she is still an individual, an artist and her urge to create has not gone away.

So we go to the local park and while she gets to grip with her new camera, Pablo and I go for a walk, chase the pigeons always making sure that we are not in Asya’s way. All the while, people walk by, Hassidic children play football, morose teenagers try to bum cigarettes from smokers and everyone stares at the lady with the big camera on sticks. A couple of girls amble up to Asya and ask what she is doing. While they stare Pablo gets jealous and begins to cry. Its the last day of April and it is still freezing.


Petals cover one of the paths of the park and Asya makes her first tentative images. I see the petals too and can’t help but be attracted to the contrast they provide with the rough concrete and dark wet grass. It’s a balancing act, two photographers in one family, who view the world differently but try to create a life together for themselves and their son.

The sun goes down and we go home. Pablo on my shoulders while Asya carries her gear on her back, pushing an empty pram. It may be cold still but the days are getting longer and I am enjoying being able to go for walks with my family after work. Spring and Summer are keeping their distance but I know they will come, with their long hours of light for us to play with.

2/5/2006