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What
can we shoot for you? |
Basra,
Iraq
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| Modern
businessman checks his voicemail. Kuwait City, Kuwait. |
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| Chris
gets really close for dramatic images of bombed and burning
pipeline in Basra, Iraq. |
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At our first industrial
stop inside the Iraqi border, we teamed up with our Army Shooters
and we were issued our flak jackets and army
helmets. It was at this refinery site a couple of weeks ago (during
the war) that a number of Iraqi soldiers walked up to a group of USA refinery
workers and surrendered. Not having anything to secure enemy soldiers
with, the workers bound the soldiers’ hands with cable ties –
those plastic tightening thingies – and waited until the coalition
forces showed up to take the Iraqis off their hands. The cable ties used
on the surrendering Saddam troops were all over the ground, so I picked
up one as a souvenir.
The rules of the
road in Iraq:
- You must have
Shooters with you at all times.
- You must travel
in a caravan of at least 2 cars.
- Do not wonder
off the road, there are mine fields everywhere. We stopped and photographed
one, very spooky.
- Tanks have the
right of way.
- Try not to run
over the camels (thousands of them!!).
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Proof
of Life in the Jungle
Columbia, South America
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| After
much debate, and under heavy armed guard, we were allowed to
climb the mountain just outside the secured parameter of the
compound for photo views of the project. |
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Our
safe travel techniques were put to the test in Columbia. It took a
commercial jet into Bogotá, a charter flight to the small town
of El Yopal, and two helicopter hops to reach the first of our mountain
jungle locations. Ground travel is strictly forbidden. It is much too
dangerous due to heightened terrorist activities. Complicating matters,
the helicopter schedule is never posted and is purposely varied from day
to day to prevent establishing a known routine. Add that to wildly unpredictable
weather that included daily tormentas (thunderstorms) and you start to
get an idea of the problems we faced on this assignment.
There was a manditory safety briefing before we were allowed on the jobsite
located in the mountain jungles of Columbia South America. We have seen
hundreds of these training films. The production values vary tremendously
from video to video and it’s usually a source
| SAVINGS
TIP |
| By
stringing foreign assignments back to back, Salvo Photography
is able to offer clients huge savings in travel costs!
Want to be notified when we will be shooting in your part
of the world? Email
me your company’s worldwide locations. When we
have assignments nearby, I will let you know! |
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of comic relief.
Typically, the films explain such things as how to put on a fall-prevention
harness, what to do if there is a chemical leak, and where you can and
can’t smoke. This was the first time the film included what to do
in case of “uno attacko” (the film was in Espanola, naturalmente)
- and NO ONE was laughing. Security alerts at the sites were posted as
high.
About 4 weeks prior to our arrival, an engineer was kidnapped from the
first jobsite we visited. He was killed (his throat was slit).
India
Bangalore, Karnataka
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| Cobras
are every bit as frightening up close as you would think! |
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| Celebrations
such as weddings and birthdays call for festive henna tattoos. |
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India is definitely
not for the timid traveler. It is intense and sometimes overpowering and
exhausting – so much new stuff to get used to! India is a full frontal
attack on all your senses simultaneously: sight, smell, taste, touch.
And hearing - our driver never let more than 30 seconds pass without blowing
the horn and neither did any of the other drivers.
Everywhere, even
in the major cities, there were as many oxcarts, bicycles and auto-rickshaws
as cars, and men peeing when and wherever the mood struck them. The long
and curved horns of the oxen were colorfully painted and sometimes sported
bells or flowers. And of course cows (of the sacred variety), were everywhere.
They wander freely through markets, Hindu
Temples even in the heart of downtown traffic.
The food of southern India (we did not go to the more touristy and better
known north) is mostly vegetarian and fiery, I repeat FIERY hot. I went
whole days without any feeling in my lips. In his attempt to try everything,
Chris developed a case of Delhi-belly and spent a day in the hotel bathroom
while I was speaking at a conference in Bangalore.
We took a 4-hour train ride from Bangalore to Chennai (formerly called
Madras - accent on the second syllable to be proper). We were befriended
by 3 Muslim women dressed in long black robes and veils that covered everything
but their eyes – very exotic looking. I was surprised to see that
the younger woman was reading a French fashion magazine and carrying a
very stylish, expensive-looking purse – go figure! They taught us
how to turn on the fan over our seats and advised me to use the Indian
(squat-over-the-hole, no flush) train toilet rather than the always-dirtier
western-style WC.
Chad,
Africa
Aton Village
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| SUCCESS
TIP |
| Obtaining
clearances, permissions and permits BEFORE departing on
a photo assignments is vital to its success. Often politics
(national and company!) are involved and proper prodigal
and local customs must be observed. We have years of experience
in doing just this – contact
me for a copy of my Location Photography Checklist. |
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The country of Chad
in central Africa
is the fifth poorest country in the world. Living and working conditions
are brutal. We traveled between sites by bush plane, landing on dirt runways.
The construction project we were assigned to shoot has historical significance.
It is the first ever multi-national energy project funded by The World
Bank. With global attention focused on its progress, great care is taken
to minimize the cultural as well as the environmental impact on the area
and local people. But the differences
in lifestyles between the project workers and the locals is so profound,
one can’t help having an effect on the other. We visited the nearby
village of Aton. The village obviously benefited financially from the
proximity of foreign wealth, dispite management imposing contact guidelines
and limitations.
Before the coming
of the project, the people in the area were completely isolated and lived
totally off the land. There is no electricity or running water in the
village. The one room school we visited was
the only structure in the entire village that was not made of palm leaves
or handmade bricks.
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| Chadian
workers learned skills they can use on future projects. |
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| Mud
bricks and palm leaves were the only building materials available
to villagers. |
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South
America
Rural Venezuela in
the Orinoco River Region.
Cachapas
e jugos - Mmm!
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| Within
5 minutes of arriving, Chris shot this picture of Ipanema Beach
out the window of our hotel in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. |
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| If
capturing real-time operations for an annual report means being
on the site at 3:00 a.m., thatís what we do. El Tigre, Venezuela. |
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This assignment focused
(no pun intended) on the latest in high-tech developments in the oil industry.
It is really fascinating stuff and highly sophisticated. Technology in
the oil patch is moving forward at warp speed, driven by the astronomical
costs of worldwide exploration. The days when oil was easily found just
under the surface in somebody’s backyard are long gone. Today’s
remote and deep oil and gas fields are being found by computer techies
using satellites and seismic analysis, not by good-old-boys with a ‘nose’
(and a proclivity) for crude.
Subsequently, the
‘face’ of the industry has undergone a dramatic change. By far
the majority of people in the oilpatch nowadays are well educated, (sometimes
geeky) computer operators, not macho hard-hatted ruffnecks with half their
fingers (and brain cells) missing. Yes, somebody still has to poke a hole
in the ground, but high-tech analysis, instant global communications and
automated drilling operations have made oil and gas exploration incredibly
efficient and much safer for the workers and the environment.
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Singapore/Malaysia
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| SUCCESS
TIP |
| Obtaining
clearances, permissions and permits BEFORE departing on
a photo assignments is vital to its success. Often politics
(national and company!) are involved and proper prodigal
and local customs must be observed. We have years of experience
in doing just this – contact
me for a copy of my Location Photography Checklist. |
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Each trip to Asia
leaves us more spellbound with the richness and diversity of the many
cultures and cuisines. The variety of fruits and vegetables available
is as staggering as the heat and humidity. Singapore is only 70 miles
from the equator and gets a full 12 hours of tropical sun 365 days a year,
punctuated by frequent, violent, but short-lived thunderstorms. Did you
know that Singapore has one of the highest incidents of lighting strikes
in the world? We found this out while shooting from on top of a 14-story
storage tank, watching a storm roll in.
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| Construction
soars to dizzying heights at a plant in Bintulu, Malaysia. |
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| Chinese
New Year is celebrated with traditional red paper lanterns. |
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Sahara
Sands and Security
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| Climbing
a 500 foot sand dune before the sun rose paid off with dramatic
images like this one for our client. |
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Words, and even Chris’
great photos cannot completely capture the awesome feeling of standing
on top of a 500 foot dune at sunrise in the middle of the Sahara Desert.
Nothing but mountains
of endless sand for hundreds of miles in every direction – it’s
eerie and spookily quiet with nothing but the sound of the wind –
it made us feel like whispering for some reason. Constantly blowing sand
can have a bad effect on a person (see
related story), not to mention what it does to camera equipment.
Hassi-Berkine, Algeria
is one of the most remote and difficult places in the world to get to
and I’m not talking just about planes and trains. There is a U.S.
State Department warning about travel to Algeria and getting a visa is
a complicated process. We got our Desert Passes (required by the Algerian
Government if you want to travel in the deep-desert areas) and made it
into the country and to our walled compound with all our camera equipment
intact. In Algeria and elsewhere, getting the cameras IN is easy, it’s
the getting it all OUT that will make you sweat (see Top
Ten Salvo Safe Travel Tips).
| SAVINGS
TIP |
| By
stringing foreign assignments back to back, Salvo Photography
is able to offer clients huge savings in travel costs!
Want to be notified when we will be shooting in your part
of the world? Email
me your company’s worldwide locations. When we
have assignments nearby, I will let you know! |
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|
Security was intense.
No ex-pat worker is ever allowed out of the fortress/compound without
an armed escort, which consists mostly of ramrod serious (and seriously
good-looking) ex-French Foreign Legion soldiers. We heard many stories
about nearby bandit and/or terrorist attacks. These incidents are largely
unreported outside of Algeria and have been growing in frequency and intensity
for over 10 years. We were told the attacks have reached a near weekly
occurrence level now.
Less than a month
before our arrival, local women who had been working as housekeepers in
one of the compounds were attacked by a band of radical Moslems. All the
women were severely beaten and 6 were killed, accused by their attackers
of being prostitutes for the foreign devils. The attackers told the women
that Allah had demanded their punishment.
I am used to being
stared at as the only western woman in some of the remote places where
we travel and work, but this was way beyond anything I've experienced.
Chris and I were actually assigned separate sleeping quarters in different,
but adjacent buildings. It was a bit unnerving being left alone, but I
told Chris I was sure he would be OK by himself, but if he got really
scared in the middle of the night, he could sneak over to my room.
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| Herds
of wild camels go about their business, unaware of the vast
oil deposits beneath their huge feet. |
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| Tea-time
for Bedouin tribesman. |
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Shades
of New in the Old World
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| Milk
is still delivered the old fashioned way in The Cotswolds. Guiting
Power, UK. |
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Our latest European
trip was a study in contrasts. We spent several days in the UK shooting
up-to-the-second wiz-bang technology while staying in a quaint, four hundred
year-old country inn. Elsewhere, we shot a nuclear submarine in a shipyard
where long ago Queen Elizabeth (the first one) commissioned the building
of tall sailing ships that were sent into battle against the Spanish Armada.
In Paris, we had an incredibly delicious classic French dinner in a bistro
that was across the street from a McDonalds.
The wonderfully easy
to use Euro is now accepted everywhere in Europe except the UK, which
is still making up it’s mind about it. Some things never change!
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