Have you ever wondered how press photographers and television news reporters get those amazing action shots in hectic and often life threatening situations?

Often press reporters are killed in war zones around the world and you’re not surprised when in the middle of shoot out between the good guys and the bad guys a cameraman appears, glued to the lens of his Sony. In the comfort of your couch you pop another Bud and wonder what the hell is going through this idiots mind. He’s in the centre of the crossfire bullets and shrapnel flying everywhere and he is framing for the perfect shot. You wonder just what possesses a person to choose this as a career. Talk to any professional news cameraman and he’ll tell that when you’re looking through a lens you are not part of this world, you’re in a vacuum, there is no reality, you are part of your camera and nothing else matters – apart from possibly an award winning shot.

I was also a press photographer during the seventies in the apartheid years in South Africa and I remember traveling through Hillbrow late at night capturing news pictures for the morning addition. The danger is the rush and has an unbelievable effect on you. On one occasion I was confronted by an armed Junkie who was high on methylated spirits. I found myself between him and a police squad car and will never forget the feeling of alienation, Through my Pentax camera I was looking down the barrel of a gun divorced from reality, even the audio track of the city street became distant and quite, at no stage was I afraid – all that was important was keeping him in focus. The effect of the experience only became evident when I returned to the newsroom to hand in the roll of film and change my underwear.

During a battle in a Beirut street a news cameraman was following a contingent of frontline troops when he was hit by a rocket. The missile hit him in the pelvis ripping his leg off. Fortunately paramedics who were close by managed to get him into an ambulance and evacuate him. He turned the camera on himself and told the world what had happened and how he felt before slowly slipping into a coma. The world saw the graphic footage on the 6.00pm news that night.

Rick Lombo, one of South Africa’s top wildlife cameramen who was passionately dedicated to the preservation of Tigers traveled thousands of miles around the globe caring and monitoring Tigers in distress. In a freak accident in Mozambique he was walking away from a maltreated Tiger in a Zoo in Maputo where the attendant had accidentally left the door of the cage unlocked. Rick was walking away with his camera on his shoulder when the Tiger struck him from behind killing him instantly in front of a television news team.

The very species of wild animal that he’d fought so hard to protect ended his life.
My good friend Tony Wasserman was an internationally renowned news man who’d covered many of the world’s trouble spots and war zones. He was a very cool guy with a great philosophy on life and had an incredible nose for being in the right place at the right time. One of his favourite stories that he’d dine out on regularly happened in one of the civil wars in Africa. He was taking cover behind a bullet riddled wall on a side street, peeping around occasionally to sneak footage of an intense battle in progress between warring factions. There was a lot of heavy gunfire along the street with shells bursting overhead and off the wall that was his only protection. During a lull in the deluge he stepped out into the open momentarily to shoot off some footage. There was a jarring thud with everything turning to black before him, as he was thrown back against the wall the impact forcing him to his knees. A shell had hit the camera he was carrying on his shoulder – all he was left with was a piece of the zoom lens. He suffered minor injuries but lived to tell the tale.

But as you are aware God does have a sense of humour. After chasing the most dangerous news from every part of our globe and surviving it, Tony had taken a short break from his hectic schedule and was window shopping in London where he dropped dead from a heart attack. So the next time you see a crazed gunman holding 12 Catholic nuns hostage on a 24th floor window ledge, you can rest assured that somewhere there’s a newsman that will get the shot.