Experiences as a Photojournalist

I started my photographic career at Drik Picture Library Ltd ( www.drik.net) in 1996 since I felt that I would never be able to do ordinary jobs. I have learnt a lot of things working with Drik for more than eight years but specially documentary photography which became my passion and first preference as a photographer.

After leaving Drik, I joined European Pressphoto Agency ( www.epa-photos.com) as Bangladesh correspondent and started to cover daily news but mostly important events. In the beginning, I was a bit nervous to cover the strike events, specially because of my new Canon camera. I bought a Canon 20 D camera with a 18-55 mm cheap lens with the money that I got from my provident fund from Drik. So I didn't want to break my camera trying to prove my courage and fight with other photojournalists, security officials and demonstrators for space in a strike day.

For the last two years I have been covering major disasters in Bangladesh like ferry accident at Aricha, Garments tragedy at Savar, Suicide bombings aftermath at Netrokona and Gazipur. I also covered the major political clashes in the last one year. It's an adventurous and exciting journey with getting there at the right time and being at the right place, working with speed amid pressure and finally filing photos within the tight deadline.

I am sharing my experience of covering a recent fire tragedy at the NTV building. Munir, one photographer of DrikNEWS got a phone call from one of my students Liton regarding the breaking of fire. We lost no time and I left with Munir sitting pillion on his motor bike. We saw hundreds of civilians already on the street and watching the NTV building helplessly. Fire fighters arrived and started their rescue efforts with their limited resources. I was a bit confused about my position and running around the building and taking photos. I was wearing a short punjabi, my most comfortbale wear, and sandals. My sandal, trouser and punjabi got drenched with the water both from the street and from the hose pipe of the fire fighters. Suddenly I felt that the best place for taking photos is the front gate of the building where the light is mysterious with the smoke and the fire fighters putting all their efforts to extinguish the fire and rescue the stranded people from different stairs. I took a life risk attempt when one volunteer got electrified and fell down from the third floor into the balcony with the electric cable. Some one shouted from the same floor 'everything got electrified, hey camera man don't move any more' -- I was hesitating and finally moved close to him and took the photos.

The fire was spreading with alacrity and caught different floors in huge flames. Panicked people were crying and asking for help from the top floors. After almost three hours fight the situation came under control. I suddenly felt the urgency to go back in my office to file photos to my agency in Germany. Munir did a remarkable job to find his way to reach Pathshala avoiding thousands of people who gathered and blocked the street. I got phone call from my regional chief from Delhi to send the photos as soon as possible. It was almost 2:30 in the afternoon and I started to download photos in my laptop. After a quick editing and captioning I started filing photos. It took one hour to send twenty five photos including the downloading, editing, captioning and filing time. When I finished the entire job, I suddenly felt unbearably hungry, I went up to the dinning room of the Pathshala guest house. Rice became cold as the vegetables and the daal. I started eating like a stricken person who hadn't known the taste of food for a couple of days........

Abir Abdullah
22 May 2007