We’ve got some good pictures up on the site, and it’s great to see Laos through everyone’s eyes.

However, in order that everyone may have a chance to post their pictures, please keep your picture sizes small.

I’ve noticed some 600kb and 1Mb pictures. That’s ten times what it need be, which means you can post only one picture instead of ten. We’ve only got 50Mb free for everyone to share.

Here’s a guide to resizing them: 72 dpi and 800 pixels on the longest side. When you save the pictures, use Photoshop -> File -> Save for web. Keep the pictures under 100kb if possible. Mostly, on screen it’s small enough that a slight compression won’t be obvious.

If you’ve already put your huge pictures up, please resize them, reload them, and relink them.

Thanks guys, for the trouble.
Alf

After brief stints at the national and school newspapers, I’ve realised that many of the stories don’t go very deep.

Maybe it’s because I can’t feel the depth, not when the stories are about a certain opening ceremony, or a readiness exercise, an art exhibition, a ribbon-cutting ceremony. PR events, I call them. Hit-and-run shoots. The truth is, these make up the bulk of a day’s work, and if a journalist here knows who butters his bread, he’d better go out and do the assigned jobs without complaint anyway.

What I’ve really wanted to do though, is to invest myself in the story. Any story, whatever story.

The bylines don’t matter to me, getting my name in the newspapers isn’t on my want list. Maybe I don’t understand what the big deal about. Even the pay is nothing to die for. Lots of other graduates get twice the pay, and they needn’t even break a sweat in their Shenton Way offices.

To me, living the experience matters. When a story is at hand, I truly enjoy the smells of rubbish dumps, getting dirty in the field, lying on the hot tarmac to shoot pictures, trudging through the mud and climbing hills. (Unlike our intrepid professor, I haven’t been shot at or bombed out of my foxhole, so I can’t say if I can stand up to that.)

If at the end of the day I don’t return soaked, smelling like a dead fish and absolutely tired, I feel I haven’t done it right. Being a photojournalist, in many ways, is the kind of farmer job I’ve always wanted. Low pay, long hours, dirty work. Doesn’t sound glamourous at all. Definitely not all guts and glory.

I must admit that most of the first trip was not quite what I wanted it to be. Instead of living in shacks and sleeping on the ground with the swarming termites (I met them briefly), we had fresh sheets and hot water, too many lunches and dinners.

Perhaps I am too impatient. I keep telling myself that the groundwork must be done first, the foundations laid before any real work can begin.

Then I think back to the National Geographic stories I read from time to time. The pictures are so intimate you can imagine how long the photojournalist has been living with the families. How much time he spent there to get to that level of comfort with his subjects. Definitely not a hit-and-run assignment.

And that is why I can’t wait to go back to Laos. Maybe this time, we will really get to live the experience.

But first, I have to really try and get some paperwork done. Actually make some calls. Maybe even learn how to say hello and thank you in the language.

“You mean it’s free?” I asked.
“Yes, it’s free,” he replied.
“Okay, I’ll put in my forms,” I promised.

In fact, I waited until the last minute – as all good journalists do not - to submit my forms. In passing, I asked Amelia (in the office) if she was GOing-FAR. She wasn’t sure at the time. Well, she is now, I’m sure.

So now you know the real story of this el-cheapo photojournalist-wannabe who would only travel on the house budget. “What have I got to lose,” I thought to myself. “I’m pretty sure I’ll learn something along the way.” I sure did.

I duly filled in the forms, Google-d up a dam project (wow, I thought, just the kind of thing I would like to cover), and submitted it. Voila, I was suddenly in GO-FAR 2007, Laos.

On hindsight, I have no idea how many people actually wanted to go on this trip – like really wanted to go – and how qualified or professional or intrepid or streetsmart or hardworking the rest of team would be – and they were, or how lucky I was to be with such a team. I just knew that in the back of my mind that I was going to Laos in July.

I told myself I would think about it when the time came, and happily went off to do an internship with The Straits Times which lasted till the week before we were due to leave.

And then I realised that in the meantime, almost everyone else was sending emails and buying cards and making calls and becoming experts on Laos, and I was just coming on board.

Panic? No, I didn’t. My mind works so slowly I don’t know how to feel panic. But what dawned on me was the inescapable fact that D-Day was gradually approaching.

I started to Google Laos. I even Google Earth-ed it. I spent hours every night, in school, poring over websites, maps, satellite maps. I wanted to know where the dam was, what it looked like, what the road going to it looked like. I saw huts and houses, tracks and roads, a partially built bridge, and endless forests.

“Have you seen the dam?” I asked Samuel. “There, enter these co-ordinates. Do you see it?”

“Have you seen the dam?” I asked Jamie. “Accept the file. See how far away it is.”

I could not think in terms of data, or statistics, or phone numbers or contacts. I needed to see photographs and projections. I had to know what it looked like on the ground.

And so while everyone else was making contact with the people, I was trying to see the place. A big mistake which I only realised on the last night in Vientiane while talking to Samuel and Jamie.

The next seven days on the ground would prove that without contacts, being on the ground isn’t very much use if you cannot talk to anybody. I wasn’t there to make nice tourist pictures. I was there to tell a story.

So perhaps what I should have done in this case was to find a story, get the contacts, make the appointments, then fly there and shoot the pictures. Not shoot first and ask questions later.

NEARLY THERE: GO-FAR 2007 waiting to board Thai Airways flight TG 411 from Bangkok to Singapore.

ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER: Smiles and emotions break free as the team arrives at Changi. [Text and pictures - Alphonsus Chern]

LONG WAY FROM HOME: A 1970s American Buick on a Vientiane street.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE: Nearly all the electricity in Laos is produced from hydropower projects across the country. Much of it will be sold to neighbouring countries for revenue that could boost the ecomony. Said then Prime Minister Colonel Bounnhang Vorachit at the 2004 ASEAN summit, “We are aiming to turn the country into a battery for the region”. [Text and pictures - Alphonsus Chern]

ALL IN A HALF-DAY’S WORK: UXO SVK personnel dismantle their metal detectors just after noon at Ban Phontan after clearing a landowner’s field. Their find of the day was a 60mm high explosive fragmentation mortar bomb used by American infantry.

A FATHER REMEMBERS: The most recent UXO victim in Ban Keng Say Noi was 7-year-old Ty who was killed when his friend threw a BLU-3 cluster bomblet against a tree stump. According to his father, Sy (L), steel pellets ripped into his son’s body and a nearby bamboo fence.

DANGER BENEATH: Camera operator Samuel He shoots stock footage of rice fields in Ban Keng Say Noi, where six children were reportedly victims of unexploded ordnance in recent years.

IRON HORSE: Vintage lugged steel bicycles dating from the sixties and seventies – many of British origin - still faithfully serve the villagers.

ALL FOR ONE: Video Team UXO capture a sunset from the Lao-Hungary Friendship bridge (also known as the Xe Xamxoy bridge). From left: Gavin Liow, Samuel He and Ong Chor Hao.

DOUBLE TAKE: A hand-held exposure on Route 9 from Ban Phongtan to the guest house features documentary producers Gavin Liow (L) and Gavin Liow (R).

ON MOONLIGHT BAY: A Mekong backwater lies undisturbed even as a few fishermen check their nets by lamp light. (thanks to the assistance of Miss Thongmala Sayavong, who stood up to repeated strikes from the ‘Savannakhet air force’ while timing the exposure) [Text and pictures - Alphonsus Chern]

THE INTERPRETER: Mr Phatsakorn Dejvonesa (R) assisting photojournalist Sophia Huang in her interview with the provincial co-ordinator for UXO SVK Soubin Phatsoukim. The team interpreters served not only to translate questions, but also doubled as safety checks and field guides.

TALKING SHOP: Samuel He (L) and Ong Chor Hao on the way back to the guest house from the UXO SVK office after preliminary interviews with the provincial co-ordinator and technical staff.

HAPPY FEET: A solo game with a sepak takraw ball “gets the blood moving”, says Clarence Chua. Combining Malay and Thai words for ‘kick’ and ‘ball’, the sport resembles volleyball but is played using every part of the body except the hands.

[Text and pictures - Alphonsus Chern]

SWEDISH PRECISION: Team leader Shyam Tekwani makes a photograph of a temple with a Hasselblad panoramic camera en-route. The journey by bus took some eight hours with the odd stop to ‘pick flowers and ‘shoot rabbits’ (both indirect terms used to describe a toilet stop), and a lunch break in Thakhek, the capital of Khammouan province.

THE WELCOME GUARD: Savannakhet mosquitoes made the most of the Singaporean team during its first meeting at the guest house. In an hour, this photographer ‘shot down’ and lined up seven slow-moving individuals on the vinyl table cover. “Parade ready for inspection, sir!”

PASAR-MALAM: A night market just five minutes from the Mekong sells everything from sandals to instant portraits.

INTEGRATED RESORT: Food, drink and prizes bring children flocking to the bazaar. Rows of roadside stalls offer them the chance to win toys by bursting balloons and hitting cans with a ball. In this board game, the kip seemed only to move in one direction – toward the dealer.

FAMOUS FIVE: Teenage boys gather under a street lamp to sing songs and smoke cigarettes. By midnight, the streets are emptied under a curfew to keep the area crime-free. [Text and photos - Alphonsus Chern]

At 2am, the photographer and his partner-in-crime were surrounded by six villagers on motorcycles, one in uniform, who gestured them politely but firmly to “go back and sleep”.

A size disparity between sexes is characteristic of the genus Nephila - the male is typically six times smaller than the female which can grow to a body length of 50mm.

LUNCH IS SERVED: Phở is a bowl of rice noodles and thin slices of beef in clear broth, garnished with mint, basil and bean sprouts, although the ingredients may vary. From left: Mr Sisaveuy and photojournalist Sophia Huang.

TAILLEUR-ED TO SUIT: Stores bearing French influence dot the capital, such as this tailor opposite the team’s guest house.

THE OCCASIONAL SHOWER: Other places in Asia may be drowning in floods, but the monsoon has yet to douse Laos with more than a sprinkling each night.

THE NIGHT IS LONG: Samuel He uses his shirt to shield his lens from the fine drizzle while making a long exposure. This would be the team’s last night in the capital before setting out for the Southern provinces in the morning. [Text and pictures - Alphonsus Chern]

The machines cost just US$500, unlike a new car which would set the buyer back by more than US$10,000, according to Mr Sisaveuy Chanthavisack, an interpreter and guide for the team.

ON A HIGH: Reporter Rachel Lim (R) tries Beer Lao for the first time at the Lao Brewery factory in Vientiane while radio journalist Foo Shu-yi (L) prefers to abstain. The reporters were later shown around the brewery and given a copy of the Beer Lao calendar featuring Lao women in neo-traditional dress.

However, permission to photograph inside the factory was denied, and the team was asked to secure access in the next trip. [Text and pictures - Alphonsus Chern]

Pronounced “su-wan-na-poom” according to an online airport guide, the name was chosen by the Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej and means “The Golden Land”, referring to the Indochinese region of Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.

RIGHT OF WAY: Reporter Clarence Chua (left) – cyclist, naturalist, explorer, aquarium designer and in-house beat box – on his way to Vientiane via Bangkok.

SLEEPLESS IN SUVARNABHUMI: Re-reading their notes before boarding Thai Airways flight TG 692 to Vientiane’s Wattay International Airport. From left: Clarence Chua, Amelia Tan, Muhammad Helmi and Gavin Liow.

WATTAY WE WAITING FOR: The quiet arrival hall fills with sleepy travellers, the silence punctuated by the occasional stamp of passports followed by a hesitant “thank you”. [Photo - Clarence Chua]

MEETING IN PROGRESS: Team leader and veteran conflict photojournalist Shyamsunder Rewachand Tekwani holds the first briefing at Phonepaseuth guest house in Vientiane. From left (visible faces): photojournalist Margareta Astaman,  local co-ordinator Visiene Xaiyasensouk, team leader Shyam Tekwani, reporter Clarence Chua, video director Ong Chor Hao and team 2IC Samuel He.

LIGHTS OUT: The Phonepaseuth guesthouse in Vientiane provides television, air-conditioning, hot water, clean towels and bottled water , as well as cooked meals and an occasional dial-up internet connection.

However, a flourescent tube blew out on the first night in the photographer’s room, forcing him to read his notes by candlelight. [Text and pictures - Alphonsus Chern]

Going to unpack my lao lao (Lao Lao; Sao Lao!), Beer Lao (Beer Lao; Sao Lao!), Lao skirts (don’t ask), unroll my Beer Lao calendar, upload and edit pictures, write captions, and do a thousand other GOFAR things now.

This has been a most useful trip, as we discussed on our last night in Vientiane. Can’t speak for everyone else, but here are my thoughts:

1. I learnt a bit about how people work there, and am better equipped to make arrangements for visits and to talk to them more sensitively now.

2. I asked about some dos and don’ts, and these will go a long way into making sure we do things the correct way in order to open doors.

3. A journalist has to talk to everyone, so I guess a photojournalist has to see everything and talk to everyone. Sleeping on the job is not a good idea (indirect).

I think this team works well together, and I’m looking forward to the next trip. But first, there are a thousand plans to be made, and many thousands of kip to be accounted for.

We heart beerlao.

Really need: stories

Got out of bed, did the accounts, skipped breakfast, went to see the rice people with Sophia. Chartered a very expensive three-wheeler for the day. Sisaveuy (spelling?) is cool.

Dropped Sophia off at the sports place, and went to see an alcoholic. Tried some Lao Lao. It’s like vodka, and this guy drinks five bottles a day.

Returned to hotel. Turns out the dam story will not happen this trip.

Planning the UXO story in Savannakhet. Have two days left. Must work harder.

I really want a Honda Cub.

Not happening: stories

Arrived in Vientiane two days ago. Packed into two vans, unloaded at Phone Paseuth hotel. Hot water, air-con, electricity, room service, not bad.

Toilet light not working, so used a candle. Clarence is cool.

Self-dragged out of bed Monday morning. Went to lunch with a Singaporean student (male) and his Lao friend (male).

Went to Lao Brewery and had a PR presentation and tour. Rachel arrived just after and we asked questions. Got to try the beer first-hand, and got some calendars. No pictures allowed.

Went to World Bank and touched base with our dam contact.

Had dinner by the Mekong.

Fell asleep after a very long meeting.  

On Monday, IT Manager Anthony Doo issued stunned photojournalists Margareta Astaman (L) and Sophia Huang with D200 camera kits. The third member, Alphonsus Chern, took this picture while testing his camera. The trio were advised not to quick-draw their cameras cowboy-style, as the black Nikons have been known to cause passerbys to panic and dive for cover.