The slights, annoyances and grievances photojournalists have to deal with

IMAGINE a day, when the world is 'dark' without any pictures documenting our lives.

Newspapers and magazines without pictures; televisions and videos without visuals; your passport, driving license and MyKad without a photo of the owner; news portals only displaying news without pictures – just try to imagine that.

Worse, weddings, the once-in-a-lifetime event for most, with no photographic documentation. Just imagine.

We will surely feel strange, unsettled and lonely. In fact, we will get bored, especially in this digital and social media age where many people want to watch and stare at a photo and have the news read to them.

That's what photographers do every day. We provide the pictures for the stories and news you consume. The photos we produce fill up all the various mediums that are currently available.

So in conjunction with World Photography Day today, I would like to highlight to readers of the issues that photographers face, more specifically in the media industry.

Media photographers are often marginalised, from the assignments to the workplace.

To balance up, this includes journalists, who often feel like second-class citizens and marginalised when it is felt that their services are no longer needed.

But the media, especially photographers, will only be praised and celebrated when the public needs their services and soon forgotten when they complete their task.

Photojournalists specifically, have to be on the frontline to capture the subject and often have to deal with various dangers, which is one of the 'work hazards' they have to face.

Perhaps we are lucky in Malaysia that there has not yet been an incident of a photographer being shot by a terrorist while on duty, except for one incident in which RTM cameraman, Mohamad Amirul Amin Mohamed Amer, was injured after he got shot.

The incident happened on the Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu Highway, Penang in 2016, when he tried to render aid by approaching the scene of the incident on the way to another assignment. Mistaken by the suspect, he got shot.

The photojournalist community will also never forget the incident of a fellow Bernama cameraman, the late Noramfaizul Mohd, who was shot dead in 2011 while on his way back to his accommodations in Somalia when he was covering the 1Malaysia Club Putera Humanitarian Mission in the capital of Mogadishu.

At the time of the incident, Noramfaizul was hit by a stray bullet from an extremist faction while he was with other members of the media in a four-wheel drive vehicle. TV3's cameraman, Aji Siregar Mazlan was also injured by shrapnel from the shooting.

Although never threatened with shootings and so on, Malaysian photographers often receive threats from individuals or groups who wish to harm them.

In fact, there have been several incidences where during an assignment, individuals punched and kicked photographers causing injuries and damaging their camera equipment. Dealing with abusive language is also something we endure on occassion. 

What I want to show here is that the media, especially photographers, have to be on the frontline to document the situation.

We can't sit behind a computer producing news and pictures. Not at all.

In Malaysia, I feel photographers are often considered second-class guests at any event, as if they can be put aside and are not important.

There are some situations where journalists are given comfortable seats during an event and are given a complete press kit. The photographer, on the other hand, will need to find their own seats and there are times they are asked to vacate the seat because it has been reserved for other guests.

Anyway, not all organisers, especially public relations officers, ignore the importance of a photographer. Only a few.

In terms of recognition, there are differences between journalists and photographers. Up till now, throughout my involvement as a photographer for 12 years and a journalist for 19 years, the highest media award in Malaysia has never been given to a photographer.

Award categories for photographers are also few, a maximum of two, compared to many categories for journalists.

That's just a glimpse of the gripes that photographers have every day, even as they fight for their lives to capture footage with the best subjects and angles for readers to see.

No matter what we do as photographers, we continue to strive to capture interesting images until we are recognised as an equal with our other media colleagues. – The Vibes, August 19, 2022