Following on from the Sweet Water documentary here are some of the still images used in the A Just Climate campaign.

A Just Climate

People walk along a raised road in Gabura surrounded by damaged houses, dying trees and saline fields. Gabura was badly affected by Cyclone Aila that struck on May 25th 2009. Villagers were washed away by a tidal surge leaving many people homeless and their fields saline and unusable to grow crops. People survive by day labour or fishing and crabbing. Caritas provided 600 homes, rebuilt roads and fresh water supplies.

People from Gabura on the embankments they fled to and have been living on since Cyclone Aila.

Noren Sardar (67) who is married to Shita Dashi with 3 daughters and 2 sons from the fishing village of Jelepara. Noren's children go to the Caritas Environmental School. The traditional fishing communities are looked down on by wider society and often the children are not accepted into the local schools. Before the school was opened his children used to help him out on his boat and with domestic duties.

A fresh water canal in Shyamnagar. Due to the high rate of salinity in the surrounding soil due to shrimp farming, sea level rises and tidal surges during cyclones very little grows without this critical fresh water supplies. The canals also get contaminated with sea water during tidal surges in cyclones and have to cleaned and re excavated.

(Left) Sujan Sadar (8) grandson of fisherman Noren Sardar rowing his fathers fishing boat with Sujan Sadar (8), grandson of Noren Sadar. Before the school was built they would have had no access to education. The traditional fishing communities are looked down on by wider society and often the children are not accepted into the local schools. Instead they would be working on the fishing boats or domestic duties at home full time. Caritas established the school here in 2000. Before then, there were few opportunities for children from this area to be educated. Along with the usual subjects they are taught environmental subjects and about climate change to help them prepare for the future.

Shrimp farms in Shyamnagar. Due to the high rate of sea water needed and the salinity of the surrounding soil very little else grows around the shrimp farms. They have been ecologically disastrous for the environment in this region and salinity is increasing due to sea level rises and tidal surges during cyclones.

Gusto Gupal (37) next to his fresh water pond and vegetable garden in the village of East Jelekhali. The Gupal family received training and assistance as part of the program detailed below to help them adapt their land to farm rice, vegetables and fish after their land was flooded with saline water during Cyclone Aila in 2009.

Gusto Gupal (37) working in his rice field in the village of East Jelekhali. He is planting rice seedlings that were planted 25-30 days previously in another field. They are then transplanted into this field for around 3 months before harvesting.

Two woman walk along a raised road in Gabura carrying fresh water pots surrounded by damaged houses, dying trees and saline fields. Gabura was badly affected by Cyclone Aila that struck on May 25th 2009. Villagers were washed away by a tidal surge leaving many people homeless and their fields saline and unusable to grow crops. People survive by day labour or fishing and crabbing.

Nurjahan Sheik (30) and her daughter Runa (2) in Sura village in Gabura. They along with the rest of their village had to flee when Cyclone Aila destroyed it. They have resettled by the embankments of the Kholpetua River for the past 2 years. They hope to return one day but with no money and no recontruction of their village they are not hopeful.

Views from the top of Cyclone Shelter in Gabura built by Caritas in 1992. It now doubles as Darussunmat Daichil Madrasa with 375 students which has close to 50% girls and boys attending. Girls and boys during morning exercise classes on the playing field. Gabura was badly affected by Cyclone Aila that struck on May 25th 2009. Villagers were washed away by a tidal surge leaving many people homeless and their fields saline.

Rice farming.

People going to work through the rice fields and shrimp farms early morning on a foggy day in Shyamnagar.

Sujan Sadar (8) rowing his fathers fishing boat. The traditional fishing communities are looked down on by wider society and often the children are not accepted into the local schools. Before the school was built they would have had no access to education.Instead they would be working on the fishing boats or domestic duties at home full time.

Below is a short documentary film shot in January in Bangladesh for Caritas Australia. For me, it’s a bit of a milestone as it’s my first documentary film that has been produced and used in a widespread campaign which I’m very happy about. It was all shot on a Canon 5D Mk11 and separate audio taken on a Tascam DR-2D. The Caritas editing team have done a great job putting it all together.

As always there is room for improvement and I’ll describe how I’d approach it differently next time. First of all is the time issue. I had two excellent field staff helping me as interpreters and guides but the filming, stills and audio were all done by myself. I also had to collect stories and case studies from a number of different projects so the workload was very high.

Originally this was just going to be a photo assignment so the mind set was on photography and filming came second. What I realise is the importance of b-roll to help in the editing process and the flow of the story. Filming is very time consuming so I’d make sure to build in extra time to get much more b-roll.

Everything considered however I’m very happy with the outcome. Like most people filming with DSLR it’s a fairly new process which takes time to master but I’m looking forward to the next opportunity to take it to the next level. Please have a look and any comments would be much appreciated. Thanks.

For more information please click here. A Just Climate.

Sweet Water

Sweet Water explores the impact of climate change on communities living in the coastal regions of South-West Bangladesh. The short documentary exposes the rapid rise of sea water, the destruction of vital soils through increased salinity and the increased frequency and ferocity of cyclones in Bangladesh.

The impacts of climate change will be of significant detriment to the health, food security and livelihoods of some of the poorest communities in the world, exacerbating existing development challenges in these vulnerable regions. Ironically, it is often the poorest communities who have contributed the least to global warming who are the most vulnerable to its impacts. Sweet Water illustrates how the vulnerable coastal communities in South-West Bangladesh are responding to the impacts of climate change in their region.

Thanks and credits to: Caritas Bangladesh and the communities of Satkhira District, Richard Wainwright, Lisa-Anne Morris and Cam MacKellar.

I thought I’d post a quick update as to what I’m doing at the moment. I’m currently one month into a three month study course in Bangkok at Chulalongkorn University studying on the Rotary Peace and Conflict Resolution program. It’s been intense but stimulating with lots of new ideas and concepts, many I’ve never considered before or been exposed to.

Our class of 17 consists of a colourful mix of nations from Brazil to Malaysia, USA to India, Zimbabwe to Italy with backgrounds as varied including aid workers in Sudan, policemen in Mumbai and Philadelphia, a researcher in Java, social worker in Rio and land issues consultant in Argentina. All in all an amazing mix of very professional people which creates some pretty lively discussions..normally over a few beers..!

So far we have been taught how to analyse conflicts by looking for structural causes, connectors and dividers and actors. How to negotiate, mediate and facilitate discussions and situations. Looked at the concepts of Do No Harm and Human Security and the role media plays in conflict.

If your interested in keeping up to date with how the course is going I’m writing a separate blog here:

http://conflictres.wordpress.com

I made a conscious decision before setting off on this course not to bring all my equipment so I only have one camera and one lens. That may sound strange for a photographer but I realised that this was an academic study course, not a photo assignment. It’s been a bit frustrating at times because I’ve missed making some nice pictures but a trip to northern Thailand made me realise I had made the right decision. When I’m taking pictures, I get into this ‘zone’ where nothing else matters but the image. To make the most of the course you have to write copious amounts of notes and listen to all the lectures and concentrate on what is being said…something you can’t do when taking pictures..!

However, when we visited a Buddhist Monastery right on the border of Burma I couldn’t help myself because it was just screaming out to be photographed..! Whilst I think I made some nice pictures, I wasn’t ‘present’ for those 20 minutes..! I was also using a fellow students Nikon..!!..not something I’d normally admit to being a Canon man but my mirror detached from my 5D. However, I finally got to use the CPS Gold service back in Bangkok who fixed, cleaned and tested the camera in under an hour for $16….you can’t complain at that…!!

Novice monks and students at Wat Fa Wiang from Shan State in burma line up for their lunch at 12pm. The won't eat again until the next morning. Many Shan people fled Burma and took refuge in the monastery after heavy fighting in this area in 2002 between the Shan State Army and the Burmese Government.

Many Shan people fled Burma and took refuge in the monastery after heavy fighting in this area in 2002 between the Shan State Army and the Burmese Government.

Novice monks and students at Wat Fa Wiang.

Novice monks and students at the Sangha Metta Project. They are also taught how to grow rice and be self sufficient.

A Burmese soldier looks across the border into Wat Fa Wiang from what used to be a dormitory for a number of novice monks. The monastery lost this part of the building after heavy fighting in this area in 2002 between the Shan Sate Army and the Burmese Government. Many Shan people fled Burma and took refuge in the monastery.

View from Thailand over the Golden Triangle with Burma on the left and Laos on the right. Northern Thailand and the borderlands between Burma and Laos are home to a number of stateless hill tribes and is renown for drug smuggling and human trafficking.

A Thai military check point in Piang Luang. They are mostly looking for drugs and arms but also illegal immigrants and human trafficking.

A women looks out of a bus at a Thai military check point in Piang Luang. They are mostly looking for drugs and arms but also illegal immigrants and human trafficking

Once again it has been almost 4 months since my last post..!! It’s not that I’ve haven’t been busy, quite the opposite in fact, things haven’t stopped since Christmas which now seems like a very long time ago..!

So what’s been happening..? Well, in January I was in Bangladesh completing a project for an Australian NGO on the impact of climate change in the Sundarbans region which was an eye opener. It was my first time in Bangladesh and I really liked the place, Dhaka is crazy whilst the coastal regions are beautiful but facing some very real issues due to climate change compounded with the ever increasing devastating cyclones. I’ll hopefully be putting something on this blog very soon after the stories have been used in their campaigns.

Then I had a commission from The Sunday Times Magazine in London in outback Australia, which again is embargoed until it’s published, hopefully soon, so will be writing something up after that.

Then a few weeks ago I returned to northern Uganda to complete a story about how the north is recovering now that the Lord’s Resistance Army have moved their murderous ways into DRC, south Sudan and the Central African Republic. For me, this was a story close to my heart. I first went and reported on the LRA nearly 10 years ago as a very green photographer but the stories and images I saw there had a huge impact on me and knew I’d like to follow it up in the future. It’s taken some time but I jumped at the chance to go back to what is now thankfully, a peaceful if traumatised region in a beautiful country. This was my fourth visit to Uganda having completed a story on HIV, the LRA and proposing to my wife whilst gorilla trekking so it remains one of my favourite countries..!!

My original story can be found here LRA and I have used a number of these images to introduce the context of the latest story. It was a very short trip, so a real challenge to put a story together but we were well prepared and knew what was needed. The main aim was to produce images for two newspaper journalists to highlight the situation and what the NGO is doing to help there. On top of that, I was asked to produce a multimedia piece so time was the biggest factor. Making sure I had the images needed in the bag, I’d then focus on getting as much video and audio as possible. It was a huge learning curve once again as every assignment is different but next time I’ll make sure I’ll:-

A:- Shoot much, much more B-Roll as this makes editing far more interesting/easier.

B:-Audio, audio and more audio..!..I know audio is the key to a successful project and I need to spend more time learning how to juggle recording ambient, the person being interviewed and the person translating all at the same time.  The sound on the 5D even with a Rode stereo mike is just not usable when compared to recording on a separate recorder, a Tascam in my case. In this case I recorded the translator on the Tascam which sounds good and I hoped to record the sound of the people being interviewed on a Rode mic attached to the camera but the his and weak sound means it is almost impossible to match the two together to get decent audio. The ideal situation would be to record the interview properly then do the translation separately if time wasn’t an issue.

C:- Invest more time on Lynda.com and other training courses learning Final Cut Pro and Motion to make the project more animated.

Next trip hopefully there will be enough time to do a proper interview with someone who can narrate the history and give context to the story, spend more time shooting b-roll and have a clearer plan how I’m going to collect decent audio..that being a perfect world of course..!

I’ve uploaded the presentation here and also some images in case you don’t have time to watch so any comments please just let me know..genuine feedback is always very welcome..

Legacy of The Lord’s Resistance Army

For over two decades one of Africa’s most violent rebel groups, The Lord’s Resistance Army have been terrorising northern Uganda.

Their initial aim was to defend the rights of the Acholi population but this quickly disappeared as they embarked on a brutal campaign of child abductions, murder, mutilations, rape and looting. Over 30,000 children have been abducted, forced to fight and kill each other and family members which has resulted in over 90% of the population fleeing to live in squalid displaced persons camps.

The LRA finally left Uganda in 2006 heading into Sudan for peace talks leaving an uneasy peace in northern Uganda allowing people to start returning home to their villagers. Lazira is a small village of 350 people in Agago District where people now feel safe enough to return. They fled to Patongo IDP Camp in 2002 at the height of the conflict. Many people were abducted from Lazira village by the LRA and were forced to attack their own people and many other similar villagers all over Uganda. Most have now escaped the LRA and have returned home and are trying to integrate back into the community they once terrorised.

The peace talks however failed and now the LRA are roaming the countryside of the DRC, South Sudan and Central African Republic, continuing their reign of terror on communities there.

Ongom Donsiano (36) who was abducted by the LRA in 1998 from Luziro village in Northern Uganda. He was sent to South Sudan for training and became part of an elite fighting unit. He became a sergeant and then a commander and gave orders for attacks on civilians. He decided to leave the LRA and contacted the Ugandan army giving them information which led them to defeat the LRA in the area surrounding his home village of Luzira. He is now the head of the Luziro Farming Collective.

Odoch David (21) who was abducted in 2000 for 3 years from his home village of Luzira in Northern Uganda. He was taken to Kitgum where he was trained to fight then sent to the frontline and operated in both Uganda and Sudan. He was involved with a large attack on a Ugandan military base in Kitgum. He escaped after being surrounded by government forces and taken to the nearby town of Patongo. He returned home to Luzira where he found out his father was dead and his brother had also been abducted. He now has a wife and 3 children and lives in Luzira village.

Abur Carla (28) who was abducted by the LRA from her home village of Luzira in Northern Uganda in 2001 for 6 years. She was forced to become a fighter, loot and abduct other people. Many abductees were also forced to kill fellow abductees and villagers. She managed to escape in 2007 during a government forces attack and fled to Patongo town. She has now returned to live in Luzira village.

On the road to former Operat IDP camp from Patongo town in a Caritas vehicle during a rain storm.

Patongo IDP Camp on the outskirts of Patongo town which at its height housed over 50,000 people who fled their villages from potential LRA attack. Many people have now resettled back to their original villagers but a number still remain.

Patongo IDP Camp on the outskirts of Patongo town which at its height housed over 50,000 people who fled their villages from potential LRA attack. Many people have now resettled back to their original villagers but a number still remain.

Akidi Mariana (72) in the former Patongo IDP Camp in Northern Uganda where she lived for 5 years having fled her nearby village of Luzira after attacks by the LRA. She lived with six other members of her family in this hut. Pictured with one of her sons Okot Bosco Muleke (27).

Patongo IDP Camp on the outskirts of Patongo town which at its height housed over 50,000 people who fled their villages from potential LRA attack. Many people have now resettled back to their original villagers but a number still remain.

Patongo IDP Camp on the outskirts of Patongo town which at its height housed over 50,000 people who fled their villages from potential LRA attack. Many people have now resettled back to their original villagers but a number still remain.

A mother and child in the village of Luzira in Northern Uganda. The village was abandoned and people fled mostly to Patongo IDP Camp nearby following attacks by the LRA. They stared to resettle back in Luzira from 2007.

Akidi Mariana (72) outside her home in the village of Luzira in Northern Uganda. She resettled back home in 2007 having lived with her family in Patongo IDP Camp for 5 years having fled attacks by the LRA.

(This is the latest version of the multimedia with a few image, transition and caption changes)

It’s taken some time but I’ve finally put together a multimedia presentation from my recent assignment to Belfast as part of the Borders and Barriers project.

It was my first time shooting video, using a lavalier mic and making pictures which was hard work but very enjoyable. Juggling all three is a real challenge and you need time and space to achieve that. I was fairly realistic about what I could produce in 10 days and am quite happy with the outcome and now I’m more experienced with the technical side I’m looking forward to the next assignment.

Much more time consuming however was learning Final Cut Pro 7 when I returned..!! It’s a monster of a program but worth every minute of training on Lynda.com. I’ve only scratched the surface on its use but wanted to put together a small presentation to see how it worked and looked. There are some changes I know I’d like to make already but this is a work in progress and needs a return trip to Belfast to complete but any comments or suggestions on any aspect of the film would be appreciated.

Do you think it needs subtitles, is the music too loud, cuts to quick, pictures up for long enough and more importantly, was it engaging and informative…? Any comments like this would be really helpful for the future. Hope you enjoy it and speak to you soon….

Thanks…

The Belfast Peacelines-V2 from Richard Wainwright on Vimeo.