The Photojournalist | Behind The Scene at Parliament Square

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | The Photojournalist at Parliament Square | Kuala Lumpur

The photograph above were taken during welcoming ceremony of the State Visit of His Excellency The Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada to Malaysia on 14th November 2011 at Parliament Square here in Kuala Lumpur.

I took this picture behind a group of a photojournalist so that I can share with you what the behind the scene look like, we we were position during this ceremony. Normally we will arrive here an hour earlier before the ceremony began. Just to make sure everything was in order and even though most of the photographers here have some experience covering this ceremony but we just wanted to make sure that nothing is changes, I mean the flow of the event and furthermore we must get here before all the delegates, ambassador and all the ministers arrive, otherwise we will get trapped in the traffic jammed, so better be safe than sorry.

This ceremony normally will took normally about twenty minutes, and it start the moment the Governor arrive, and later on the Governor will walk and inspect the guard of honour and then he will be introduced to the all cabinet ministers attending the ceremony and also he will be introduced to all the ambassador from different country  attending the event. After that the Governor and The King of Malaysia will proceed with the State Drive (Governor and The King sit on the same car) towards the Hotel where the Governor stay.

Taking about the equipment, most of the times, the photojournalist will have two camera body at hand with different lens, usually one with 70-200mm or 300 to 400mm lens. Why need two lens? As you can see when the Governor began to walk, he was too far away from the Photographer and if we are using 70-200mm lens, the subject will look too small in the frame and very hard to identify him in prints, unless the photographers intention is to show everything, I mean to include the Kuala Lumpur skyline where you can see the Kuala Lumpur Tower at the back and also malaysia famous landmark, the Petronas Twin Tower there.

Some photographers do that if they have the time but very rarely they do it because this event is quite critical, you have to decide what type of a picture that you want to get and normally those who work with international news agency like Reuters, AF and AFP will go for a tight shot of the Governor and the static guard of honor. Sometimes they include full length body and sometimes they just include from the upper hip and up.

You may say that it is better to take full length body and then cropped it later in Photoshop but for Photojournalist, times is very crucial, we don’t have much time to play around with the editing, it is very-very important to get it tight or to get it right in the camera so that we can just send the picture to the agency or those who need the picture immediately and we have to keep in mind also, the time different among country, in Malaysia it is still early in the morning and somewhere in Canada it might be almost midnight, so the photographers who work with the international agency always have this on ther  mind.

They must send the picture complete with the captions as fast as possible before the dateline, if possible they want their pictures to be used in prints for their respective country for tomorrow morning newspaper. In another words they want to be among the first to report this news as fast as possible and as accurately as possible, especially for the online media. In short words, getting it right in the camera is crucial and very-very important.

Back to why the photographers use two set of camera body with different focal length of lens, it is because, once the Governor began his guard of honor inspection, he will be too small in the viewfinder and that’s why  we need the 300 0r 400mm and when he get closer to the end of the static guard of honour, the 300mm is not suitable because it was getting nearer and by that time, the photographers will quickly switch another camera body equipped with 70-200mm to get a proper shots. We also need the 70-200mm when the Governor and The King walking towards the photographer to be introduced to the ministers on the left side of this picture. 70-200mm will give the photographers more flexibility, they can zoom in and out as the subject approaching the end of the red carpet, in front of the photographers.

Just to let you know also, our position is static, we can’t move here and there, our movement is restricted and among the reason why we must arrives as early as possible is to secure our position for better angle than those who came in late.

I don’t need to take this shot actually but I think, I should take this shot to better illustrate the flow of the event, since  you rarely  see this point of view in newspaper or any online media.

Even though I have taken this assignment for more than I can remember but each time I was assign to cover this event, my adrenaline build up and my heart beat increased because this is very important assignment, I can’t make any mistake, I must get it right because I know that I will never get a second chance, if I miss it, I will miss it forever. The act of taking pictures and merely pushing shutter the button may look easy to someone but the process of getting the picture is not as easy as you might imagine. There are a lot of thinkings on the photojournalist mind.