Sustainable energy? Credit: Damian Baker.
By the NewsHooker
Well, where there’s smoke there’s fire, or a coal-fired power station.
Had to do a Rural Fire Service (RFS) accreditation, found myself running a lot too late and going way too fast on the bike with way too much gear on the back. RFS did a slick professional presentation and I got the accreditation card among the gaggle of bob cuts, boob jobs and egos that we generously call the media.
I left as I arrived, in a hurry, but this time at least with at least 50 fire-hardened media types. Arriving in the city of Sydney a black plume of smoke was visible on the horizon. I laughed as I headed to the scene, so soon as it was after the fire accreditation and tried to imagine how many cameras would be arriving at this one.
Not so however, dinner must have been on the table for not one camera was at the scene of the four wheel drive melting on the road in Petersham. I got a couple of pics, chatted to the firies (firemen) and uploaded the images to the Telegraph. No big story but maybe a dollar or two for not too much effort.
Fire truck. Credit: Damian Baker.
I had a few whiskeys with my photojournalist friend Peter at Bondi looking over the floodlit beach from his office window and then grabbed an early night. I wanted to catch some desperately-needed shuteye as I needed to leave Sydney to travel to travel to Melbourne at 7am the next morning to cover the weekend Hazelwood power station protests.
My travel partner was my good friend Nat, who is a Friends of the Earth (FoE) coordinator and great to travel with, full of stories and great ideas. As we left the plane a quality 1980′s Corolla station wagon with graffiti down the panels and a bloke called Jimbo at the wheel pulled in, squealing into the Tiger Air Cage flight area (if you havn’t traveled Tiger you really should, the arrivals lounge is classic.)
We climbed into the vehicle with a little trepidation as the Corolla was to be our home, office and war wagon for the next few days.
Jimbo gave us the quick run down; “doors don’t lock, windows won’t wind up the front passenger window may fall out, if you need to get in the back you sometime need to climb back from the front to pull a wire to open it up.”
Er sounds good.
“Its fine mechanically but I’m not too attached to it” he said.
“If someone want to paint it up and run it through the front gate [of Hazelwood power station] let ‘em have it,” he added as an afterthought.
Someone asked Jimbo if he could “…pick up Martin Ferguson’s head and seventeen fake wind generators and take em with you?”
Mmm, love working on a budget, it tends to make you so flexible.
Taking off in Jimbo’s Corolla, it was while arguing the benefits and pitfalls of GPS’s that we became lost, before we decided to grab some supplies, dropped into a few op shops to get some blankets and swerved to the side of the road to pick up a discarded mattress which we strapped to the roof.
Look out Hazelwood here comes the Media unit!!!!
Power Station, Victoria. Credit: Damian Baker.
But it wasn’t long after I was shooting a few intro shots of the Latrobe Power stacks that we became lost again. While driving around looking for the camp ground we ran into Rap Media and become “double lost media teams stirred not shaken”.
It was while we were wandering aimlessly shooting images and video footage that we had our first police contact, a report of a possible jumper on the Strathbogie Highway bridge had bought out the boys in blue.
Not that easy fellas the fun has just begun!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Probably be seeing a bit more of you boys over the next few days, I thought.
The NewsHooker gears up for an assignment. Credit: Damian Baker.
Every week theangle.org’s very own Newshooker takes a witty or jaundiced look (depending on the assignment) behind the scenes of the sausage factory that is Australian news reporting.The Newshooker lifts the lid of what it takes to be a successful photojournalist.
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