Tuesday, March 23, 2010

WORKFLOW: Al Harma

WORKFLOW is a ongoing blog post that will convey my experiences while on assignment. These thoughts might range from the impression a subject has left to explanations about the conceptual approach in the visual reporting. Enjoy. 











Assignment: Covering an assault training session in Al Harma, located in the Western Region of the UAE, between members of the United Arab Marines and the Royal Marine Commandos. 


This particular day required I start early. I needed to be three hours west by 830 am. This meant leaving from Abu Dhabi at 5 am-ish in order to arrive in Al Harma on time to meet with my contact. Upon arrival we were asked to wait. 
No problem I just went back to watching the road where grains of sand mimicked a swirled sky. It ended up being a good patch of welcomed downtime for the writer and I.  We were both a little blurry eyed from either the early assignment or the jolts of caffeine now in our systems. We ended up talking about the story line and other random thoughts while I indulged in my disgusting habit, smoking way too many cigarettes, again. 
Eventually the officer returned and escorted us to where the training session was taking place. As any good public affair officer does - he briefed us along the way. All the while our cargo of four or five military SUVS zoomed deeper into this nothingness of dunes and dunes and more dunes. 
Popp, ppppPOP, booom, BBoooM! 
So the sounds of artillery greeted us. I jumped out and assessed the area. 
Click... click, click, click...
I fired away
It was a near miss. The drill was over in a matter of minutes. 

1 comment:

......the Pasture said...

great images, and what a great column with even a better set of restrictions, none.