Through the Lens of Catastrophe

By Jacqueline Koch
AsiaMedia Contributing Writer

Jacqueline Koch chronicles the journey of a photojournalist who lost family and friends in the Dec. 26 tragedy, but took pictures that moved the world

Banda Aceh, Indonesia -- Through the lens of the catastrophe ushered in by the December 26 earthquake and tsunami, tragic personal loss, and his own daunting tale of survival, the world focused in on the images of Bedu Saini. The 42 year-old photographer, who has only been shooting professionally for three years, found himself in the spotlight of international acclaim not only for his haunting photos of that horrific day, but for taking a very unconventional route to reach the upper echelons among his professional peers.

In the fluorescent-lit entry office of Serambi, he pulls out a copy of a Japanese newspaper. Surrounded by columns of indecipherable characters, a powerful black and white photograph stands out; it is of two young people attempting to help an older man, his face askew in sheer anguish, escape the deadly torrent of the wave.

"It was only luck that I was there, not because of my skills as a photographer, I just shot what was in front of me," Saini says modestly. Yet the greater story is how the images ultimately reached a worldwide audience and Saini's path from anonymity as a amateur photographer to an internationally recognized photojournalist.

On Boxing Day, after the deadly black wave receded from the main intersection of Banda Aceh, Saini decided to leave his photo gear in the second floor of a store, where he hoped it would stay safe and dry. He then descended to the street and began wading his way through the debris-filled water toward his home to hunt for his family. He found his home flooded and destroyed. His wife and second child survived. Two of his children, one six-year-old and one just four-months, along with his mother, perished.

Eventually, Saini returned to the second story shop to reclaim his gear, but it had vanished. Strangely, 13 days after the disaster, his camera was returned to the Serambi office. The staff immediately seized the compact flash (CF) card and downloaded the images onto the computer in their makeshift newsroom. As the images appeared on the screen, they instantly realized how important the photos were.

"It was incredible," says colleague Nurdin Hasan, political editor. "The boss said, ‘These are great pictures, we have to publish all of them.'" The photos eventually ran worldwide. "When AP saw the pictures," he adds, "they came here to buy them all and they asked him (Saini) to go to the site and show them how he shot them."

The story of Saini's images, first lost and ultimately recovered,quickly circulated among the international media, which flooded into Banda Aceh to cover the disaster and hungrily seeking feature stories. Saini was sought out by international TV networks and newspapers. (For example, see an article in The Jakarta Post.)

Now, over three months after the disaster that claimed his two children, his mother and many colleagues and friends, this soft-spoken photojournalist speaks of his images as a blessing and a curse.

"Pictures of the tsunami are no longer interesting to us," he says quietly. Perhaps they are too painful. While Saini was shooting the disaster, the gush of deadly water was sweeping through his neighborhood and home, claiming his family.

But for Hasan, and the international public, Saini put a human face on the greatest natural disaster in modern history. "They are of huge humanitarian interest, if he sent them to World Press Photo," Hasan says of the international annual photojournalism award, "his pictures would win."

Among approximately a dozen images, one is of a group of women and young girls, who are running away from the water, their faces in bewildered panic. There is no doubt of the confusion, fear and chaos that swept through town at that moment when the wave crashed through the streets.

Saini's recent brush with international acclaim, however, is grounded in a story of very humble beginnings as a Serambi employee. His first job with the newspaper wasn't on the photo staff, nor in the processing lab but as an office cleaner -- he came in after hours to sweep, vacuum, and tidy up after the staff went home.

He then worked his way up into the film processing lab, where as he developed film and learned to print in the darkroom. That was when he turned his hobby into a serious professional interest.

"I learned from a colleague," says Saini, explaining how he turned to friends for pointers on composition and technique. Hasan points out that as time went by, he also began to see how the photo staff could improve their approach, offering suggestions on different angles. The watershed moment in Saini's career came staffing changes left a vacant position in the photo department. Saini made his move and asked to be considered for the job. "The office believed in me and they gave me a camera."

With a basic Nikon, he took on daily assignments. It was trial by fire, for Aceh's separatist conflict and military operations to crush GAM rebels were heating up. At times, Saini explains, he was restricted in the photos he could take. After May 2003 and the declaration of martial law, journalists faced severe press restrictions in Aceh, and photographers were no exception.

Saini describes in vague terms how he approached the new press limitations imposed by the military. "I take pictures depending the situation, we have to check out the conditions first." By all accounts, preventing a backlash from the top brass was one of the most daunting issues facing journalists covering the military operations in the last 19 months.

But the general feeling in Aceh is that the tsunami and its aftermath shifted the public's interest in the conflict; it is no longer the pressing issue as it was before. For Saini, the disaster transformed his career, but at the same time stole, his family.

"Everybody was asking about my pictures," he says listing CNN, BBC and others. "They were looking for me, asking about my family, but I was still so traumatized." Saini says that the sudden media attention brought an outpouring of support from journalists abroad as well. "I got an email from a Mexican journalist who said she wanted to help me -- she asked me for my bank account number."

Saini still doesn't elaborate on his personal loss, yet what he doesn't say speaks volumes. He describes how he copes: "If I sit at home, I think too much," so opt to head out to the field with his camera, documenting the landscape of destruction.

"I have to go around, I just go as I please, and then I can relax," he says. "This is how I rest. I'm taking pictures to document [the disaster and reconstruction]." He adds, "And five years later, I'm going back to those places to photograph them again."

He envisions the progress of the reconstruction effort. It is a photo documentary project that is clearly filled with hope. "There will be a change," he says confidently, comparing it to the terrorist attack on September 11 that leveled the World Trade Center. "The process to recover in Amercia is faster, here it will take five years, and we'll see what happens then."

You can see some of Bedu Saini's photos on a BBC slideshow.

Jacqueline Koch is a freelance photojournalist and reporter. Her work has been published in Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Sidney Morning Herald and Salon.com. Based near Seattle, she is a regular contributor to Pacific Northwest, The Seattle Times Sunday magazine. Koch is a Pew Fellow of International Reporting at Johns Hopkins University; her project focuses on post-Suharto Indonesia and she is traveling through Aceh for several weeks.

The views expressed above are those of the author and are not necessarily those of AsiaMedia or the UCLA Asia Institute.

Date Posted: 4/4/2005