The best-laid plans …

I spent most of today doing research for Handshake Magazine (the MNO capstone project) on the federal seizure of seven–no, six–no, nine–websites accused of illegally streaming first-run Hollywood movies and other copyrighted content. I had three Firefox and two Safari windows open, with about 30 tabs each–don’t ask why I used two different browsers at once, I don’t know–tracking down warrants, domain registrations, news items, blog posts and all manner of public record. We called the U.S. Attorney for Southern New York, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, VeriSign and the owner of a new site cloned from one of the sites that got confiscated.

The end result? About 400 words.

My colleague, and fellow “breaking news powerhouse*,” Ana Yanni has all the sordid details over at Adventures of a News Duck.

*Credit for the “breaking news powerhouse” title goes to Matt Doxstad, editor of Handshake.

Communication

Your ability to communicate with editors, clients, friends and family depends greatly on where you’re actually going. Many places in the world have good cell reception. Some places even have Internet access.

For my trip to Sierra Leone, I rented a cell phone from Cellular Abroad. The phone worked OK most times, but it was expensive, and didn’t work when I really needed it. Luckily, my driver’s local phone worked just fine.

Since then, I’ve purchased a $50 unlocked GSM phone on eBay, and international prepaid SIM card from OneSimCard. Now, when I travel, I’ve got communication the minute I land, which is very important when your fixer is nowhere to be found at the airport. When I get situated, I’ll buy a local SIM card, and use that to make all my calls. Local cell service is almost always cheaper and more reliable, and GSM is the de facto world standard.

Depending on where you are, you may be able to purchase a cellular USB device to connect to the Web, but don’t count on it. If you’re using a Windows machine, keep it isolated from local computers. Never use a USB drive to transfer files back and forth. While there are plenty of computers in the developing world, many of them are packed to the brim with malicious software. The last thing you need is for your computer to go down in the field.

Before you leave, it’s a good idea to put together a list of emergency contacts to leave with friends, family, or whoever else you may rely on back home. You should have one person designated as your main contact in case of trouble, someone who can coordinate anything you may need. A spouse or immediate relative is the best choice: it’ll be easier for them to get information from governmental and medical organizations. You may also want to consider giving your main contact power of attorney, so they can access your bank accounts in an emergency.

The emergency contact list should be comprehensive, include numbers for your client or employer, other family members, embassies or consulates both the country you’re in, the State Department and the local American presence. You’ll also want to include more mundane things, like the maintenance number for your apartment, your veterinarian or church.

This last part didn’t really occur to me until I watched Jon Stewart’s interview Roxana Saberi last week.

Prearrange “help” signals. If something happens, you need a way to say “I’m in trouble” without saying “I’m in trouble.”

Improvising and hoping the person on the other end can read between the lines is unreliable at best.

It has to be something simple and innocuous, like asking how your non-existent dog or uncle is doing.  Discuss the signal, and what to do when it happens, ahead of time. Hopefully it’s something you’ll never use.

Stupidly, I misplaced the phone number, but at least I remembered the conversation. I pulled out my small business card, and called the international number on the back. The customer service rep connected me to global assist.

“I’m stuck in Sierra Leone,” I said. “I missed my flight out.”

I was in that weird place, somewhere between giddy and crestfallen.

The operator on the other end took all of my information, my itinerary number, and started looking up where exactly I was, and how I could get back to the States. I’ve never be envious of anyone with a cubicle job before, but I just imagined sitting at a desk somewhere in the middle of Iowa. I really wanted to be in Iowa.

Samuel asked me what I wanted to do, and reminded me that there was a man who worked at the hospital and he airport who lived close, if we wanted to stay the night there.

We drove to his house, which was less than a mile away. Somewhere in that mile, I lost most of my cell reception. Samuel’s phone worked fine, but he was almost out of minutes, and we wouldn’t be able to buy more until morning. We settled in, and I tried to sleep.

Eventually morning came. Around 8 or 9, we went to find one of the ubiquitous cell phone vendors on the main road in front of the airport. I bought 1000 units (something like $20 US), and finally got back on with American Express. They didn’t have much new information for me, but they did confirm there was a flight out in about 14 hours, with a few seats open. The bad news was that British Airways wouldn’t speak to anyone except me about the flight.

Eventually, we got on a conference call with the airline, and booked everything through to Chicago. I had to overnight in Chicago, because all the Syracuse flights were booked.

At that point, I would’ve been happy just to get to London.

I felt so much better with a plan, even if I wasn’t going to be home for another two days.

Now it was simply a matter of waiting. We headed back to the house for a little while, listened to the radio, and had some breakfast.

In the time it took us to get back to the house it also started raining. Monsooning, really.

Samuel stayed with me the whole day, until it was time to start boarding. Words really can’t describe my gratitude.

Africa is an interesting place. The man pictured here is Samuel Vamboi, my driver while I was in Sierra Leone. Without Samuel, I really don’t know what I would’ve done.

Lungi International Airport, while ostensibly in Freetown, is on an island roughly nine miles out into the Atlantic Ocean. Travelers can get there by ferry, helicopter or hovercraft (bizarrely). On the day I was supposed to depart, we decided to take the ferry. Flights in and out of Lungi from London Heathrow generally arrive in the evening (7 p.m. or so), and depart again before midnight.

Samuel picked me up around 3 or 4 in the afternoon to begin the sojourn to the airport. Traffic in Freetown is unbelievable–I probably spent as much time sitting in traffic as I did working–but even so, three hours should be enough time to get from the guest house to the ferry terminal, and on to the airport.

We arrived at the ferry shortly after 6 p.m., just in time to see the ferry departing. Normally, a 6 p.m. ferry departing at 6 p.m. wouldn’t be astonishing, but this is Africa. Nothing runs on time. That should’ve been my first clue.

No matter, everyone assured me the 9 p.m. ferry would get me to the airport with time to spare.

We waited around the ferry terminal, killing time, and I tried not to worry about missing my flight.

Naturally, the 9 p.m. ferry did NOT leave on time. Nor did it take 30 minutes to cross, as I was told. No, because the tide was coming in, the ferry took just over an hour. We docked at the ferry terminal–roughly 15 miles from the airport–just after 10. Toward the end of the ferry ride, I was getting increasingly anxious. I had a bad feeling.

Since we were one of the first vehicles onto the ferry, we were at the front. That meant we’d be one of the last vehicles off.

Amazingly, Samuel was able to maneuver our full-size Toyota Hilux pickup truck in front of half the other cars on the ferry. Backwards.

Once we cleared the ferry terminal, it was a race to the airport. We were bombing these third-world, one-and-a-half lane roads at 100 kph or more, with all manner of carts, cars and livestock surrounding us. If you’ve never heard a 2.5 L diesel shrieking at red line … it’s quite a sound.

We arrived at the airport and rushed in. The gormless man at the check-in counter simply said we were too late, that I couldn’t board the plane. There was no changing his mind.

I was crushed.

After anticipating the trip home, and SEEING the plane I was supposed to take, I simply broke down.

The people at the airport were no help, and I realized not only did I miss my flight, I had no idea when I would be able to leave, or if I had enough money on my American Express to pay the fees I’d undoubtedly rack up for changing my flight plans AFTER my flight left.

I called home, and explained (poorly), that I wasn’t on the plane, and didn’t know what I was going to do. I said I would call back when I had more information, but my rented cell phone didn’t have reception later, so I couldn’t call back until roughly 18 hours later. As far as everyone back home was concerned, I was off the grid. Ironically, British Airways told my mother I was on the plane, so they worried less than they probably should’ve.

After hanging up, I tried to compose myself, and turned to find Samuel.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I will stay with you.”

I don’t have words to describe what that felt like. It settled me enough to try to figure out my next move. I didn’t even have a phone number for British Airways.

This is from an afternoon spent with the Kissy nutrition unit. They spent the better part of two days preparing Benemix, which has all sorts of stuff in it. The final product is a powdery supplement for infants, high in protein and calcium.

Here, they’re cooking, drying and mixing most of the ingredients before they go into the grinder.

It rained. A lot. I took this one the day my D700 went down from water damage. In fact, it’s one of the last photos from that body on this trip. I was out shooting the nutrition workers cooking up some Benemix to hand out.

Shooting memorial services is never easy. You try to stay out of the way, while still getting what you need. I was fortunate enough to get this one as the pall bearers were bringing the casket from the hearse to the chapel. As you can see from the uniforms, officers from several different departments came to the memorial.

Medeski Martin and Wood formed in New York City in 1991. Their music is rooted in jazz and blues, but the musicians pull material from a wide variety of musical styles including hip-hop. Copyright 2009 Jamie De Pould/TheNewsHouse.com

MMW bassist Chris Wood plucks the strings on his 1920s upright. Throughout the show, Wood traded between the upright and various acoustic and electric bass guitars. Copyright 2009 Jamie De Pould/TheNewsHouse.com

One of the hardest things about shooting live music is the lighting. The rapidly changing, often colored lights can sometimes throw the meter for a loop. This was especially true for Phish. Their light shows tend to be more extravagant than just about anyone out there, and their lighting guy Chris Kuroda improvises right along with the band, so you never quite know what to expect. For Medeski Martin and Wood, I shot aperture priority, auto-ISO with center-weighted metering at -2.0 exposure compensation. I had the ISO set up for a minimum shutter speed around 1/80s, but I often hit the ISO ceiling first. Most of the pictures turned out well, and I was able to get a wide variety of images. We ended up running an overall and a cropped version of the upright bass above. See the article here.

For Phish, I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew it was going to be hectic. I used roughly the same settings, but only set for -1.0 exposure compensation. When I got back to edit down the pictures, I was surprised to see how many frames I shot at ISO 200. There were several frames that were either completely white or completely black, because the lights were changing so quickly, but technically, most of my images were dead-on. A little toning, dodging, burning and they’re ready to publish.

One of the big (HUGE) things I forgot on the MMW show was ear protection. I normally keep a good set of earplugs in my kit, but between switching bags back and forth, and going to Sierra Leone, I apparently lost mine. I have a tendency to stand in front of the stacks when I shoot. My only saving grace was that the main speakers were elevated above the crowd, so I wasn’t getting directly blasted. But my ears were still ringing when I woke up the next morning. There was no way I was going to make the same mistake for Phish, so I ran up to guitar center Sunday afternoon and picked up a new pair. It was still loud, but manageable.

Images shot on Nikon, audio recorded on Sound Devices. Edited with Pro Tools LE and Final Cut Pro.

View it in HD

Funk N Waffles, Syracuse, N.Y. from Jamie De Pould on Vimeo.