Here’s another image from my recent PNG trip, one that I’m fond of. It’s from the town of Buka, on Buka island, north Bougainville, the town from where you get the boat out to the Carteret Islands. We spent a few days there trying to organise a boat to take us out, and we used to be driven around by Ron, the hotel ‘gofer’ type guy. He had a big white “ute” (utility vehicle) which we and everyone else would jump on the back of and drive around town doing our, and his, chores.
After one or two journeys when I was beaten to the cab seat and had to sit in the back, I noticed the car windscreen was all cracked, and immediately I sensed a photo opportunity. It’s always enjoyable shooting photos through car windows for some reason, I never tire of it. And on this story the cracked windscreen helped, it helps get across the idea of a broken down town, where there was no fuel, no cold beers, no telephone cards, no bottled water, and on an island which until recently was embroiled in a civil war. So after noticing the crack I sat in the cab with Ron on every journey, photographing the town as we drove through, but it is this pic that I like out of all I shot. It also helps illustrate the story about the islands as this is the little sandy cove from which the banana boats depart to take people out to the them. It’s the town’s ferry terminal in a way.

A londer article by me about my trip to the Carterets will be on the Digital Journalist website in the January edition. I’ll post here when it goes up, in the meantime Richard Lloyd Parry has also posted about the assignment on his Asia Exile blog, with plenty of his photos.