The Photographer and The Assignment During Kerdau State By-Elections

© Shahrul | A Photograph of Me in Rubber Plantation at Teluk Sentang Kerdau, Pahang Taken By Shahrul

Reading, this is what I like to do when I’ve nothing to do here at rubber plantation in Teluk Sentang, a small village in Kerdau on the outskirts of Temerloh Pahang. Actually I was waiting for my friend to finish his assignment, just a small assignment for our department at one of the house just across the street from where I was sitting there reading a book.

You might say that, how come I’ve a free time to read when I should be busy photographing the Kerdau by-elections. The truth to be told is that, I can’t move anywhere else because we just have one transport to move around and it was not the transport that our department provided for us. Me and my colleague  move around using a car courtesy of one of our IT people who is busy working at  Media Centre in Kerdau. Usually for this kind of assignment, our department ( Information Department of Malaysia ) will provided for us a car to move around but when the Merlimau and Kerdau by-elections happen at the same time, we left with no transport. The problem happen because most of the transport or the car were reserved for Merlimau. We know in advanced that we will have a Merlimau by-elections and suddenly we have another by-elections in Kerdau and that’s where the problem started. We left with no transport. We have to make some other arrangement.

You might ask then, why I don’t use my own car, good question, the problem is I don’t have a car, neither do my colleague, we both only have a motorcycle and it was not a good choice of transportation here considering the distance that we have to cover everyday, most of the time, it will be more than 100 KM journey everyday, going back and forth. For an example, the distance between Temerloh and Felda Jengka 23 is approximately more than 50 KM and from there we have to move around to Jengka 22 and Jengka 25. We visit this area almost everyday, so you can imagine the distance that we have to cover, so when we have just one single transport to move around, we have not much choice but to prioritize our assignment depending on our department requirement.

Most of the times we have more than ten assignment per day during the course of this by-elections but but we can’t cover them all because most of the times also the assignment happen at the same time, simultaneously, only at different places, so we have to choose which assignment that we need to cover. Which Ministers that we need to follow, which event that is more important to cover and if there is so much event to cover or Ministers coming down here in Kerdau, we have to keep our very own Minister a top priority which is Rais Yatim, Minister of Information, Communication and Culture. Our department require two photographers to cover our Minister and forget all other Ministers because usually other Minister have their own Photographer following them along from Putrajaya.

Things get a little bit chaotic when The Prime Minister or the Deputy Minister pay a visit here in Kerdau, we have to prioritize on them, their schedule is tight from the moment they arrive until they left for Kuala Lumpur or some other places. The truth to be told also is that we don’t really spend most of our times following the candidate for the Kerdau State by-elections which is Syed Ibrahim Syed Ahmad from Barisan Nasional. We are not campaigning for him. There are a lot of official ceremony happens here in Kerdau, whether it was directly or indirectly happen for this election is none of our concern, our task here is just to document the event but then again, we need to prioritize, we cannot position ourselves at so many different place at the same time, we have to make a wise decision and most of the time, it is our department decision or direction that we must follow.

When we get stuck, this is what I do reading, why? Because the “event” that my friend cover is very small, just a simple ceremony held in one of the house across the street where I was reading the book with less than twenty people inside the house. There is no point for two photographers from the same department to document the event, there is no Minister or head of our department  involved but just a small occasions  organized by our state level department. I’ve almost an hour of free times inside the rubber plantation in Teluk Sentang to read the book before we head to some other place for another assignment.