Photojournalist
Experience by Sandi Jaya Saputra
In
the early 2009 Oxfam GB assigned me for the second time to cover the life of
Lamongan’s fishermen in Surabaya, East Java. From the resume that I’ve got,
Oxfam GB was focusing in the climate change issue in 2009. They got the info
about the Lamongan’s fishermen from one of the biggest media in Indonesia. The
info was about the extreme climate happened to Lamongan’s fishermen. It was
said that they suffered, they fish catches decreased and there’s also happened
fishermen’s boat accidents as a result of the extreme weather.
Then
from that issues and articles I began to do social cultural research about the
Lamongan’s fishermen. I also got in touch with the local journalists for adding
some additional info. My first day in Surabaya, I went straight to Lamongan
with 1,5 hours travelling and approximately about 40-50 km distance. Arriving
in Lamongan, I immediately contacted some sources to arrange a meeting the next
day. The arrangements went well. We were scheduled to meet up the next morning
in one of Lamongan’s fish market.
Before
meeting the sources, I walked around the fish market to observe the situation
and had a little talk with some local people to get another perspective about
the climate change and Lamongan’s fishermen lives. I met the first source; he
was the fishermen’s cooperative chief. And after that, I also met up with the
second and the third sources.
After meeting with those 3 sources, I still did not have the data that I
needed. It ended up for me meeting the last sources, the ship owner whose boat
caught an accident. From this last source, I finally got astonishing fact from
my observation.
The
first fact, they didn’t know that there’s a relation between climate change and
the declined of their fish catches. They said that it was not the right time to
sail, so it was natural for not having many catches at that time. The second
fact, the fishermen boat accidents weren’t not because of the extreme weather,
but because they were hit by coal barges. So what should I cover as the story
angle? I then contacted the Oxfam GB coordinator and explained what was going
on. They finally found the real fact. It was a big lie that was made by
journalists and it could made the reader fell into the mistaken issues. I
finally took some photo samples of the Lamongan’s fishermen lives as my
responsibility, and used my time left to have my holiday there.
