The Tomorrow Series: Long Exposure (original) (raw)

Long Exposure

“We photojournalists are not changing the world. All we can do is show why this world has to change sometimes.” – Abbas Attar

There’s a call from the chief editor: the newspaper wants something for the anniversary of the war’s end. He dangles words like gritty, from both sides and reflects the reputation of the paper which, he adds, got its stars reporting on the human cost of the war.

“Those Australian kids and that border conflict” he says. “Plus you’ve fought in the war too so, you know –”

He doesn’t specify what you’re supposed to know. But you do. You can imagine burning houses, hot bullets, bodies on display – But before you can agree, everything’s been arranged. The next morning, you’re off to New Zealand with a copy of Ellie Linton’s autobiography.

Foreign press credentials grant access to almost everyone in the New Zealand military command - on the condition they approve all photographs. Technically, they say, the war’s still on.

General Finley allows for a 15-minute interview. He sits behind his desk at his office, posing in full-uniform, his medals like beacons in the blush of light slipping through the curtains. He doesn’t say much, but he provides a list of all the non-combatants who’ve received military honours in the Wirawee-Stratton area. It’ll help, you say, since you’re already familiar with the area.

“You were stationed there during the war?” he asks.

You pause. The words don’t come. General Finley stares at you, and then at the camera, before leaving without a word.

Your shot of him, leaving through the door, has his face half-turned back, hands adjusting his beret.

New Zealand reminds you of the last days of the war: an enthusiastic peace, but with the military tense and visible. Cities ready themselves for the anniversary celebrations, while newspaper columnists rave on about resettling and refugees. The parting shot you have of the land at world’s end is an Australia-facing beach fortification veined with barbed wire, as people walk in the background.

It’s hard to get Jeremy Finley alone at his Melbourne university. He’s always surrounded by a pack of ruggers. In your short interactions with him before a game, he moves with a kind of restless easiness, flashing a jagged-edge smirk when you tell him of your assignment. But he moves in and out of conversation with the grace of someone who’s moved on. As you dabble with aperture, exposure and the lens when he begins playing, Jeremy almost floats above everyone else in the photo, his face clean of any grimace, his whole body twitching with intent.

The memorial built for Corrie McKenzie is tucked away near a road-marker on the road to Wirawee. Every vehicle heading towards the border must past it by. It’s a small stone block, gunmetal grey, with a plaque which reads, How are the mighty fallen in the midst of battle. From across the road, you watch cars blitz by. You wonder if they actually see the block, the wreaths crowding its base or curves of hills arch away beyond.

Everything about Ryan is excessive: his chain-smoking, the tattoos wrapping around his arms, his bicycles – drooping from every corner around him like low-hanging fruit. The former SAS captain does not say how he ended up fixing bicycles. He lets his fingers fill the pictures: wringing in bike shafts and teasing out oily chains, every bit the combat engineer as he tears machines apart.

Despite what’s written in Ellie Linton’s autobiography, Kevin Holmes talks – a lot. He politely answers questions, fills in gaps in the stories. He flashes a picture of his fiancée (default wallpaper on his Galaxy), even buys you a drink for tracking him all the way to Sydney (the coffee is decent). He poses for a photograph with you, and in minutes you have several shots of him in portrait on your Instagram.. Later, when you’re checking reviewing the day’s notes, you realise Kevin didn’t answer any of your questions about Corrie.

Chris’ family declines the request for an interview. Instead, they direct you to a small Melbourne bookshop. The owner shows you the final print run of a chapbook with Chris’ poems and illustrations. The only picture is a grainy black-and-white of a much younger Chris writing, headlined with the words everything slips away.

Issa and Monique relent for a short chat. They pose with an empty chair to represent Judy as you catch them on the sidelines of a Camp 23 veterans’ reunion. Even though their claim to fame is five mentions in three paragraphs in the autobiography, they talk as if Ellie were their sister. They strike different poses around the chair, until almost the whole group decides to join in. They say that, after settling matters with those who lost loved ones in the camp, Judy has never joined them again.

10.

Fi Maxwell invites you to follow her for a day. She doesn’t want to know when her picture’s taken, but still insists that she view it. It’s mostly in-and-out of clients’ offices, these big sleek office blocks in downtown Sydney with too much glass and too many automatic doors. Fi says she’s too busy for an interview: there’re deadlines to meet, projects to report. You sneak in a picture of her speaking to a client off camera, her face pinkish with blood pressure, arguing something. After a war, you think, there’s no such as thing as lacking persistence.

11.

Bronte identifies herself as a ‘friend of Homer’s’. She guides you through Wirawee, her arm a solid arrow pointing out everything and anything of note. She’s one of the few persons you photograph twice. First, at the wheel of a truck, her face window-ed perfectly in a square of light, her braid a thick rope curled down her shoulders. And second, with two friends (Jaime and Jess) who, at the sight of you, fold themselves around her like a wall. Bronte, however, insists that you stay close by.

12.

What was supposed to be a short excursion to see Liberation in action turns into an all-nighter, with times of weary waiting in cover alternating with rapid-fire bursts of fleeing and charging across a barbed wired paddock. Beneath the balaclava, you know one of them is Bronte. And perhaps possibly Homer. Or even the legendary Scarlet Pimpernel.

The gallery of images from the night all illustrate one thing: Liberation isn’t a pack of punks playing with guns, but a disciplined militia skilled in hit-and-run. Every photograph from that night is smudged with movement: rifles being fired, fleeing men, Liberation rebels turning too fast for a flash to fully catch them. Your favourite is a long exposure shot of one of the Liberation guys (or girls) retreating, and offloading an entire rifle’s magazine at the gangs that they say harass them from the border. There’s almost no figure – just the blurry hands, the bright flower of a rifle bursting into a long leech of light.

13.

It’s a risk, but you’re rewarded when Ellie – Ellie Linton in the flesh – not Lee, answers the door. Her face softens into a question. Once you tell her your purpose, she invites you in. Lee’s siblings (at her request) say hello to – sorry but – (you didn’t offer your name actually, just that you were a sort-of friend of Lee’s). They smile, curious with the plethora of lenses in your camera bag.

But the momentum doesn’t last: Lee doesn’t say hello. All it takes is a glance in Ellie’s direction to feel the tension in the room spike.

He ushers her out of view. They talk, their voices warbling. Then their words escalate. All the while his younger siblings eye you as if you were a war criminal. It’s not too far from the truth, you could explain.

It’s Ellie who returns. Her face has hardened into something bordering on disbelief. She sees you out. She says she’ll call you instead.

With the door shut on this opportunity, you angle the camera at the closed door, the WELCOME HOME mat and the family of slippers arranged in a crescent around it.

14.

Back at Wirawee Bronte finally secures a chance for you to see Homer. But instead of another breathless exhibition of Liberation’s efficiency on the front, the meeting takes place on the Yannos family property, with a lunch invitation.

Bronte’s present too. She’s almost like his press minder: she intrudes to say that certain questions are off limits. No talk of the Scarlet Pimpernel or Homer’s involvement in Liberation, and she’d rather leave out any background of the Yannos family too. Instead, Homer talks about the original eight, the protagonists of Ellie Linton’s autobiography, as the kitchen hums around him. The damp meat of his palm rests on the table, twitching. Sometimes he struggles to speak about the war, and you notice the brown caramel of his eyes gleaming, looking beyond you.

But there’s something else behind his lazy outback drawl and his constant shifting in his chair. It eludes you until the end, just before the final photograph. With the honey-coloured light flooding the kitchen, you take Homer in multiple exposure. As much as the shots are posed, you still see Homer’s fingers stacked on the table, inching closer to where Bronte’s elbow waits.

15.

Bronte and Homer’s good word gives you an audience with the Mathers family. After the glowing eulogies written and spoken of Robyn, the interview with her surviving family is brief and simple. There’s no need to make a saint out of one person when we’ve also lost a thousand others, Mr Mathers says. Nonetheless, he shows you what he thinks you’ll want: the family house, Robyn’s old photographs and the makeshift shrine at the church, where rosary beads, flowers and origami cranes lie in orbit around Robyn’s name.

Instead, the best shot you can manage is of Mrs Mathers wiping the dust off a framed sepia-toned image Robyn smiling – the sole photograph on the living room wall.

16.

When Bronte’s not around, your minder in Wirawee is Jess. Unlike Bronte, she doesn’t talk much. But it becomes clear that she, like most of the young people along the border region, is trained for conflict. The evidence: she waits for you stock-still like a portrait at the Yannos property, sunlight outlining her sides, her posture military-sharp.

17.

The call you’ve waited weeks for finally comes: Ellie Linton, the most important subject, wants to meet.

She’s curt and frank. Her stand is clear: everything she wanted to say is in her autobiography. I’ve no obligation to be nice to you after what you’ve done, she says, her voice like a mallet with its heaviness. But for the sake of everyone else who’s contributed, she’ll give you one afternoon.

That afternoon becomes the masterpiece of your assignment, and even after the edits and reprints, nothing gets changed.

Shadowing Ellie and Lee at the town park in Stratton, it’s just you and a handphone camera and a dozen Instagram filters. But after dozens of photographs, you decide on just two. One of Ellie and Lee walking barefoot with Gavin and the rest of Lee’s siblings.

The other of them just sitting beside each other.

18.

The last photograph of the assignment is a personal one. Once the files have been downloaded and the choice pieces set aside, you take your DSLR and go before a mirror. There, you put a pair of battered, black-rimmed ray-bans, undo the braids in your hair, put on your old torn uniform and dim the lights. You press the shutter. In the image, you see a conscript, shirt parted to reveal your collarbone like a coat-hanger, staring with the weariness of a never-ending war. You believe this is the way you looked when you met Lee all those years back. The photo looks staged. Since only a handful of your subjects knew, your revelation will surely invite controversy. Still, you file the photo along with the rest, and send it to the editor. You end the project with 'Reni', your byline.

19.

There are several revisions. Some caption re-writing. It takes six pages, including the centre piece, on a Sunday broadsheet, on the eve of anniversary of the war’s end. Most feedback is positive. Several follow-up questions require your attention. Some wire agencies purchase reprinting rights. Many of the pictures get reposted online. You get promoted to news photo editor.

Work goes on. You set your cameras aside to fulfill the duties of editing. Just when you think the aftermath of the war is behind you, a request comes. It’s hand-delivered, in the same fashion as peace offering.

Ellie Linton wants to meet again. She’s invited you to photograph her wedding.

END