I’m convinced there’s a price to be paid for the pleasure I derive from photographing Papua New Guinea – the suffering, certainly from where I’m sitting now, being equivalent to the richness of the imagery that appears in front of me whenever I go over.
It’s 8am. I have been sitting at Jackson’s International Airport in Port Moresby waiting for my flight home since 3am (as in when most sensible people are still asleep). A five hour wait and the uncertainty of whether the flight will actually leave seems bearable you might suggest but my uncharacteristic enthusiasm at arriving at any airport early has been born by the fact that I sat for nine #^%$$*#@! hours yesterday, through three %%$$#@! false starts, in the steamy airport in East New Britain waiting for my flight to the capital.
Why, I ask the gods, does this always happen on my way home from a demanding shoot when a hot shower and my own bed seem within reach?
Still, here I sit, drawing on my darkening mood to add a few more black and white pics from the assignment which I’ll post when I get back (this, of course, assumes I will get back, that I don’t strangle the screaming child who has just appeared next to me, and that I don’t behead the legion of spluttering coughers who are promising me their wrenched colds should I ever step onto this cursed plane).
Postscript: My computer battery is blinking and still no sign of departure. Arrrrghhhhhhh!!