On this page: 1991 Gulf War | 1988 Seoul Olympics | 1987 Fiji Coup Scoop | 1989 AAP sponsors Bangarra Dance Theatre | Horst Faas at the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games | 1990 Change from Analogue to Digital | 2016 Chased by the Riot Squad
Here’s a few stories from the picture editors desk filing news and sports photographs for the national and international media.
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Australian Associated Press (AAP) lost our photographer, Jack Picone during Gulf War 1 … twice!
As the head of photos at AAP in January 1991, Mark Anning was approached by the Australian Navy to provide a photographer to embed on Navy ships heading to the Gulf to participate in Operations Desert Shield & Desert Storm, and provide a Photo Pool Service of photographic coverage to distribute to all Australian media.
Photographer Jack Picone was seconded from his staff position at Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) & went over on the navy ships as part of Operation Desert Storm media embedding. Before leaving on the ship, Jack came into AAP’s office for a briefing on the use of the latest digital photographic transmission technology, the AP Leafax, which he took with him to the Gulf.
When the photographer tried sending his images, the interference from the ship’s technology destroyed the data …
I told him to get off at Jordan when they stopped for fuel and call us from a landline, which he did and we got our photos.
The next day I got an angry call from the admiralty “where’s your photographer?”. My bad, I suppose, I should have said to Jack “and then get back on the ship”. So, my guy was missing AWOL in a war zone.
More than a week later and only a few hours before the deadline for Saddam to get out of Kuwait, I got a call from Baghdad at my home, from Jack.
I raced into the office to take his next call and we received some really good portraits of Iraqi soldiers that he’d taken.
We got three pictures through when Jack asked me if he should leave Bagdad or stay and continue filing pictures. My response was “All these countries have just spent billions of dollars transporting billions of dollars worth of weapons to the Gulf, and at the moment they’re all aimed at you!”
All I heard from Jack was “I gotta go!” and he hung up … and that was the last I heard from him.
Jack filled us in as to what happened next … The Iraqi secret police burst in and arrested him. It was weeks before I found out what happened to him.
Jack Picone wrote later: “One of the best parts of that story was when I was filing and sending the first shots of Iraqi soldiers crossing the border into Saudi Arabia was that a voice came over the line connected to the Leafax saying, ‘you are not allowed to transmit’! STOP! It was the Iraqi Secret Police, after filing the last image, I grabbed the incriminating negs … put them in a envelope and stuffed them into a air conditioning vent. Twenty minutes later the police armed with machine guns arrived in my hotel room. They interrogated me, I showed them lots of propaganda pix of Saddam they knew something was missing but could not find what it was-it was tense. I was arrested the leafax impounded and not long after escorted to the airport and deported from the country in a empty airplane to Amman Jordan. The negs are still in the air conditioning vent in the Al-Rasheed Hotel Bagdad as far as I know!? Hilarious.”
Edit Update from Jack Picone: “Glad you have written this Mark! I am hopeless at penning down my adventures. As an extension: I managed to stash some incriminating negatives into the air conditioning vent before I was arrested.”
So there you have it. If you happen to be in the Al Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad, check the air conditioning vents for some rolls of film … and if you find them, please let us know!
And here’s to the legendary AAP photographers!
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“Why do you Aussies call us Americans seppos?”
1988 – I was on the AAP picture desk in The AP room at the Seoul Olympics when a very loud American came over.
“Why do you Aussies call us Americans seppos?”
Everyone around me instantly vanished. I calmly replied “Well, you’ve heard of Groucho, Harpo & Chico?” He said yes so I replied “Who was the fourth Marx brother?”
“Oh! Zeppo! Hey, I like that!” I said there ya go and off he went calling everyone Zeppo.
Two time Pulitzer prize winner & former chief photographer of AP’s Saigon Bureau during the Vietnam war, Horst Faas, was on the desk next to mine and heard the exchange. He face palmed and said “You are dining on my table tonight!”.
After telling the story that night over dinner to an appreciative audience of the world’s best photographers, Horst told me who it was. Lou Boccardi, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Associated Press, the world’s largest news organization.
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1987 Fiji Coup scoop
I had a wonderful lunch yesterday with the legendary Sydney photographer, Patrick Riviere, the former photo boss of AFP/Getty Images, and his wife Sylvie (who ran Sydney Freelance & many other photo operations) reminiscing over our wire service days.
The story of how AAP got the scoop on the 1987 Fiji Coup, weeks before anyone else got pictures, might be interesting to photo & national security nerds.
Every time the photographer in Fiji started sending photos over the telephone lines, the military would cut the line.
The next day, I got through to the photographer & he was keen to start sending photos … I said “no, I lived in Fiji for four months, let’s have a chat” … and started talking about playing golf at Pacific Harbour, the yacht club in Suva and SCUBA diving. After a few minutes, the photographer twigged as to what I was up and then the conversation got r e a l l y boring.
After 20 minutes I could actually hear a yawn and ‘click’ as the military listening had enough.
“Ok start sending, black and white images only, back to back” We transmitted three b&w press images before they came back & pulled the line, stopping us.
Photo on the left is AFP/Getty Images send by mail, photo on the right is AAP’s sent over the wire.
I had an especially good working relationship with Jim Shrimpton, AAP’s man in Fiji, after that. 
I ran into Jim in Coolum about 2000, a wonderful man.
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The founding of Bangarra Dance Theatre
A memory from the AAP staff magazine, AAP Today, October 1989.
In the late 1980s whilst working at AAP, I shared a Woolloomooloo studio with a black South African artist, Bauhaux “Bau” Stone.
Bau’s sister, Cheryl Stone, founded Bangarra Dance Theatre based in Glebe and she was at me for weeks to take her into the GM to ask for sponsorship. I put her off as long as I could but she had manoeuvred me behind the scenes during the Paul Simon Graceland’s tour, and more, so I couldn’t dissuade her.
Cheryl asked for “$100,000 a year for ten years” … He said “yes”
When the story broke in the office at Sussex Street, I remember that the Editor-in-Chief was not happy with me … “We could have got three journalists for that!” … which is more indicative of how much we were paid than the value of arts funding and promotion. Hopefully we can LOL now …
That funding took Bangarra all the way to the opening ceremony at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
From AAP Today, October 1989: Members of the AAP-sponsored Bangarra dance company perform at a news conference to promote their world tour. Picture: Mark Anning of AAP.
As part of a corporate exposure campaign, the company is sponsoring an Aboriginal dance company to the tune of $25,000 this year.
The sponsorship is helping Bangarra Dance Theatre on a series of international performances which began in Japan and will include the USA, Britain, New Zealand and Europe over a 12-month period.
Other sponsors of the dance company include Esso, Qantas, Stevie Wonder and the New South Wales government.
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AAP Picture Room, Sussex St, Sydney, 1990
Clockwise:
1. A 19 year old Markham Lane on a 13 year old TRS-80 … a Trash 80 … used to send out The AP picture captions to the newspaper editors. We typed about 1500 words per day – describing the Who, What, Where & When (and sometimes, the Why) of the image in a sentence or two.
2. Before the newspaper industry went digital. Two old Tecnavia picture computers – which used tapes for storage – on the right. At the back of the office, the new digital switching unit is under construction.
3. The Matrix switching unit. AAP was the hub to transmit domestic news photos between newspapers and distribute The AP international news pictures coming in from London.
4. In the days before the internet, photos took seven minutes to transmit & be received on the AP Laserfax machines on the left
5. Every era goes through massive change. At the time of these photos, AAP Photos was still dealing with Murdoch buying up Australian newspapers & creating the need for new alliances to share photos between newspapers, the introduction of the new digital ‘electronic darkrooms’ and new picture services including event & pool coverage, two graphic artists, a photo library and providing daily service to the regional and smaller publications.
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1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games: herogram
Reg Gratton was National News Editor in the Sydney office of AAP. He sent daily play reports to the AAP team of journalists and photographers covering the XIV Commonwealth Games in Auckland on the impacts of their work in the Australian media.
‘Parkinson’ is Giles Parkinson, ‘pb’ is AAP’s Editor-In-Chief, Peter Brown.
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Origin Energy’s Eraring Power Station … wind sun & coal.
I was chased by the riot squad after making this photo.
I attended The Beyond Coal & Gas Conference in 2018 on the Central Coast of. NSW. After leaving the conference, I called into Origin Energy’s Eraring Power Station just a few kilomteres away and quickly made this photo … a stock photo of ‘wind sun & coal’.
Within seconds I was surrounded by utes and blokes – blocked in unable to move away. I was told to stay there until the site manager arrived.
I explained that I was a pro photographer just making a few stock photos and was ordered to delete them as I was on private property without permission.
He had a point, so rather than make a scene I deleted them (knowing that I had Sandisk Rescue Pro which undeletes them anyway).
I drove away after a few minutes and got just a few hundred metres down the road when I passed a black Riot Squad vehicle speeding up the road.
I figured he was after me so I did a U turn and sure enough, he’d done the same, we passed each other and he was now speeding in the opposite direction.
I figured I better get back to the conference and warn people that the black mariahs were lose. I got to the conference and there were 2 riot squad cars there, one inside slowly going through the carpark.
The incredible Nell Schofield was on the ball, keeping an eye on them, ready to shoo them out.
It looks like the riot squad was lurking, ready to pounce because they thought the conference was actually a planned protest … oops!
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Good one mate! During play, the professional photographers waited patiently for an exciting photo opportunity during the Women’s Lawn Bowls. As the competition built up to the final bowl of the Games, it was a win/lose situation for the two teams – the final bowl of the day deciding the Gold and Silver Medallists.
The photographers took aim at the final ball hoping for some great reactions from the finalists – but wait … what was Russell McPhedran doing in the middle of the photo?
Russell was not only at the wrong end, standing in the middle of the action with a telephoto lens, not even looking at the play – he was not even ready to take a picture of whatever he thought he was going to photograph!! Groans from the photographers at the other end!!!
