All language subtitles for A.Good.Day.To.Die.Hoka.Hey.2016.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

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- How you doing, all right?
- Yeah, how about you?

- Yeah, good, mate.

Pretty much standard procedure,
if you've got suspected IDs,

even though you're clearing it,

you want to walk
in the footsteps

of the person in front of you.

If they've stepped on that patch

and it hasn't triggered
anything,

there's a good chance that
that's a safe bit of ground.

But of course if you pause for
even a fraction of a second

to frame up and take an image,

you're not looking where
their feet went.

And so, now this is a
very demanding job,

requires a lot of concentration

and a lot of fear management
as well.

And you just reach the
point where you're like,

there's only so much I can do,

I have to trust that
that guy in front

is picking up any traces if
there are any devices here.

(explosion)

(gunfire)

- Jeremy get down in
there, get down there!

(camera shutter)

(crackling)

(intense instrumental music)

- Colombia is one of the
most dangerous countries

in the world, for
decades it's been ravaged

by political violence,
drug cartels of course,

and human rights violations.

Photojournalist Jason Howe
has spent several years

documenting the civil war there.

- Colombia was the big
learning experience,

the place that I had
gone to to try and

learn how to be a
photojournalist,

to learn the skills involved
in telling a story in pictures,

gaining access to people.

So it was very different
from the travel photography

that I'd done before, which
was all about, you know,

blue sky, sun behind
you, beautiful landscape.

This was gonna be a
lot more difficult.

The first area that
I started working

was down in San Vicente
del Caguan,

which is the town that
the FARC controlled,

in a demilitarised done
that the government

had pulled out from to allow
them to negotiate there.

The peace process
was very shaky,

and they told me that
this isn't a good time,

if the situation changes
we'll come and let you know,

and then you can visit
us in the camp.

Now, given that I
had quit my job,

sold off my remaining
possessions,

I couldn't allow that
initial rebuff

to be the end of the story.

I explained to them, I
explained the situation,

explained the things
that I'd given up

and the fact that I wanted
to dedicate my time now

to telling their story was
how I put it over at the time.

So I spent the next
couple of weeks

sleeping 100 metres away
from their camp.

Suddenly the FARC started
becoming a little friendlier,

and then as this moved on,
eventually one day they said,

oh, you might as well
just move your stuff over

and move into the camp.

So I've got to the point
where they would

stop thinking of me
as a journalist,

this person that was
in their faces,

and I'd become this person who
was kind of in the background

that they could kind of
get on with their lives

and do what they needed to do.

There was a young couple I
spent quite a bit of time with,

a guy called Bernardo and
his girlfriend Marisol.

We walked around the
camp one evening

and they stopped and kissed,

they shot me a sort
of little shy,

glance, half smile,
and moved on.

After a while the peace
process completely broke down

and the government gave
the FARC 24 hours

to evacuate the zone
before they would come in

and take it back by force.

As the FARC had left their
zone of control

and the military were coming
in to retake the zone,

they had set an ambush, which
were two buses and a truck,

and one of the buses had a
message painted on the side

saying that it had explosives
on board.

They sent a few men ahead to
basically diffuse the bomb,

was the idea, I thought
perhaps they would walk up

and just roll a grenade
under it, blow the thing up,

it's safe, and on we can go.

The soldiers were walking
around, kicking the tyres,

they got in, tried the ignition.

Not techniques that I
think are approved

by many bomb disposal squads.

I walked away and I'd been gone

probably not more
than 30 seconds,

maybe a minute at most, and
I was about 15 metres away

when there was a
large explosion.

(explosion)

I ran round the bus
through the smoke

expecting to see the soldiers

that I'd been with for a few
hours standing at a distance,

laughing and pointing and
saying they had found the bomb.

But instead what I was
confronted with

was three bodies laying
on the ground,

looking to me to be pretty
obviously dead.

It occurred to me immediately
that I had

very narrowly escaped being
killed by that explosion,

by a matter of a few metres.

I then walked over to this
other heap in the road

which was two bodies,
and then all of a sudden,

the body on top groaned, and
his eyes came up and met mine.

I sort of froze, I didn't
really know what to do.

All of a sudden I wasn't just
photographing a dead body,

I was photographing
someone in pain,

someone that was suffering.

My hands were still shaking,

and I was realising in some
ways that this was the big test,

this was the, okay, you want
to be a war photographer,

you want to witness
these serious situations

and take pictures to show other
people, here is your test.

If you can handle this, maybe
you'll be able to do it.

If you can't, if you're gonna
walk around feeling sick

or going into shock, or you
don't take any pictures, then,

you've failed, give up.

- The whole idea and the
term war photographer

I find pretty ridiculous now.

But you know, when
you're in your early 20s

and you're trying to
get your war on

and make pictures,
you're like, yeah.

(gunfire)

Hell yeah!

(gunfire)

(explosion)

Woo!

I met Jason in Colombia I
believe in the year 2000.

And we got on well right
from the start.

I mean I thought he was kind
of a maniac and an idiot, but,

I loved him for it immediately.

It's a type of maniacal
idiocrasy that you just

fall in love with.
(laughing)

- Me and Eros and are trying
to figure out where to go

and then somebody said
oh, there's this other guy

who's also a freelancer,
he's interested in going.

So he came over and we sat
down and had a few drinks,

looked at some pictures,
talked about a plan,

and we all came up with a,

(laughs)

It's a plan, I don't know
if it's a good plan or not,

but we came up with a plan,
and that's how we met.

- So a week later we
happened to be back down

in the same region on the same
road that the FARC controlled

when we came to a roadblock.

- And we walked up to
the FARC commander,

whoever was in charge there,
and said, can we take pictures?

He was just like, looked
at us going like,

yeah, what are you asking me?

Like, I'm trying to do
something else here.

- The FARC had all of
the civilians laying down

crouching in the road in
between their vehicles.

- It was honestly a very
cynical technique

because the guerrillas
ended up basically

using the civilians
as human shields

so that there wouldn't be
airstrikes against them.

- And then in the distance to
see these government soldiers

coming running across the river,

it was a very sort of Vietnam-y
kind of feel to the scene.

- It was the first firefight
that any of us had been in.

We'd certainly been in situations
that were dodgy enough,

but this was a proper gunfight.

- There were people
trying to get white flags,

trying to make sure they
weren't getting shot at.

But then the shooting getting
more intense and more intense

as their army got closer
and closer.

People are starting to
run into this field

to take cover in just
some high grass,

'cause there was really
nowhere to hide.

And the FARCs sort of took
cover on the other side.

Eros and I went with the
civilians, photographed them,

and Jason went with
the FARC soldiers.

And that kinda shows you
a little bit sort of where

he was going, where we're
all sort of looking at

different parts of the conflict,

within the same scene you're
looking at different things.

- It didn't really
feel dangerous,

it felt incredibly exciting.

And I'm sure the civilians
must've thought

we were utter lunatics.

- They were shooting, I
don't even know how long,

it could've been --
- Maybe a half hour or so.

- Three hours, I really
don't know.

- Maybe it was five minutes,
it's hard to remember really,

you're in the middle of it.

- You could tell the
army was getting closer

and the FARC was kind
of getting away.

- All of a sudden I
found I was alone,

they had gone and left me.

And so the only person
that the soldiers

were shooting at now was me.

- We're like, Jason!

Jason!

He's like what, what?

And we're like, you're
about to get shot.

- And I didn't really
notice or feel any of this

until I got close to the
grass and saw the dirt

and the grass flying up
as the bullets hit it.

- So then at some point
he, we don't see him,

we're like uh-oh, did
he just get shot?

And then we see him
crawling back to us

with a big grin on his face.
(laughing)

- We went back to San Vicente,
where life was pretty normal,

and got drunk, and
then the next day,

we're like, yeah, we're
gonna go out

and find this shit again,
man, like hell yeah.

We're combat photographers
now, we can do it.

We were totally hungover.

- More than 20 years ago I
read Tim Page's autobiography,

a book called Page After Page.

It was probably my first
introduction to

the life of a photojournalist
or a war photographer.

And it was very exciting,

at that stage I had never
even been trampling,

certainly never even left
England at that point.

(road traffic)

And then I happened to meet him,

and I was a little bit shocked

by the way he was describing
war and the glamour of war,

and kind of admitting
that he found it exciting,

and that it was a big adventure
and all that kind of thing.

Whereas,
(dog barking)

that's something that
a lot of photographers

are very afraid to admit that
they actually quite enjoy,

and get a big sort of
thrill and buzz from it.

- Vietnam was an absolute,
it was a marvellous place.

Not for the Vietnamese to
be in the middle of it,

but in terms of war, what
a great session.

One minute you're in
a muddy foxhole

in the middle of Woop Woop
being shot the shit of,

and the next minute you're
back on a beach on a surfboard.

There was no compromise,
it was all or nothing.

It was incredibly exciting
and very fulfilling,

you're not empty.

It's not a boring life.

(gunfire)

You've still got fear, but
you can press it back in.

Time becomes this
elastic module.

You don't know if this incident,
this part of the operation,

this part of the fight,
this part of the battle,

has actually lasted
seconds, minutes, or hours.

(intense music)

- After the first six
months spent in Colombia,

I printed up some of
the better images

and I decided to go to Perpignan
in the south of France,

where there is an annual
photojournalism festival

called Visa pour l'Image.

- It's like our equivalent
of Cannes, for a journalist,

and everybody kind of gathers
all the way around the world

and if you're on
assignment and you're done,

we all just go there and
we all just get drunk.

- And I walked into a bar and --

- And it was early hours
in the morning,

and I came across Jason.

- Somehow ended up in
conversation with this

slightly inebriated Irishman

who turned out to
be Seamus Conlin.

- He was just off his head and,

and he showed me his pictures,

and it was of the
Colombia bombing.

And that was when I made
the decision to actually,

actually be his agent.

And to represent him, because
I knew he had something.

- After spending time
with the FARC

and realising that I couldn't
with a clear conscience

just document their
side of the story,

because it would effectively
end up

just being propaganda for them.

The only things that I was
really seeing with the FARC

were the things that
they wanted me to see.

I wasn't seeing child soldiers,

I wasn't seeing the people
that they were holding hostage

that they had kidnapped.

I wasn't seeing any
direct involvement

between them and the
cocaine trade.

I was seeing to a large extent,

really, the public
face of the FARC.

My next mission really
was to get down

to try to meet the
paramilitaries who

I had really thought were the
bad guys in this whole story.

The FARC, I'd gone there
with the idea

that they were these sort
of romantic revolutionaries

fighting for the poor people,

but having narrowly missed
getting blown to pieces

by one of their bombs,

and then seeing the terror
on the faces of the civilians

that they claimed they're
fighting for and supporting,

that really, those illusions
crumbled pretty quickly.

So I set off to a different
part of the county

sufficiently far
away that I felt

there wouldn't be any crossover.

Now that was quite difficult,

because I had to go to villages

where people couldn't
tell me clearly

whether the FARC
were in control,

or the paramilitaries
were in control.

So the technique that
I found that worked

was to always travel
on local transport.

And once you learned to
communicate a bit,

people ask you what
you're doing,

where you're going
and, you know,

you can pick up bits
of information.

But I was sitting next to
this girl on the local bus.

She was very young, I don't,

can't really tell exactly
how young she was.

Pretty face.

Pretty much ignoring
me completely.

And as we were driving along

we started to approach
a military checkpoint,

and I saw that she was
kind of glancing around

and looking a little bit scared.

So I didn't want to actually
point the camera at her

and take a picture so
I just focused it on

a metre away, which is
roughly how far she was,

preset the exposure, and
so then I just clicked,

wound, clicked, wound,
just made a few frames.

And once of them really
sort of shows

this look of concern
in her eyes.

And it's one of my
favourite pictures

of how the conflict affects
the civilians.

It was very important with
this project on Colombia

to make sure that it
didn't just become

a book of pictures
of guys with guns.

Because whilst the
weapons and the conflict

and the fighting
and the fighters

are a very important ingredient,

the civilian population is also

crucial to telling this story.

(loud talking and music)

A huge amount of access
and getting images

can just be about
luck and timing.

And sometimes that's not
because you've planned that

yourself, it's just
you happen to be

in the right place
at the right time.

I met Marylin whilst
changing buses

in one of the small town en
route to a town called Pitalito.

And we happened to get
on the same bus

and were sitting next
to each other.

My Spanish at this stage
was very basic,

but I managed to explain to
her that I was a photographer

and that I had recently spent
some time in the FARC zone,

and that the purpose
of my trip south

was to cover the other
side of the conflict.

She explained that
she knew people

who were in the paramilitaries,

and knew people who were
in the military,

and that they would stop
and buy sodas or beers

and that kind of thing from
her father's roadside store.

And that she could kind of
point me in the right direction

for meeting up with
these people.

Right from the start
she seemed to be

a very useful person to
have met, useful contact.

She was young and she
was attractive,

and I was young and naive
and off on my big adventure.

When we first met,

the only reason that
our relationship didn't

progress faster was the fact
that she lived with her parents

in a very basic house
with paper thin walls,

and she shared her bed
with her young daughter.

Which made making any kind of
progress a little difficult.

So over the course
of several visits,

whenever I went to see her,

our relationship was
growing a little bit

in terms of friendship, and
because my Spanish was improving

so that we could communicate
better.

- We were down in Putumayo
in way southern Colombia,

which is one of the
hottest zones,

I mean, it's nasty down there.

There's a lot of extreme
violence.

- We went out to her house
the first time,

we drove out from the city.

- Swim in the river, had a
very nice time with her family,

ate, kicked back, and
that was all good.

- On one visit I asked her if
it would make things easier

if I stayed at a hotel
in the nearby town

so that she could come
and stay with me,

and it was the next
morning that she decided to

basically confess to me

that she not only knew
the paramilitaries

but that she was actually
an active participant

in the conflict.

- At that point we didn't
really know to what extent.

'Cause so many people work
for either the guerrilla

or the paramilitary, and in
sometimes very innocuous roles.

They might just be
messengers or they, you know,

they just listen and
look, and report,

so, she could have
been anything.

- When she elaborated
on what she did,

which, in fact, turned
out really that she had

migrated away from
being a uniformed member

of the local branch of
the paramilitaries

into working with an urban sell,

and her job was basically
to eliminate people.

So she was effectively
an assassin.

- I don't think the issue
of ethical behaviour

or anything like that
really entered into my head.

Any doubts that I may
have had in my mind

about the situation
were overridden, really,

by the excitement of
being in the situation.

Because it was just playing out

really like some kind of movie.

(contemplative music)

I decided to ask her if I could

conduct an interview with her.

I had the feeling that
this was a story

that she really wanted to
tell, she was very keen,

and there was no withholding
of any information.

- And in truth when I
was listening to her

answering the questions, I
couldn't actually understand

all of the finer points of it.

It wasn't until the interview
was transcribed later

that I could actually

start to understand how
little feeling she had

about the things that
she had done,

how little regret there was.

- He became very conflicted
about his feelings

and his relationship with her.

Because it had kind of
slowly came to light

that she was not just
a mere, you know,

oreja, you know,

a lookout, that she was an
assassin, that she killed people.

- In Colombia people
get killed all the time.

In that town people were
killed all the time,

and she's doing a lot
of the killing.

- Now there were limits.

She told me that she had a
target that she was looking for

that she was going to kill,

and she asked me if I wanted to

come along and photograph that.

I chose not to do that.

I felt that in some ways
by me going along

and photographing her
killing someone,

there would be two outcomes.

One, it would feel as though
I was actually condoning

the murder by standing by
and just photographing it

and not stopping it from
happening, and also,

that was outside my personal
envelope of acceptable risk,

so I chose not to do that.

And that's not a decision
that I regret, I think,

that that whole situation
is hard enough to deal with

retrospectively anyway, and
if I had condoned in any way

what she was doing
more actively,

then I would have more things
to feel bad about, really.

- I think that Jason was really
high on the whole romance

and danger and all that
kind of thing of, like,

dating this chick.

Dating, yeah like they're going
out to pizza and the movies.

Having a little affair with
this woman who's definitely

knee deep in some pretty
nefarious shit.

I mean,

that's attractive to everybody,

that's why the story
of Jason and Marylin

has been so popular,
everybody's like, ooh, ahh.

It's so sexy, it's so
dangerous, we love it.

And Jason loved it for that.

- One day she actually
pointed the pistol at my face

and said, why aren't
you scared of me,

aren't you scared that
I will kill you?

I said to her no,
I'm not scared,

I don't like being threatened,

but if someone offers
you money to kill me,

let me know, and I'll
pay you double

to let me get to the airport.

And that kind of lightened
the situation,

she laughed and put
the gun down and,

the moment passed.

One evening Marylin
came to the hotel

that we were all staying
in for dinner.

- And our hotel happened
to have this balcony

right in the centre of
town, it's a small town.

- And just immediately, all
the workers in the hotel,

they're like.
(dramatic music)

- And our fixer was
completely freaked out,

he was like, I cannot
be seen, like,

I live here, I cannot
be seen with her.

This is gonna put my
life in jeopardy,

my family, everybody.

- So our feeling was like, well,

we'd just been compromised.

We gotta get out of town.

And Hector and I left.

- And Jason did not
come with us, yeah.

(eerie music)

(yelling)

- Jason we had to throw him
into somewhere immediately,

make it his beat.

And he had to learn really
really quickly.

It's one thing if
they're wanting to do it,

and actually having
the talent, but,

the being thrown into a place,

the way you turn on
the TV and everybody's,

it looks like everybody's
dying every moment of the day,

it's kind of terrifying.

(car horns)

So we kicked him out the
door and we equipped him,

and it was like, go
on, just, do it.

- I arrived in a world,

in a war totally different
from Colombia.

And one that I was really
in no way prepared for.

(emotional music)

- I met Jason in Baghdad.

He was a bit different to the
other journalists in Baghdad,

and he had not come from
the same experiences.

Which meant that he didn't
really know how to carry himself

in a place like Iraq.

(helicopter propellers)

- Hey Joe?
- Yes, sir?

- [Man] Take that rug off.

- Freaking Jason ended
up in the spider hole

on his first assignment,
and he calling us,

and he didn't even know
what to fucking do,

you know, he was like,
holy shit, I'm an idiot.

- [Jason] My mind wasn't in
sort of news gathering mode yet,

that wasn't the photographer
I was,

I wasn't a news photographer.

They're seeing this crowd
of people around this hole,

just bang bang bang bang
bang bang bang,

shooting so many pictures
and just,

looking like, it's a
hole in the ground.

- It's really a black
hole, okay?

- Okay.
- Okay.

- I was just wondering like,

how many different angles
can you shoot

a hole in the ground from
and make it interesting?

But then of course later
on when I saw the work

from the other photographers
I realised that

there were quite a few angles
that they had done it from

that I hadn't.

It's amazing, you have to have
your head in the right place

and you have to know
what you're doing

and maximise the situation.

And this was so early on in
that whole learning process

that whilst I got pictures
published

and I was paid for them,

I didn't do a particularly
thorough job on that occasion.

- It was very clear that
whatever he'd been doing before,

he hadn't really been
working for someone.

And he hadn't worked in a
conservative environment like that

so I mean, he would just say
wildly inappropriate things

and do wildly
inappropriate things.

He would show pictures
to our Iraqi drivers

of naked Colombian women,

and people snorting coke off
them and things like that and,

and I just eventually
took him aside and said,

you know, sweetheart,

this is Iraq, it's not Colombia.

(yelling in foreign language)

- Pretty much one of
the craziest moments

of the time spent in Iraq,

I was in the towns
of Najaf and Kufa,

which were Muqtada al-Sadr's
territory.

He was leading a group
called the Mahdi Army.

The Mahdi Army were fighting
the Americans

on the edge of town,
they were hyped up,

they're waving their weapons,

they're firing their
guns in the air.

And some of them are saying,
you can't take pictures,

no pictures, no pictures.

Then another one will
stand in front of you

and ask you to take a picture

and then someone else
would come and hit you

with the butt of their Kalashnikov
and push you out the way.

And at one moment I had
four Mahdi Army fighters

with Kalashnikovs pointed
at my chest saying,

are you British?

Knowing if I said I was British,

they would pull the
trigger and that's that.

Are you American, nope, nope.

Where are you from,

so I said the first thing
that came into my head

that seemed like a safe
answer was that I was Irish.

And they're like, ah,
Gerry Adams, very good man.

A moment later, surrounded
by another group,

and this time the guy
has a hand grenade,

he holds a grenade in my face
with his finger in the ring,

and he starts the same
questioning process.

They're all hyped
up on adrenaline,

you're hyped up on adrenaline,

your heart is banging
backwards and forwards

off the plate in your
body armour.

They're quite happy to blow
you up and all go to heaven

or wherever it is they
think they're going,

and you have to kind of
out-crazy the crazies.

So you sort of throw your
hands up in the air and say

look, you know, I just told
these guys all of this.

And they can't understand
a word that you're saying,

but your attitude and
your body language

somehow conveys something
and they,

for some reason,
they backed off.

(ominous music)

- He really got it and
he really enjoyed it,

he enjoyed the moment.

Because it is about
living the life,

and it's about being
in the moment

and being party of history.

- When I was in Iraq I
received an email from Marylin

saying that she felt that
I was the only person

who could help her and
that she did want to

get out of the situation
that she was in,

but the paramilitaries, they
don't allow people to leave,

because quite literally,

they know where the
bodies are buried.

So someone like Marylin

would be privy to a
lot of information,

and so her group were
not really gonna

just let her walk away.

I don't recall exactly how I
responded to her email but,

it wasn't in a particularly
sympathetic manner,

and certainly I didn't
come up with a solution

as to how to help her
get out of her problem.

And that is a decision

that would possibly come
back to haunt me,

later.

(explosion)

Pretty much every day there
would be suicide bombs.

They were around about
eight o'clock in the morning

and about five o'clock
in the evening.

So those times became
nicknamed bomb o'clock.

(explosion)

On the 18th of November, 2005,

I was woken up by
a huge explosion

which blew the glass windows
into my room.

I had no idea what it was,
I had been sound asleep,

I woke up just to feel
this freezing air

and to see that the
window had been blown in.

And I lay there kind of
semi sort of frozen in shock

on the bed, trying to
sort of reboot my brain,

work out what had happened,
and then there was another,

much, much bigger explosion

which ripped the aluminium
window frames

away from the concrete,
threw those across the room.

The door was blown off its
hinges, the ceiling collapsed.

Pull on my jeans and boots,
put on the body armour,

grab my money and passport

in case the insurgents
were climbing over the wall

or we needed to climb over
the other wall and escape.

And then get outside and
start taking pictures.

But as I walked around the room,

really plucking up the courage

to go and put myself out
into this inferno

that was kind of raging outside,

there was some sort of
strange hesitation,

I was trying to find
little distractions

to kind of delay that
moment of truth.

And I remember opening
the fridge

to see whether my eggs had
broken in the explosion,

and being bizarrely delighted

that they were all still
in one piece.

Outside I could see
burning cars,

smoke billowing everywhere,
people screaming,

people running around shooting.

The windows of every
building for, you know,

a block in either direction
had been destroyed.

There were dozens
of cars on fire

where shrapnel had ripped
into their fuel tanks

and exploded those.

And just all of these people

sort of wandering
around in shock.

Their crime,

the reason that their lives had
just been turned upside down

or destroyed was that
they just happened to live

next to a hotel full of foreign
journalists and contractors,

and that's who the
insurgents wanted to kill.

And in my rush to get out
there and take pictures,

I decided to jump,

or let myself drop from
the first floor balcony.

And so having survived
these two massive explosions

which were later reported as
being a 400 pound car bomb

and then a one thousand
pound truck bomb,

my injuries were sustained
by dropping

from the first floor
balcony into the rubble

and twisting both ankles
and scraping my arm.

What was quite a strange
experience

was watching the press corps

who were living in other
parts of the city

arrive and start photographing
this scene.

And suddenly it gave
you a little insight

into how it is when you
arrive at a scene

and someone's wandering
around slightly dazed

after a bomb attack on their
house or something like that.

And a car pulls up and four
people jump out and just,

they don't talk to them, they
don't communicate with them,

they just run towards
them and point the camera

in their face and start
taking pictures.

It felt very strange, it was a,

a combination of feeling
like the victim,

that this was my story,
except that of course,

when it happened I'd
immediately gone outside

and starting shooting
pictures as well.

It was a very confusing
incident,

and the feeling of surviving it,

the euphoria, is
just incredible.

I got told off by one
of my colleagues

because you have
to stop smiling,

you're just walking around with
this big grin on your face,

and people have died,
15 people were killed,

40 were wounded.

And of course I wasn't
doing it deliberately,

it was just that,

I was so happy to be alive
and to have survived this.

One of the weirdest
things ever to have

come out of covering
suicide bombings

was the fact that you
would nearly always find

the male suicide bomber's
genitalia on the ground.

And apparently one of
their preparations

for going and blowing
themselves up

would be to pack their
genitals in silver foil

so that it would be intact,

ready for going to heaven
and the 72 virgins.

(muffled radio)

(explosion)

The far south of the
country, Basra,

down towards the Kuwait border

was an area controlled
by British forces.

And a small contingent of them
also were based in Baghdad.

And the soldiers that
I first met there

were the Royal Irish Regiment,

and they were protecting
the road called Route Irish.

Which was for a long time

labelled the most dangerous
road in the world.

It's the road that ran
from Baghdad Airport

into central Baghdad.

It was a road that normal
cars would probably take

30, 40 minutes to drive
along at normal speed.

The soldiers could do
it in, something,

I seem to remember something
like about 10 minutes.

It wasn't safe for them to
drive any slower, or to stop.

The soldiers on top cover above

would be training their
weapon on any flyovers

to make sure people weren't
dropping grenades off.

Any vehicles that didn't
get out of the way,

the first technique was
to throw a water bottle,

so it slammed into the
hood of the car

and gave the driver
a bit of a shock.

'Cause he maybe he just
hadn't seen you

or something like that.

Another thing with being able
to spend quite a bit of time

with the soldiers that
you then get to cover

all sorts of little parts
of their lives.

It was quite interesting
that a lot of the soldiers

obviously cover the walls
in pornography.

Naked women is something

that helps to get them
through the tour.

But you also saw young guys
who had got their girlfriends

or wives pregnant on
the last visit home,

and the pictures that they had
on the wall were of the scan,

or maybe they had a newborn
baby and they had those pictures

and they'd go to sleep
every night

looking at the pictures
of their newborn child.

There is a cemetery in Baghdad

which is just for
burying babies,

there were no adults
buried there at all.

The situation during the war
was that there's so much,

so much stress being put
on the civilian population,

there's the suicide bombs,

there's kidnappings,
assassinations.

Lots of women were losing
their children during birth.

And another issue was that,
to counteract the stress,

a lot of women were taking drugs

like Valium and diazepam
and this kind of thing,

so there are also
a lot of children

being born with deformities.

So this was a very strange
place to work,

to go to the cemetery,
meet the cemetery workers,

and then basically
wait for a family,

which it would happen every
day several times a day,

normally the husband or
perhaps a brother,

or someone like that,

would bring a tiny corpse
wrapped in white cloth.

The funeral workers would
prepare the body

and bury it in a small grave.

It would be interesting
in some ways

to go back to that
cemetery and that would be,

an evidence of some
of the impact

on the Iraqis of that, of that,

of that conflict, of that
invasion and occupation.

- Carnage you can get
somewhat accustomed to.

Suffering is more difficult, so,

if you see people suffering
because they've been bereaved

by the carnage you've seen,
that's very difficult.

Seeing children who've
been killed

is the one thing that
gets everyone,

because I think that
you have some,

there's some very very
visceral human response

that is, somehow I'm
meant to protect children,

we are meant to protect
children.

So seeing them harmed in any way

I think is absolutely
soul-polluting.

I used to tell Jason he needed,

it didn't matter what he got,
he needed to get out more.

'Cause as a freelancer
he would go in

and he would stay much,
much longer.

Staff correspondents
would rotate in and out.

You would do sort of
six or eight weeks.

But he was staying for
months at a time.

I said no you need to get out

and just give your
brain a break from this,

you cannot sit there
day after day

with that threat hovering
over you that way that it did.

- I was taking a break from Iraq

where I had been almost
solidly for six months,

and that I wanted to travel
back down to Colombia

and see if I could find out
what happened to Marylin.

So I flew back down
to Puerto Asis.

I checked into the same hotel

that Marylin and I had spend
our first night together,

and I stood in the bathroom
looking in the mirror and

started thinking about
the reality

of what I was now going to face.

Thinking well, there's
two things,

either I'm gonna arrive
at that house

and as I have done in the past,

her daughter will
come running out

and leap onto my back and
want to have a shoulder ride,

and Marylin will come
out and smile,

and she will tell me about
what's going on here in Putumayo.

And I will tell her
about life in Iraq.

And things will be
basically exactly the same

as the last time I was here.

When I got there, her
father came out,

and he was very surprised
to see me.

And his eyes kind of
started to fill with tears

a little bit and he said,

I guess you know what
happened to the girl.

And he told me that
she had died,

he didn't actually say
that she had been killed,

he said that she died, it
happened six months before,

and that she was buried
in the local cemetery.

And so I asked if I could
go with her daughter

and her mother the next day

to put some flowers
on the grave.

I did feel really sorry
for her daughter who,

in reality, is the real
victim in all of this,

her mother made choices
to do things

and died as a consequence
of her choices.

Whereas her daughter
is completely blameless

in the whole situation.

The reason that it was
explained to me

that Marylin had been killed

was because she had been
accused of being an informer,

and the paramilitaries
had stoned her to death,

they had crushed her
head with rocks.

And then they had shot her.

And the reason for killing
her in this manner was that,

in Colombian Spanish, the
word for informer is sapo,

as in frog.

And the way to kill a frog
is to stone it to death,

to throw rocks at it.

And so they had killed her

in this kind of ritualistic
manner

as a warning to other
potential informers.

Marylin's story became
really the thread

to my Colombia project,
it gave it some,

some theme and some purpose.

Instead of just being
a lot of random images

from different sides
of the conflict,

she really defined the
conflict for me.

Very much like Colombia itself,

a place of beauty with
lots of resources,

that is just trapped in a cycle

of self-destruction, basically.

(footsteps)

- I've spoken to Jason
quite a bit

about his imbed in Afghanistan
when the British soldier

was injured with the IED.

- [Friend] Primarily
it first started out

as an ethical conversation
about,

jeez, I don't know what
to do with these pictures,

they're really important,
but, you know,

I've gotta clear it with
the kid's family,

I gotta really think
hard about this.

And I was really pleased
by that whole conversation

because I'll tell you right now,

majority of the photographers
out there,

they'd just like, I don't know,

it's all about me, me
and my pictures.

They'll say it's about the
importance of the whole story,

but it's really about them.

- And that was definitely a
sign of maturity in Jason.

In the past I think
that he would,

he would've made that
same argument about,

you know, it's for
the greater good.

Which I just find
kind of absurd.

I understand it a
little bit, but,

ego trumps that shit
almost every time.

- I received an email
from the MoD

saying that Steve's
recovery is going very well,

and we are at a stage

where we might be able to
move forward with this.

So we arrived Headley Court,

and were met by a sort
of MoD representative,

and we went in to see Stephen.

Absolutely amazing experience,

I hadn't seen him for
basically five months.

Here he was wheeling himself
around in a wheelchair,

he was smiling, he was
happy, he looked well.

I showed Stephen all
of the pictures,

we looked through them,
and he was fascinated,

he was fascinated to see
the damage to his legs,

and he was pointing
at this, and he's,

ah, yeah, I remember that.

He did remember getting
dropped on the stretcher twice.

He was basically conscious
all the way

from the blast happening
until the helicopter.

(helicopter propellers)

The first thing I asked him is

whether he had any thoughts
or concerns

about the whole process
that we were going through,

about these images, about
what I might do with them,

whether he had concerns about
the article I might write.

So he basically said
that he had no concerns,

he felt that he was gonna be
happy for them to be published,

he liked the idea of the
story be told and so on.

My whole spirit, everything,
were lifted.

All this nervousness
that I'd had about

whether he would approve
them or not,

obviously all completely
evaporated.

- I think that Jason
makes an incredible point

in going back and seeing the
guy who's lost both his legs,

and he's okay with it.

That says the whole thing,

because it actually says
something about walking wounded.

It says something about
the tenacity of mankind.

- One of the most
poignant moments

during that day in Helmand was
when the helicopter took off

carrying Stephen
to the hospital,

and we got into a safe compound.

And the soldiers came over
and were shaking my hand

and thanking me for helping
to carry the stretcher.

And one of them said that
he never thought

he'd see a journalist do that,

and I thought it was so, so sad

that this is the impression
that these men have

of journalists and the media,
that they're only there

to take something away and
not to contribute something.

That they're kind of a bit
like a pack of vultures

waiting for something
unfortunate to happen.

And that, I felt quite
proud, really.

(screaming)

(yelling in foreign language)

(screaming)

Conflict is very often
a lot of ordinary people

put into very extraordinary
situations.

In the summer of 2006 the
war in Lebanon broke out.

(yelling in foreign language)

- There were hundreds of
photographers and journalists.

So I arrived at one place
and you could see five or six

TV crews all with a TV anchor
doing a live broadcast.

- It attracted an awful lot
of very green freelancers

who really didn't know
how to conduct themselves.

- More and more young people
are going out to do this job,

and they're being encouraged
by the journalism schools.

And there's no job!

There's no job.

So...

It's gonna push all
the young photographers

beyond the pale of acceptable
conduct.

- Some of these things
do actually

turn into a big fricking circus.

- There would be five or
six carloads of journalists

screeching through the
streets, and others running,

and an ambulance would stop
and there would be perhaps

20 photographers crowding
around the back door

and you saw local Red
Cross ambulance drivers

pleading with the
photographers to move back

because they weren't
giving them enough space

to get their injured person
out of the ambulance.

- I've come this close
to just beating people

within an inch of their
life for just being so,

either rude to me, or rude
to the subject matter.

Like, Jesus Christ, man.

Step back.

Give these people some
room, you know?

- And woe betide you if
you weren't concentrating

rather on your subject but
on keeping out of the way

of everyone else, you'd
be shouted at in,

you know, eight different
languages

to get your elbow out
of someone's picture.

And it was an incredible
sort of level of aggression,

and competition.

I left my cameras on
the ground once.

I thought someone was
watching them for me,

I came back and found that

someone had fiddled
with the controls

and dialled the exposure
compensation to plus three,

so the next time I took some
pictures they were ruined.

(sighs)

- I don't know what I'd
do if I was young

and I had to fight with inside
the business to survive.

- And there's a certain
kind of respect

that the photojournalists have,

that when they go out
they are going there

actually report on the
people, try to do some good.

And then there are other
people who go there who just,

out there for the bang
bang, you know,

it becomes the war porn.

- Photojournalism has
changed hugely over the years

that I had either been trying
to become a photojournalist,

or actively working as one.

The whole myth, the whole
kind of romantic image,

sort of purpose,

has changed a lot and
been very diluted.

So, it's become really sort of

paparazzi for the
dead and dying,

which kind of just leaves

a pretty nasty taste
in your mouth.

The situation in Lebanon
kind of traumatised me

quite a lot, and I was
disgusted with the way

that I'd seen the media
working there,

and thinking I don't want
to be a news photographer,

I don't want to be
involved in this industry.

I certainly don't like
who I've become

and I don't want to become

anywhere near as bad
as that either.

So I thought I'd pretty
much given up.

But my brother who's
a British soldier

was deployed to southern
Afghanistan to Helmand province

in April 2007.

And I decided to have
one last ditch attempt

at going to the front line
and taking pictures in combat.

And it was kind of a, almost
literally a killer cure.

I'll either get there and
it'll totally break me

and I know that's the end,
or I'll be back on form,

I'll make good pictures,
I'll earn money,

and I'll realise this is
what I want to be doing.

I pitched an idea to a
British magazine called Arena

to do a story on two
brothers on the front line,

one is photographer,
one is a soldier.

And they jumped at the idea.

In order to get the airfare,

I sold my last remaining Leica,

the camera that I'd shot all
the pictures in Colombia,

I was very attached to it.

But I was more attached
to getting my head sorted

and moving forward.

- Listen, don't mention the
war, I mentioned it once,

but I think I got away
with it all right.

(laughter)
So!

It's all forgotten now --

- We sat there one night
watching Faulty Towers

on his portable DVD player

when the Taliban decided to fire

a 105 millimetre Chinese
rocket at us

which hit the building
next to us and exploded.

So we sort of glanced
at each other,

pressed pause on the DVD player,

put our body armour
and helmets on and,

after saying, don't
mention the war,

the classic Faulty Towers
line, we resumed play.

On another patrol, I was
crouching down behind a wall

with my brother and
suddenly I saw the ANA,

the Afghan National
Army RPG gunner

get up and run across
a piece of open ground,

maybe 50 metres or so.

The Taliban are down here
firing this way,

the British soldiers are on
a rooftop firing this way.

So I looked at my brother
and said, what do you think?

Do you think I can make
it over there?

And he's like, pfft,

you can go if you like,
I'm staying put.

And I, okay, I really,
really want this picture.

So I sort of psyched myself
up, got ready,

and sprinted across
all this rubble

trying to sort of weave a bit
and all this kind of thing.

And get down there, the
guy lifts up the RPG,

click, click, click.

On the next one the RPG fires.
(explosion)

There's only one shot that
captures that split second.

(intense music)

- I think in Afghanistan,

Jason had set himself
this impossible quest.

To take the perfect image
which defined the war.

- We were based in a patrol
base called Patrol Base One.

Jason come out to be
embedded with us

in around July, August time.

Summer tour, which are always
renowned to be move violent

and more extreme than
winter tours.

You could say that
the summer tours

were the start of
fighting season.

(rapid gunfire)

(continuous gunfire)

(explosion)

- [Male] Fucking Hell.

- Why he'd want to come
out to our compound,

to our patrol base, at
that time, I don't know.

- Jason's an extraordinary
character.

He would relish having
as much equipment

as he possibly could.

Extra pockets, zips, flaps,
body armour, a helmet,

you name it, if there was a
gadget that Jason could carry,

the chances are he'd have it.

- He turned up, right,
and when I first seen him,

and he was stood there,

he had like an American
special forces helmet on,

and a chest rig with ammo
pouches on the front.

But him ammo pouches
didn't have ammunition in,

and he wasn't carrying a rifle,

he was carrying lenses and
various camera equipment.

- When we were embedded with
soldiers in Afghanistan,

I think Jason always felt
a very strong affinity

with the troops, partly because
his brother's a soldier,

partly because he's spent a
lot of time with the soldiers.

He also operated with
a sense of admiration

for what they did.

(chuckling)

- I get paid one way or
the other so I don't mind.

Mine's for specific --

- I got chatting to Jason when
he was in the patrol base.

He was a interesting
character to say the least.

A couple of the other freelancers
that were with him said,

were sort of nudging him and
saying he's fucking nuts.

(metal detector)

Jason was keep to get out on
the patrols with the company

and get out on the ground.

He accompanied a few patrols out

when they were maneuvering
through the AD clearance

going on at the south
of the patrol base.

(clanging)

- Fire!

(explosion)

- I don't think the
public fully understand

the severity of conflict
because they're,

it's hidden from them.

They only get certain
bits and pieces

via mainstream media.

They're not exposed to the
full severity of conflicts

and what it involves.

(popping)

(yelling)
- Shot!

- Man down!
- You all right?

- Man down!
- Man down!

- Man down!
- Man down!

- [Soldier] Medic, get a medic!

- [Soldier] It's not
me, mate, it's not me!

- It's vital,

if the general public are
funding the armed forces,

that we do find out what happens
to our guys on the ground.

And in this case, this
is completely unique.

We've never been able
to before tell a story

of a soldier sustaining
serious injury

and also going through the
rehabilitation process.

- In the final stages
of the attempts to

get authorization from
the MoD for the pictures,

the emails I received from them

stated that the pictures,

that the pictures of
Stephen on the ground,

injured, had not been cleared,

and that they did not
intend to clear them.

- I'm really keen not
to give anyone an excuse

to just impose their
personal feeling

on the picture not
being used, and I,

as long as the pictures are not
going to upset the casualty,

which we've determined
they're not,

and they're not going
to put anyone in danger,

I'm not sure what the
other issue is

that can be imposed on this.

One thing that was mentioned
during the phone conversation

was that in fact it
was the policy

of the Ministry of Defence

to not allow the publication
of images

that show injuries to soldiers.

He told me that the last
time that such images

had been published would've
been about 30 years ago

during the Falkland's conflict,

and that basically the
Ministry of Defence

would be pretty upset

if the pictures that we
used were graphic.

- British Ministry of Defence

hides behind the argument
of privacy

in order to prevent
British newspapers

and British journalists
for any newspaper,

any journalist from publishing
pictures of wounded soldiers

because they argue that it's
the soldier's right to privacy.

- And the argument
at this stage,

since we now had the, we had
Stephen's approval to do that,

was that it wasn't his
decision to make.

So initially the argument
was that

they were protecting
patient confidentiality,

and now because the patient had
decided and signed a release

stipulating that he was prepared

to give up that confidentiality,

then the reasons for not
publishing the pictures

was changed.

- The editor's concern
is for the --

- Soldier?
- The casualty, the soldier.

- Right.

- And for the readers.
- Yeah.

- I mean, he said that?

- Yeah.

- Okay, I mean, I have the
signed release in my bag,

so he can be assured that
the casualty's happy.

- So he's absolutely good to go.

(ominous music)

- Just because they tell
me that they have a policy,

that doesn't mean I'm going
to accept it or agree with it.

I do not work for the
Ministry of Defence,

I do not work for
the government,

my job is not just to show
the good side of things

and the side that they
want to be shown,

it is to show the reality of it.

And that sometimes is messy.

- What the MoD, the DOD,
whoever the fuck they are,

Pentagon,

doesn't want,

they don't want war
to be unappetizing.

It's got to remain good,

because otherwise you can't
get people to join up anymore,

there's no more draught.

- Several months later,

I received a request
from The Telegraph

to return to Afghanistan

to go on another embed
with Thomas Harding,

the defence correspondent.

- And pretty close to
the last minute,

the MoD said no, you can't take
that photographer with you,

you can't take Jason, you can
take any other photographer,

but apart from him.

- Which would seem to rather
conflict with the assurance

that their senior representative

had previously sent
me in writing

that there would be,

that publishing those images
would have no negative effect

on my future embed requests.

- And if a journalist dares
to try and report information

from the front line which
the Ministry of Defence

is uncomfortable with,
in a number of cases,

effectively blacklisted
journalists.

- Jason was banned from going
to Afghanistan by the MoD

which was, for a person who's
a great war photographer,

quite a blow, I think.

- The truth is is that the
British Ministry of Defence

did not want the British
public to see pictures

of British soldiers being
wounded or killed in Afghanistan.

And therefore they used the
agreements they had in place,

and I'd say they abused the
agreements they had in place

to make sure those pictures
rarely, if ever, got published.

- It's a tribute to Jason,

and it's a tribute to
Private Bainbridge,

and it's a tribute to the
soldiers that helped both of them,

that those images did
eventually come out.

- I didn't compromise any
journalistic integrity,

and I didn't allow the
work to be censored.

And I didn't let down
any of the soldiers

whose story I swore
I would tell.

When I was there on the
ground with them,

I promised them that I would
get that story published.

And that's what I did.

- Without a doubt, war
photography is an addiction.

What really matters is how
you manage that addiction.

There's definitely two
faces to Jason.

When he's on the job,
he's very serious,

very hardworking,
he's no bullshit.

When he's not on the job,
he's kind of a clown.

Which I love about him.

I love the fact that he can
put on both of those hats

and not have to carry
this whole persona

as a war photographer,
although he does.

Don't get me wrong.

- Why did this big fat
dude come here?

- [Woman] We need
to have a toast.

- [Man] Stop fiddling with
your cellphone watching poetry.

- [Eros] I'd go anywhere
with Jason

except to a cocktail party.

(laughing)

- The thing is though I was
like so completely off my face

that I was thinking --

- The survivor's euphoria
is great.

Until it's not.

But decompressing.

Drugs and alcohol is
the obvious one.

(discordant music)

- I think perhaps as
much of a thrill seeker

in his private life as he
is in his profession life,

as a photographer, his social
life was often as fast paced,

and some would even
say as dangerous

or as risky as his
professional life.

- I told him this many
times, I said,

you're safer in Afghanistan
being shot at

than you are here in Bangkok

because of the way you're
behaving here.

- We've decided it's better
to leave on a high note,

so, let's go and get high.

Or drunk as the case may be.

Just in case Mum's watching.

- He'd drink everything,
he'd fuck everything,

he'd snort everything and
then he'd just wake up

like an angry bear and then
he'd just do it all over again,

I mean it was just insane,
and I would tell him,

you cannot keep doing
this to yourself,

it's just out of control.

- As has happened in the past

when I've bene in places
like Thailand

and I've been partying too hard

and I've looked in the
mirror and thought,

if I keep on like this,

my friend Roger Arnold
is probably gonna be

coming around and identifying
my corpse next week.

So it's time to call the
airline, change that flight,

and get back to that wonderful
detox zone, Afghanistan.

(contemplative music)

Because of the teachings
of the Jehovah's Witness'

I was brought up to have
no fear of death,

and that's one thing that I am
actually really grateful for.

Whilst I would,

obviously I'm concerned about
getting seriously injured

and having to live
with a disability

or missing limbs or something
like that,

the idea that when I'm dead,
that's it, it's the end,

which is quite liberating.

I can't imagine what it would
be like to be a Catholic

and be worrying that perhaps

I'm gonna have to somehow
pay for all of these mistakes

that I've made and all
of the bad behaviour

over the last however
many years.

And it just makes
me think, well,

should be enjoying every
moment up until

the moment that the
lights go out.

(sinister music)

Karen Woo was a good friend
of Jason's, she was a doctor.

- Who gave up a very
good job in the UK

to go out to Afghanistan
and work as a volunteer

to set up a sort of medical camp

in the mountains of Nuristan
to help out the locals

who had no access to
medical facilities.

She was one of these people
that lights any place

and any situation up with
her personality.

But the problem with living
in a place like Afghanistan

and with being involved in
a profession like this one

is that there's always bad news.

- She was murdered in
northeastern Afghanistan

by the Taliban, and that
really broke Jason up.

- However on the evening
of that day

that the news had come in.

- We were having a small party
at his rented house in Kabul.

- Induced by a fair
amount of alcohol

I basically had a
bit of a meltdown

and ended up kind of sobbing,

and I remember Eros
putting his arms around me

and telling me that he
knew, he knew about loss,

he knew how I felt.

- And Jason's just like,

losing it, and he
just broke down

and just started weeping
in my lap.

He was just like, like
a child all of a sudden.

- This is how kind of the
grief and emotions come out,

they don't,

they don't come out in the
moment of receiving the news,

because there is an
element of shock,

or an element of having
really just

learned how to control
your emotions,

because you are consistently
witnessing

negative and traumatic things.

- It was just the beginning of,

the end, let's say, of
a stage of Jason's life

where he was really
beginning to understand

that he's got to, he's
gotta make some changes

if he is to keep any kind
of content, happy future.

Oh, there's no doubt about it

that Jason suffers from
post-traumatic stress.

Without a doubt, and I know
that because I suffer from it.

I see it so easily, in
him, and many people.

The post-traumatic
stress is deeply rooted.

It comes from before
the war photography.

- I think the subjects he's
chosen to get involved with

have overtaken him,
overcome him.

(crickets)

- Being exposed to so much
trauma in our adult lives

has just intensified it
all, and brought it up in,

and maybe it's a really
good thing

because it's brought
it up in a way

that it's easily identifiable
now.

(sombre music)

- How could he not be
suffering from PTSD?

I mean I think, he would
not be human if he wasn't.

And he's pretty human,
he's extra human.

- Going to conflict areas
and hostile environments

and witnessing high
levels of trauma,

you're not gonna come
back the same person,

and that's a fucking fact.

- Despite all his bravado
and war stuff,

he's a pretty sensitive guy.

I think he takes things
pretty hard, too, sometimes,

and I think the stuff
that he's seen

and things have happened
to him in other wars,

and he's had some close
calls, I think it's,

I think it's had a
pretty heavy toll on him.

(unnerving music)

- The damage done...

Distracts you from
a lot of purpose.

It,

makes you look for strange
escape routes.

- You can run from your
demons until you're exhausted,

but one day you'll have to stop

and find out what they wanted.

So the only option for me really

was a complete lifestyle change.

Probably for many years
I've been running from

one set of demons or another,

and quite often the next
situation that you're in

just creates a whole
load of new demons.

But the key really to
winning any fight

is choosing the battleground.

So this is one of the
main motivations

for moving to Andalusia,

so that I could pick and
choose the time and place

when I would deal with
these demons,

as opposed to trying
to deal with them

in a war zone or something
like that.

Or,

maybe in the sort of,

cycle of ways I'd had
of dealing with things.

Maybe going to Thailand
for three months a year

and just drinking and
partying and so on,

and trying to get some sort of,

well I thought trying to
get some kind of head space

from dealing with the
problems of the war zones.

But of course just creating

a whole new set of
problems, really.

- I was enormously fortunate,

when I had PTSD or was
diagnosed with PTSD

that I was a staff
correspondent.

I was able to get medical
treatment,

I was off work for six months,

all of those things
were given to me.

That would not happen with a
freelancer, it's much harder.

- When I first got here,

this was in the months
immediately after the IED strike

in Helmand.

I was stressing a lot about

whether I was gonna be
able to get permission

to publish the pictures
of the wounded soldier,

pictures that I felt
very strongly about

because I was aware that
they were really

the only ones of a wounded
British soldier

still on the battlefield.

And I didn't want to ever
be left with the feeling

that I'd taken those
epic risks that day,

in particular, to get
those pictures,

and then no one was ever
gonna see them.

They were going to be basically
censored out by the MoD.

So the pattern of life has
changed here a lot really

because when I first got here,

I wasn't particularly healthy,

and I certainly wasn't dealing
with any of those demons

at that stage.

I was really creating new ones.

My nights were kind of
pretty regularly disturbed

by nightmares.

Generally,

I could never really
identify anything specific

in the nightmare, so
it wasn't, for example,

I would be witnessing
the IED strike

when Bainbridge lost
his legs, for example,

or anything like that.

They were nearly always kind
of hypothetical situations,

and generally involved
a situation

that I needed to escape from or,

a situation where
I was fighting.

In my nightmares I used to
kill quite a lot of people.

I used to quite regularly
kill my brother

by crushing his head with rocks.

All sorts of like, really, just,

dreadful, frightening
things, really.

You just wake up sort of
in a cold sweat, shaking,

and exhausted, when you
woke up in the morning

with your neck and
shoulders aching

because you'd spent
all night fighting

and struggling and
trying to escape.

And they have gradually
diminished.

I now just kind of have
really weird dreams.

Like last night I dreamt

I was in the British
Prime Minister's house

giving him some advice
on interior decorating.

And for some reason he had
a picture of me on the wall.

So yeah, be interesting to see

what the psychotherapist
has to say about that.

The problems I had were that
I couldn't really switch off

from thinking about my
security and my safety

and that kind of thing because,

it's been 12 years really
that I spent living in places

like Iraq and Afghanistan
and Colombia and so on.

Places where loud noises
in the night

are generally a precursor
to something bad happening.

So one of the big things
that really made

a great difference here
was having the dogs.

When I first got here, if
they barked in the night,

I would get up and go
out with a flashlight

and have a look around
and see what it was.

And I was very,

well, still very much
sort of paranoid

and on edge a lot, all the time.

At one stage I was actually
even sleeping on the balcony

outside because it meant I
could come into the house,

I could close the door,
I could then go upstairs,

which is the furthest away
from the obvious entry points,

and I could then go outside
and lock another set of doors

and then sleep on the balcony.

So that if something
bad happened,

all I've got to do is
drop off the balcony

and sort of head off
into the bushes.

(panting)

Here you go.

Taking away all of the
emotional crutches,

or I don't know if they're
emotional crutches,

but they're just crutches
that help you get through,

through stuff, whether that
is drinking, or smoking,

or taking drugs, or whatever
it is you do

to distract you away from
actually dealing with

the issue at hand, once
you take all those away,

the only thing you're left with

is the problems and
dealing with them.

Your emotions are now,
like, really sharp,

and you're gonna start having
normal reactions to things.

And that's quite hard
to deal with,

because if you've
had several years

of emotional reaction
management,

and you've become
an expert in it,

to suddenly start having
feelings again is pretty,

is a difficult situation
to deal with.

Your emotional release
will sometimes come

when you're least expecting it.

I would find it would come
in the most insane times,

be watching a chick flick,
eyes are welling up with tears,

and your Adam's apple's
bobbing up and down.

Or Lassie dies at the end
of the film or something

and you're like, bawling
your eyes out.

And people are looking at you

as thought you're completely
mad, which,

clearly, I was.

But back then I couldn't
really understand

why those things were happening.

I think also it takes
a long time

to get those emotions
back in balance.

And I wouldn't say certainly
now that they're in balance,

but they will at last be
heading in the right direction.

(laughing)

Too many kisses, too
much love, too much love.

(contemplative instrumental
music)

- I think his Colombian
work, it was his best,

it was really incredible.

And that one image encapsulates
his whole entire career

before he even had a career,
oddly enough.

It's almost in reverse.

- One of the things that
has motivated me

in my photography, and
still does motivate me,

and would make me perhaps
want to go back

and do that kind of work
again once I've got myself

in a better mental and
emotional place and so on,

is that I really love the
idea of shaking people

out of their horrible
little insulated bubbles.

(yelling in foreign language)

(camera shutter)

(camera shutter)

(camera shutter)

- [Male] Come on, man,
show me the tat.

- No, it's too cold.

- [Male] You got a t-shirt on.

- No!

I've got a long sleeve
thermal fleece.

Oh, microphone.

Just because at least
one person's gotten,

what the fuck is going
on with me?

And it's clear that you can
see it's going to be Harold.

Right.

There it is, right, that's it.

- [Male] Hold on
hold on hold on.

- The tattoo you want,
I gotta stay warm.

- [Male] That's fine,
you can do that.

- [Jason] Who says
I'm not normal?

- Thank you, Jason.

- You get to post some extras.

Well, you've met Harold.

(gentle instrumental music)