Dan Eldon Project

                Many journalists risk their lives in war zones trying to take a picture to catch the world attention to see what’s recently going on. These journalists may seem crazy but in reality they’re heroes. Well, I considered them as heroes because of the way they risk their lives trying to take a close-up action picture in a war. Sadly, Dan Eldon died at the age 22 in Mogadishu, Somalia. He was attacked by an angry mob along with three journalists only having Shaffi being the only survivor. Eldon left behind a series of journals in where they were published by the Chronicle Books. Amy Eldon sister of Dan Eldon wanted to seek out what was the cause of his death, wanting to see it for herself. She left her home Kenya and traveled interviewing various journalists asking them of their experience and how it felt like being in front line of a war.

                Throughout this documentary film as Amy interview a few experience journalists asking them for what is important and their techniques that they do when in a war zone. Des Wright and Carlos Mavrolean were one of the first journalists that Amy first interview. They have told her that safety is the first priority for a journalist. As also the next one was Martin Bell, he says to negotiate across the camera. Bell says to Amy that you cannot be a coward and to not let fear show your weakness. Bell quotes “useless as they are’ meaning that many journalists thought that there photographs were hopeless just like the people dying around them for example when a genocide was going on in Bosnia.

Many journalists were treated poorly and Bell was ashamed of that. “We can’t be heroes; because we can get out whenever” By this Bell declares that journalists and himself are not heroes because they’ll get out of it and most of them really don’t do anything as all they do is snap a picture and get out of the area safely. Christiane Amanpour is women journalist that Amy had interview. Christiane tell her “to know how to deal with energy” as you’ll need it when being a journalist and also she says “Certain people do certain things” to survive and to capture a picture in action. As Amy went to talk to Dan McCullen he pronounces that you cannot hide behind a camera even closer to people, though journalists feel safe when they’re really not since they are out in the open. McCullen tells Eldon that when picture is captured it shows how real and hard it is to see what is exactly going on and it takes time to process it. “Embrace scent of death” McCullen talked about how in a war zone with all the dead bodies around all that could be smell was death.

As Amy was in Africa she met and interview Peter Magubane in where he was arrested for taking a bunch of pictures of people cheering on the cause in South Africa. He stood in jail for 586 days having a small room to sleep on and not having a sink nor toilet. Magubane says “My camera is my mouth piece” this is a masterpiece that Magubane had spoken to Amy. There’s a lot of meanings for this but Magubane with the tone of voice that he had saying this, he clearly meant that a picture speaks louder than words. As Amy went to a chapel back in England there were lit candles representing the death and remembrance for every single journalist who has died doing their profession in a war zone. As Amy met up with Mohamed Shaffi being one of the only journalist that survived the attack in Somalia. Amy tagged along with Shaffi back to Somalia to the building that her own brother died at. As they both reached the building, Amy took a moment to look around. She stood strong and felt relieved as she saw everything for herself. 

This is an essay that I had written after watching the movie of what caused the death of Dan Eldon. His sister had interviewed many journalists asking them about their experience and if there were any techniques that they use for their survival.