At my Friday morning BNI meetings we spend a lot of time talking about dream referrals. The kind of referral that gets you excited, as well as swelling the bank account. For years, I couldn’t really tell you what that was for me.
That’s because I’m an idiot.
Well, not entirely, but the answer had been staring me in the face since mid-2004. That’s five years that it was right there in front of me and I didn’t see it.
Why the blindness?
It’s easy to say that life got in the way and I got distracted. Keeping a business afloat and paying a mortgage can easily divert you from your true course if you let it. I did.
That isn’t the real reason, though. The real reason is that it has taken until now for me to realize fully what it is I want to do with my photography. Without that direction, it’s impossible to say what a dream referral is. Even if you’ve already had one, done the work, and told everyone how great the assignment was.
But now I have my compass point, so it’s easy to recognize the assignment for what it was. A dream assignment.
It was a dream for a couple of reasons. Exotic travel (Suriname and Guyana), a frightening number of inoculations (breaks the ice at parties), an interesting and tricky subject (bauxite shipping through the jungle), a very appreciative client (JP Knight), a reasonable pay day, and total creative freedom. That last one is the key. Creative freedom allowed me to shoot in a very documentary way. I didn’t know it at the time, but documentary is my passion. I love photographing people living their lives – be it their working lives or their private lives. Now that I do know that, it’s easy to look back on the assignment and see it for what it really was.
All of which means that at BNI meetings I can now articulate what a dream referral is for me. That’s just as well. I haven’t chased work like it since, so I have some catching up to do.
I’ve posted some of the photographs from the shoot with JP Knight below, with some commentary on each one.
Bauxite in Suriname is mined in the coastal jungles and shipped to a refinery near Parimaribo. This photograph shows how narrow the Cottica river gets and the skill it takes to push empty and full barges to the mine and back. The ability of the master to get two huge barges and the tug pushing them around some tight bends was incredible. The wheelhouse is elevated high above the tree line to maximize visibility. Mind you, they don't stop at night, using powerful spotlights like the one on the left to see the trees (c) Roger Overall 2004
A barge pushing two empty barges passes one with full loads on either the Cottica or the Commewijne river in Suriname - I forget which as they merge at one point before joining the Suriname river. Like the previous photograph this is notable for me because it was one of the last I took for a commercial assignment on film. Fuji Astia 100, if you're interested. (c) Roger Overall 2004
Bauxite being loaded at the mine in Suriname. I liked the gesture of the hands, which is almost celebrating the delivery of the wet bauxite as if it were manna from heaven. (c) Roger Overall 2004
Dusk on the Commewijne river in Suriname. I had hoped for something more dramatic as the sun was setting. Again, another photograph shot on film. (c) Roger Overall 2004
And then the sun set - (c) Roger Overall 2004
In Guyana, the bauxite is shipped in a dry state to a loading station on the coast where it is transferred to a drybulk carrier that takes it to a refinery overseas. (c) Roger Overall 2004
A bauxite barge on the Berbice river in Guyana. Quite a story to this picture. It was taken the day after we were supposed to go up river to the mine by speedboat. However, the boat almost tipped over and I nearly lost all my camera gear. We did, in fact, lose JP Knight's local MD over the side. Consequently, we decided it was too dangerous to continue, so the next day we hitched a ride on a small plane that picked us up by the side of the road next to a sugar cane field near New Amsterdam. Seriously, I'm not kidding. As we flew south, we saw one of JP Knigtht's barges and I managed to get this shot that shows the expanse of the river as it approaches the sea. I'll never forget the plane ride. There were drafts coming from places in the fuselage that had nothing to do with the air conditioning, which wasn't working anyway. Just sayin'. (c) Roger Overall 2004
A geared drybulker loads bauxite into its holds from JP Knight barges moored alongside. The master of one of JP Knight's tugs looks on. People who know me know that I have a bit of an attraction to reflections. I'm just hard-wired that way. (c) Roger Overall 2004
(c) Roger Overall 2009 – Documentary Wedding Photography, Cork, Ireland
(c) Roger Overall 2009 – Documentary Wedding Photography, Cork, Ireland 
(c) Roger Overall 2009 – Documentary Wedding Photographer, Cork, Ireland 
(c) Roger Overall 2009 – Documentary Wedding Photography, Cork, Ireland 
(c) Roger Overall 2009 – Documentary Wedding Photographer, Cork, Ireland 
(c) Roger Overall 2009 – Documentary Wedding Photography, Cork, Ireland 
(c) Roger Overall 2009 – Documentary Wedding Photographer, Cork, Ireland 
(c) Roger Overall 2009 – Documentary Wedding Photography, Cork, Ireland 
