A Reuters cameraman explains how he took pictures as a US Marine was shot at in Afghanistan
KEY POINTS:
If I hadn't been pointing the camera at the Marine when the bullet hit the wall, there is no way I would have been able to react quickly enough to take those pictures.
Moments earlier I had been lazing around in Afghanistan's blistering desert heat wondering when I might get to test my new 24mm lens.
Gunshots rang out from beyond the perimeter of the compound the US Marines were guarding in the district of Garmsir, a Taleban stronghold in Helmand province.
I took a quick look over the wall. Then the gunfire began again. The Marines opened up with heavy machine guns. The Taleban answered back with single shots. Sergeant William Bee was there with his M-16 rifle. I asked him if the Taleban were shooting from the same compound as before. He said yes and aimed his rifle over the wall.
Suddenly it seemed to explode from an incoming round and Bee was down. I dropped my cameras and jumped towards him. I felt his head expecting to find blood, but there was none. He was breathing, but unconscious. The medics arrived, threw a smoke grenade, put him on a stretcher and took him away.
I picked up my cameras and shot a few more pictures, then went back to see how Bee was doing. He was grinning from ear to ear. He hadn't been hit or seriously hurt.
At first, I didn't even know if I'd shot anything of Bee at the height of the action, but was very excited when I saw the pictures - a rare sequence of split-second shots tracing the impact of the bullets on the wall to him lying on the ground.
About the photographer
Goran Tomasevic started working for Reuters as a freelance photographer in 1996 during anti-Milosevic demonstrations in Belgrade. He has worked in Baghdad and Jerusalem and is now senior photographer in Egypt.
- REUTERS
