NAME: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Photographer.
OR: The camera-toting daredevils to be found wherever there's a good ruck to be had. If it's a political demonstration, a procession of angry farmers marching to Government House or a particularly saucy court case, you can be sure our hero will be there. And if things are a bit dull, you can be sure he'll spice it up.
AGE: Young enough to chase a reluctant subject up and down flights of stairs on to moving vehicles and even up trees. Young enough to take a punch on the chin and keep snapping away (before getting really stuck in).
PAY: Not great but the Teenage Mutant Ninja Photographer is not in it for the money - he has his own agenda.
WHICH IS: Confrontation. Perhaps acting on the instructions of a barking editor ('Don't come back until you've got a front-page shot!'), these chaps love to liven up the dullest occasions. A protest outside the Grand Hyatt needs livening up? Encourage someone to set fire to a car tyre. Things a bit flat outside the New China News Agency? Accidentally-on-purpose nudge one of the long-haired professional demonstrators so he bumps into a cop and starts a flurry of handbag-swinging. Man spends millions on a number-plate with the numbers 96 on it: chase him along the highways and byways until he divulges the identity of his client. Hong Kong starlet stages a boring press conference: drop your pen, ask her to pick it up, then shoot straight down her cleavage.
SPECIAL SKILLS: (1) The one-handed sky-hook shot. This involves holding your camera up in the air, snapping over the heads of the reporters in front and somehow capturing a perfectly framed and focused picture of your quarry.
