PHOTOJOURNALIST Roger Job has seen things that would make a grown man cry. When he arrived in Zaire in 1994 during a cholera epidemic, people were dying in the hundreds. The volcanic ground was so hard that the bodies could not be buried, instead they were laid out in rows on the scorched earth.
'Some of the journalists who came to Zaire could not stomach it and had to leave. The first time you go to a place of suffering and death you know pretty fast whether you will be able to face it again,' says Job.
Job has been flying into places of suffering for more than a decade. He works on a freelance basis, but much of his time has been spent working with the humanitarian and medical relief organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) helping to document crises. Beginning with a job in Mozambique in 1988, he does about eight assignments a year for MSF.
The work can be very depressing, but he says in places of extreme misery he uses his camera as a shield against reality. 'When I am working I am focusing on getting the subject in the frame, concentrating on technique. Sometimes it is only when I get home and develop the photos that the real horror of the place affects me,' he says.
Home for Job is Belgium, where he lives with his wife, an anthropologist. Her work takes her away from home quite often, so sometimes they try to synchronise their trips so they can travel together.
More than 70 per cent of Job's MSF assignments are in Africa. He always takes out a comprehensive medical insurance package, because the water and food hygiene conditions in the countries he visits are often poor. Over the years, he has succumbed to a number of tropical diseases, including typhoid and malaria. 'But I am not afraid of getting sick. I know I can just jump on a plane and I will receive good treatment.'
