Photo: AP
PETALING JAYA: Years ago, an aerospace engineering student Marcus Yam laughed when a design director of a renowned daily news company in New York reached out and asked if he ought to consider photojournalism as a career, insisting that he had something "special".
"I thought my future was to continue as an engineer, buy a boat and go fishing but he (then Buffalo News design director John Davis) thought otherwise and challenged me.
"He offered me a photo internship and told me that if I didn’t like it, I could return to my path to becoming an aerospace engineer.
"I could not say no to that challenge," Yam said, adding that it was the pivotal moment that had changed his life and led him into the world of photography.
The Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent and staff photographer was recently awarded a Pulitzer Prize in breaking news photography for his photos, covering the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan.
"I still wake up every day wondering if this is all a dream. It is a huge honour to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Many spend their entire careers doing good work and never come close to it.
"But honestly, I don’t do this job for the prizes. Sure, it is a nice token of appreciation and the bosses love it but what we do is considered public service.
"If you can’t get out of bed to do a story that won’t win a prize, then you have to ask yourself 'why are you a journalist?'," he said.
The accolade didn't stop there.
Yam was recently awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards for International Photography and was also named the recipient of the Daniel Pearl Award for Courage and Integrity.
Born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Yam said his experience growing up in Malaysia has given him the perspective, grit and tenacity to live his life meaningfully.
"I was not involved in photography in Malaysia. Looking back, my focus and passion in the things I do in life has always been singular.
"As the phrase from my favourite movie Gattaca 'You want to know how I did it? This is how I did it, I never saved anything for the swim back'," he said.
Going into his Pulitzer-winning photos, Yam said seeing one Afghan city after another falling to the Taliban last year, his instincts quickly alerted him that Kabul could be next.
"When given the green light by my editors, I hurried to pack my gear in 20 minutes and made it onto a flight out to Lebanon, a temporary base, with just five minutes to spare. I went into Afghanistan alone," he said, adding that he had laid careful groundwork and procured a difficult-to-obtain one-year multiple entry visa beforehand.
On Aug 15, Yam found himself in place for the fall of the Afghan capital, capturing chaotic images of terrified Afghans, swarming the airport in the hope to escape from Taliban fighters.
Yam and his writing partner Nabih Bulos managed to gain extraordinary access to the Kabul airport on the night of the U.S. departure because they had repeatedly made visits to reconnoitre various gates and make contacts among the militants manning them.
"I also photographed the funeral of 10 members of one family, including seven children, who were killed in a mistaken U.S. drone strike.
"The mourners stood among fresh graves, looking up, their sobs drowned out by U.S. warplanes roaring overhead," he said.
Yam said the job requires him to practice an almost radical open-mindedness and for him to remain calm and painstakingly observant, even in moments fraught with danger.
"For example, when engaging in conversation with a Taliban fighter who had roughed me up and observing the thoughtful gestures like going to say goodbye to a family decimated by an airstrike led to a revelation that propelled the story forward – that they had not received any apology or compensation," he said.
Yam too had to be quick-thinking and be able to improvise, especially when he was on duty in the war zone.
"At the scene of a drone strike, I grabbed a shovel and fully unearthed an orange metal component that turned out to be the pneumatic accumulator (a metal tank filled with compressed gas) of a U.S. Hellfire missile," he said.
His hope now is that he could continue with his work, to document history and take readers to the frontlines of conflict, struggle and intimacy.
"Conflict doesn’t necessarily mean war zones or foreign lands. It could mean turmoil of the heart, it could mean grief, it could also be what ails society.
"I find that the role of photojournalism is to connect viewers to the plight of people they normally would not connect with, to create a sense of understanding empathy for the world outside their normal lives.
"Fostering that sense of humanity would eventually make our world a more civic and understanding place to live.
"Basically, to help people understand that we are all the same. What happens to one of us, can happen to the rest of us," he said.
