Correspondents Report - ABC's Awarded Washington Cameraman Tells His Story

Correspondents Report with Elizabeth JacksonSunday 7:00 am on Radio National. Sunday evenings on Local Radio Digital.

ABC's awarded Washington cameraman tellshis story

Elizabeth Jackson reported this story on Sunday, May 29, 2011 08:00:00

ELIZABETH JACKSON: This program has a long tradition of showcasing the work of the ABC's

correspondents. Their faces, voices and names become very familiar to avid ABC viewers and listeners.

But In television, those fascinating stories coming from the other side of the world, are very much the

result of a team of people, some of whom spend their time firmly fixed behind the lens.

The ABC's cameraman in Washington is Louie Eroglu. Recently he won the 2011 White House News

Photographers Association, Video Photographer of the Year award.

It's quite an honour. In a talented international pool, Louie Eroglu was voted the best.

His entries included two stories he shot for Foreign Correspondent. You might have seen them, if you

haven't, log onto iView and take a look, it's well worth it. One was a story about the endangered

Canadian wolf, the other, a story about the less glitzy side of Washington.

I spoke to Louie Eroglu and I asked him whether as a young boy growing up in Western Sydney, he'd

ever imagined that he'd end up in the White House shaking the hand of the American president.

LOUIE EROGLU: There is no way that I thought that would happen, but I dreamt of overseas travel and

overseas adventures but I never thought that it would get to this stage. But oh!

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Louie, tell us your story because it is an uplifting one, and it began at a place

which is very much in the headlines now, the Villawood detention centre.

LOUIE EROGLU: Well when we first migrated to Australia as permanent residents, Villawood was a

different place. It's where migrants came, it was a first port of entry and it was where we settled initially

before we found full-time accommodation in other places.

So there were no fences, everyone walked around, everyone socialised and my memory of Villawood is

sort of the a bit sketchy, but I remember the Nissan sheds, I remember my father taking me to wash me,

etc, because I was only four at the time.

So it was a very different place at the time and the funny thing is I went back there with another famous

ABC reporter Cathy Bell in the '90s to do a story there and I was surprised to see high fences, and so it

had changed. So I didn't really keep track of it but it had changed significantly to what it is today.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: How did you end up at the ABC?

LOUIE EROGLU: I've always wanted to be a cameraman, believe it or not, and a photographer. So what

I did was I did a bachelor of business degree at the university. I started a bachelor of business degree at

the University of Western Sydney.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Were you always a good student? Were you a diligent student?

LOUIE EROGLU: Well. That's a good question because I went to a school where there were 33 different

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nationalities and we had the highest variety of people from all around the world and so I come from a

Turkish heritage, and my best friends were Greeks. And it was fantastic, but yeah, we were probably a

little bit naughty, but what we did do is we questioned the teachers a lot and we were actively engaged

in our studies, but we also, let's say, we had some fun as well.

My ancient history teacher said that you must very smart. And I said, why do you say that, sir? And he

said, because you can do two things at once. You can listen to my lecture, and talk to your friends Con

and Stavros (laughs). There you go.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: So, how did you end up at the ABC. You pursued this love of photography.

LOUIE EROGLU: Well I was doing a bachelor of business and then an opportunity came up as a

researcher at the ABC on a program, I don't know if some of the listeners would remember it the

program, called 'Beat Box'.

And that was my foot in the door and I made the most of it, I was really actively engaged in what I did,

but while I was there I made a conscious effort to make my move as an operator, as a camera operator,

because there was a camera crew that was assigned to that program, and I thought, yeah, researching is

fine, but I want to be a camera operator. I want to go out on shoots and I want to do it all.

That's the beautiful thing about the ABC, it teaches you all aspects of the craft from outside broadcasts

to drama, etc. So anyway, lo and behold, an opportunity came for two positions and myself and another

cameraman, Andrew Taylor, got our foot in the door and I worked hard tried to learn my craft as much

as I could and here I am today in Washington.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: What makes an exceptional cameraman, Louie?

LOUIE EROGLU: The Australian camera operators are actually highly regarded overseas. They work

for the BBC, the work for, next door there's a, '60 Minutes' America has an Australian cameraman. So

Australian cameraman are regarded quite high overseas anyway.

But what I think makes an exceptional cameraman is if you can somehow make the two-dimensional

picture and sound and somehow convey that atmosphere of that to the viewers and maybe see other

vignettes, additional vignettes that no one really sees, and then have the capacity to work that into the

story, that's what I think.

And you only get that from experience, watching a lot of things, reading photography magazines and

going out to the art gallery and even watching animation with my children, some of the animation movies

out there, you have some amazing camera work, and it's animated, and so I just watch actively. But what

I try to do is try and convey feeling as much as I can through the pictures and sometimes it works and

sometimes it doesn't.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Now I asked you colleagues what they thought of you, Louie, and here's what

they had to say.

Now this is Peter Cave, Lisa Millar and Mark Willacy.

PETER CAVE: The thing about Louie isn't just that he's such a brilliant cameraman. In the old days we

used to say, in the days of film, that every frame is a Rembrandt and that's the sort of work that Louie

produces.

I used to come back from shoots and see things that I hadn't seen and I was there. He could just make

things look so good. But the really good thing about working with Louie was his ease with people, his

ability to take talent, the people you are interviewing and set them at ease so you've got so much more

out of them.

LISA MILLAR: The first thing that people should know about Louie is that his name is actually Levant

(phonetic), but in true Australian fashion we call him anything but that. Louie, Larry, Laza, it certainly

confuses the Americans we meet out on the road.


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You're guaranteed of beautiful pictures from his camera when you're on a shoot, but you always end up

with much more than that. He and I covered the Haiti earthquake together, spending a week on USS Carl

Vinson the ship going into Port-au-Prince with the military. And I can tell you that he's not only a

colleague, he's a counsellor, a comedian when you need it, and a friend. You're a lucky journo if you've

got Louie watching your back.

MARK WILLACY: Well my friendship with Louie was forged literally under fire. I first worked with

him at the Fiji coup more than a decade ago and then again in the ABC's Middle East bureau in

Jerusalem.

And we've had quite a few adventures. I can just think of a couple. We've been chased and shot at by an

Iraqi bloke in Baghdad, we've been dragged out of our car at gunpoint by American marines, so I've got

to know him better than most in what you could say were extraordinary or difficult circumstances.

There's no question about Louie's sublime skill with the camera, but what really impresses me the most

about my mate is his commitment to the story, his love of the job and his irrepressible if somewhat

unique sense of humour. But most of all it's his wonderful friendship, and I really can't think of anyone

better to be by my side while I'm being shot at.

(Laughter)

ELIZABETH JACKSON: I think he made that as a compliment.

LOUIE EROGLU: Is this Louie Eroglu, this is your ABC life? (laughs)

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Yes it's starting to sound like an obit isn't it? But you are very much alive, I'm

happy to say.

LOUIE EROGLU: What an amazing trio. Wow. And they're mates, and that's the thing. Reporters,

believe it or not, there are some good ones out there, and we bond and we keep in touch, we ring each

other, we support each other and we've been through a few things together.

The thing with having a great colleague next to you is you actually quite look forward to starting it all

again the next day, believe it or not. I just couldn't wait working with Mark again the next day, with Lisa

and with Peter, I just went right (rubs his hands) where's this adventure taking us again? And hopefully

that shows in the pictures too.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Why don't you use your real name?

LOUIE EROGLU: That stuck with me at school, because I started school and I didn't know any English

and so it started at a very early age, I was nicknamed Louie, because Louie the Fly I think was around at

the time and that just stuck and it was just easy at the time, but you know, when my mum, when I'm in

trouble, she used to call me, 'Levant, Levant!' So when I hear my real name I know that I'm in trouble, but

when I heard Louie, I know things are okay.

(Laughs)

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Louie, those two Foreign Correspondent stories that won you this award, were

they difficult to shoot?

LOUIE EROGLU: You couldn't get two more totally different stories. One is epic landscapes, beautiful,

vistas, wolves, cowboys and Indians and the other was, lots of night shoots that finish at three in the

morning, urban landscapes and filming people that are disadvantaged and you couldn't get two totally

different stories.

With the wolves story, it's beautiful, it's in front of you, and as long as you get up five in the morning,

and I had to get Michael Marr and Michael Brissenden up early and drag them along for sunrise shots,

etc, that wasn't too bad. So you had to go beyond the beautiful, and try a couple of other things.


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The other one was difficult in terms of, they were long nights. This is the go-go story which is basically

focusing on the go-go music scene and using that as a metaphor for Barack Obama as president. That

involved long nights getting up and doing it all again. But with both stories, I just couldn't wait to do it

all again. I just loved it.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Now I imagine that all the correspondents operate a little differently from each

other.

LOUIE EROGLU: Correct.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: But how involved do you like to be in the stories that you're shooting?

LOUIE EROGLU: That's a good question. Everyone's different and you learn that some correspondents

work at a different pace, some like to be up till midnight working away and some like to call it quits

early and you learn that and you learn that and you adjust yourself to accommodate that correspondent.

But you can have a fair bit of input in introducing certain tools that you'd like to use and having shot

selection, having ideas that paint the picture. So I like to be a fair bit involved in the long form. In terms

of daily news, pretty much it's a piece to camera and taking in all the material and so you're sort of

governed by what's around. But when a story is 90 per cent, sometimes 100 per cent shot by yourself,

then you've got a lot of say.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: How powerful do you think those picture are? Because I'm thinking now

specifically now of the story that you did on the Canadian wolves. There was a vigilante who was

describing them as something like the Bin Laden of the animal world.

And juxtaposed against that was this glorious shot that you had taken of this fluffy white animal, these

piercing blue eyes, silhouetted against a gorgeous orange sunset. It really said it all. It's a very powerful

image. Is that what you look for in your work?

LOUIE EROGLU: Exactly, I look. I just look for things that would hold the viewer as much as possible.

If it means shooting it at a different time, shooting at a certain frame. I'm actually governed a lot by what

the editors and producers do with Foreign Correspondent back in Australia. The editors pretty much

know what my way of shooting, and they can find things that I shoot, and they're like, yep, I think Louie

wants me to use this shot.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: It's almost like a language.

LOUIE EROGLU: Exactly, yep, you could say that, yep, yep. And it takes a while to get to that level,

but it's absolutely like a language and, but holding a shot a few seconds longer, rather than zooming out

or whatever, the impact of a shot, for example a portrait of someone looking down the barrel, I think Ron

Gillette with just his voice underneath or some music, it can be quite powerful, quite a powerful tool.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: In this digital age of citizen journalism, we've seen quite a few citizen

cameramen as well. Has the value of good, high-quality pictures been diminished?

LOUIE EROGLU: I don't think so, and that's what hopefully this win does for us cameramen that sort of

dedicate ourselves to the craft as well. It gives us the recognition we need.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: What's next for you Louie? Does an accolade like this open up doors for you?

LOUIE EROGLU: It doesn't get much better than this. I was just thinking about this the other day,

actually. Where do I go, when I go back to Australia, because this isn't going to last forever.

I think last time when I finished my posting in the Middle East, I did six months in Australia before I

went to Moscow. And one of the first jobs I did was outside Glebe Coroner's Court and I watched, on

Parramatta Rd, for those listeners, that's a very busy road in Sydney, and watching the buses go by, and

at the time I though, ooh, gees, I'm not finished, I'm not finished. I want to keep this going.


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2010 ABC

So hence I applied for Moscow, I was luckily successful there, went there for three years and then I'm

here in America. So I've planned, for myself, this far, but from now on, I've sort of got a couple of things

up my sleeve, but nothing concrete yet, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Louie it's been a great pleasure. Congratulations again and thank you for

talking to us on Correspondents Report.

LOUIE EROGLU: Thanks for listening to us cameraman out there.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: The delightful Louie Eroglu, the ABC's Washington cameraman.


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Correspondents Report - ABC's Awarded Washington Cameraman Tells His Story

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