Documenting the heart-wrenching and often emotionally distressing images of the Rohingya refugee crisis is not for the vulnerable or faint-hearted.
Patrick Brown knows that feeling. The award-winning photojournalist has been working with Unicef in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, painstakingly capturing the initial couple of months of the exodus of refugees that began in late August of last year and continued to the end of December.
The emotionally charged images Brown photographed during this period are being showcased at RCB Photographers' Gallery, River City, from today until Aug 10. The exhibition is called "Exodus".
From the get-go, his mandate was to chronicle the Rohingya the moment they set foot on Bangladeshi soil, said Brown. And that is what he set out to do, with a sense of responsibility that called on him to spend long hours getting photos that told their story in its totality.
Patrick Brown. Sun Thapphawut
"I don't let my emotions get to me in such situations -- it is unprofessional and somewhat condescending to the people I am documenting," Brown said. "All I do is focus on my work -- that is, to find where the refugees are trickling across. They bypass the Burmese military, Bangladesh military and border guards, so they are coming in from different areas.
"You are constantly on the go, communicating with your colleagues on what is happening, so there is very little time to think of anything else. Your job is to document, get back, process the images -- so this leaves very little room to think of anything else."
Australian-born Brown has worked in Asia for number of years, spending the bulk of this time covering Myanmar and its troubles, with its numerous ethnic minorities. Besides the Rohingya, he has documented horror stories of war and persecution of the Kachin, Kayin, Kayah, Mon and Shan.
He is based in Bangkok today. During his formative years, he resided in the Middle East and Africa before his family settled in Perth.
Walking us through what he describes as one of his most difficult assignments, the veteran photographer said that it was toward the end of August that he began hearing from colleagues stationed in Bangladesh that huge numbers of Rohingya had begun to flood across the border into a location near Cox's Bazar.
The stories he heard painted a grim picture of the plight of the Rohingya. He worried this was the beginning of something huge and terrible for this ethnic group. The border situation worsened, and the next thing he knew he was on a flight to Bangladesh.
Brown said that what once looked like a situation that would be over within a week snowballed into a crisis that stretched to weeks and then months, with no end in sight. It was in the beginning of September that the numbers began to swell. One just cannot prepare for what was about to happen, he said, because the rise in number of refugees was getting into the hundreds of thousands, and at a speed which was rather alarming.
A survivor of the massacre at Tula Toli. Patrick Brown/River City
When Brown first got to Cox's Bazar, he thought it was just a busy market town. Watching how it then began to get totally overrun by a flood of refugees was mind-blowing. He said one just cannot comprehend that experience until you see it in person.
"One day I did 27 hours straight work of shooting, travelling, post-production and transmitting. I would then sleep for two to three hours and go out. I was really burning the candle at both ends."
Another huge part of his work was spending time with the refugees to gain their trust. This enabled him to better empathise with them. Each encounter was to say the least a touching experience.
He spoke about 11-year-old Noor, whom he captured carrying her family belongings from the Shamlapur Beach. She set sail from Myanmar with her family to reach Bangladesh after travelling five hours in the precarious open waters of the Bay of Bengal. He also recalls many who came with nothing but the clothes on their back.
He also shared stories from survivors of the massacre at Tula Toli (Min Gyi village). The huge responsibility of telling their stories, and many like them, became an integral part of his documentation.
On the plight of countless other refugees around the globe today, Brown -- who was recently nominated for the World Press Photo of the Year, for an image showing the bodies of Rohingya refugees laid out after the boat in which they were attempting to flee Myanmar capsized -- said it is important for people to empathise with their situation.
"These refugees don't want to leave home. The Syrian refugees, for example -- they didn't want to leave home, they stayed as long as they could. They left their home because they were looking at death. It goes the same for the Rohingya. They would desire to stay in Rakhine State, in their own home and familiar surroundings -- doing what every other family is doing in the world, trying to make a better life for their family.
"I realise that there are restrictions, and border law is a very sensitive subject matter. But you have to also consider, in the West and the developed world and developing world, that there is a set of circumstances [explaining] why these people have left."
Noor Haba, 11, carries family belongings to the beach after the boat she travelled in landed at Shamlapur Beach.
