TKI Group (Tawap Kamen Investment Group) Mining and Energy Services is at the forefront of Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) development of its resources and energy industry. The company’s operations span engineering, construction, transport, manpower, electrical, plant hire, security, and civil engineering. It has played a leading role in the nation’s jump in GDP from around $3bn to $23.5 within twenty-years.
The company had a three-fold requirement for a new set of photographs. Firstly, they were to provide visual marketing collateral for a website refresh. Secondly, they were to support a feature article by Jonathan Dyble for Asia Outlook, a boardroom level digital and print magazine spanning a wide range of industries in the region. And, thirdly as content for a related brochure aimed at promoting interest from investors.
My brief was to promote the company’s commitment to a zero-harm health and safety culture, and to draw attention to their use of cloud-based technology in the field. TKI has brought itself up by its bootstraps to become a first world concern in a developing third world environment; something they are keen to impress upon their peer group and beyond. A showcase.
Shooting the operations and personnel of a vast, open-cast gold mine high up in the jungle highlands of Papua New Guinea is a challenge both technically and physically. It isn’t for the feint hearted. I lugged nine kilos of kit from 07:30 until 6pm through a cycle of searing heat, stifling humidity, and tropical downpours to get the shots that mattered, while maintaining my regular shot ratio of roughly 3:1 throughout. Something I’m proud of.
To stay on track with the shoot, the General Manager I and viewed the dailies before heading off for dinner in the clubhouse each evening. He was ‘extremely happy with the standard of professionalism’, and the ‘ease’ with which I ‘engaged with the staff’ as well as the ‘qualify of the photographs I produced’. The journalist agreed that ‘the photos look great and will really help bring the TKI article to life’.
So happy was the General Manager, who has since been promoted to Managing Director of the group, that he has invited me to shoot his wedding in New Zealand in spring.
My most challenging assignment was shooting the operations and personnel of a vast, open-cast gold mine high up in the jungle highlands of Papua New Guinea. Four days in-country from 07:30 – 18:00 carrying 9KG of kit. It rained biblically when it wasn’t scorching hot. The pictures were published in Asia Outlook, an international investor guide to the mining, oil and gas sector.
