Mugged at Gunpoint
Date
14.10.10
Information
Well I finally got off to shoot some personal work for my project on the growth of slums around the world.
Caracas, Venezuela, has some of the most notorious in the world, known locally as Barrio's. Tuesday morning with my fixer Anahi we went out to visit some of the communities. First call Petare, considered one of the oldest, biggest and most violent shantytowns in Latin America. It is made of 2000 different barrio's or communities and has more than 800,000 inhabitants. We strolled around and noted various points of interest.
Then to Capellin, considered one of the more relaxed communities. We had a look around but on our way back to the car we were held up at gunpoint, two guys approached us on foot pointed a gun at me and said 'Camera's, camera's'. I always try to put people at ease, so I let them help themselves. Two more guy's turned up on a motorbike, the guy on the back jumped off and pointed another gun to my head. They got the camera's when a couple of older guy's came over and told them to stop and give the gear back. After a short scuffle I got some of the gear back and luckily had a spare camera at the hotel. I hadn't even been in Caracas for 24 hours and I've now learnt why it is now the most violent city in the world.
After a coffee to catch our breath we went back into Petare to get the dusk landscape attached.
Caracas, Venezuela, has some of the most notorious in the world, known locally as Barrio's. Tuesday morning with my fixer Anahi we went out to visit some of the communities. First call Petare, considered one of the oldest, biggest and most violent shantytowns in Latin America. It is made of 2000 different barrio's or communities and has more than 800,000 inhabitants. We strolled around and noted various points of interest.
Then to Capellin, considered one of the more relaxed communities. We had a look around but on our way back to the car we were held up at gunpoint, two guys approached us on foot pointed a gun at me and said 'Camera's, camera's'. I always try to put people at ease, so I let them help themselves. Two more guy's turned up on a motorbike, the guy on the back jumped off and pointed another gun to my head. They got the camera's when a couple of older guy's came over and told them to stop and give the gear back. After a short scuffle I got some of the gear back and luckily had a spare camera at the hotel. I hadn't even been in Caracas for 24 hours and I've now learnt why it is now the most violent city in the world.
After a coffee to catch our breath we went back into Petare to get the dusk landscape attached.
CARACAS, VENEZUELA - October 2010. Petare considered one of the oldest, biggest and most violent shantytowns in Latin America. It is made of 2000 different barrio's or communities and has more than 800,000 inhabitants.
