Title: On the way to an ambush

Photographer: Bruce Connew

Date of publication: 1999

Place of publication: New Zealand

Language: English

Dimensions of book: 155 x 210mm

Edition size: 1000

Number of pages: 175

Number of images: 64

Cover, Type of binding: Perfect Bound

Type of printing: CMYK & duotone

Type of paper: Strathmore Elements Soft White Solid

Printer: Graphic Press, Levin, New Zealand

Publisher: Victoria University Press, Wellington, New Zealand

Publication designer: Studio Catherine Griffiths, Bruce Connew

Publication editor: Bruce Connew

Retail price: USD $225

Summary of project: At first glance, Bruce Connew’s journey was crazy and impulsive. A photographer leaves his children in the care of a friend and hops on a plane to a little reported war he caught a glimpse of on television. In the hill country of east Burma, Connew journeys with refugees, ducks down in trenches to avoid incoming mortar fire and, ultimately, joins forces with a New Zealand mercenary to stage an ambush. This is not your average idea of escapism. What follows is a travellers story – a marvellous tapestry of insight, memoir and visual description. Central to all it’s parts in the photographer’s recent loss of his wife in a road crash. Death and it’s sudden occurence is Connew’s subject. His narrative moves easily between the Auckland suburbs and an all but forgotten war.