He had worked in Indonesia earlier in 2001 covering the Free Aceh Movement and the conflict in East Timor for the Reuters agency. He decided to go to Jakarta without any previous experience and try his hand at becoming a photo journalist. Prior to that he worked as a Quality Manager for Coles Myer. His breakthrough came in his coverage of the final months of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor that August. He ran the Reuters television bureau in Dili after the former Portuguese colony voted for independence.