“Take good care of Ashley, he is the most handsome cameraman we have,” he begs The Vanguard the tireless Jordi Hurtado on the set of the program Know and win during a break from recording. Ashley, unisex name that her mother gave her after the character played by Leslie Howard in Gone with the wind is Ashley Pla Capó (Dénia, 1974), surely the most all-round cameraman on the staff of Spanish public television.
And Ashley, shy and discreet, the type of person who passes by without making a sound, would like to blend in behind the camera.
Enrichment
“The accelerated ‘record-send-record’ pace makes me gain agility to resolve situations”
–I never give interviews. I don’t know if I’ll be able to measure up… You’ll guide me – the man from Alicante shrinks before starting.
It wasn’t necessary, because Ashley guides himself, as he has done during his 24 years at TVE as a very diverse camera operator – of contests, show programs, the Sanfermines, tennis broadcasts at the Godó, football , in the Olympic Games…–, but above all in the 16 editions in which he has worked in the toughest rally in the world.
Passport to Dakar
Ashley Pla
· Sant Cugat del Vallès
· 50 years
· Married, two children
· TVE reporter and camera
· Camera, special envoy of TVE
· 17th Dakar
It all started in December 2006, when a boss, knowing of his willingness to work in any circumstance – “my main asset”, he says – proposed that he embark on what would be the last African Dakar, in 2007.
–I didn’t think about it for a moment, nor did I consult my wife, Yolanda. I said yes. “I’ll fix it later at home,” I thought. She took it well, even though it left her alone with a daughter who was barely one year old. Luckily, he understands my work and knows that I have fought for it – confesses Ashley.
Until then, Pla had acted as a cameraman mainly in studio programs such as The open night with Pedro Ruiz, look who’s dancing or the perennial Know and win in which Hurtado continues to focus. But the Dakar was another dimension. “It fascinated me, like many people.”
And for the rally he left, leaving behind the controlled sphere and the comfort of a set to put the camera on his shoulder and face the uncertainties in the deserts of Mali, Mauritania, then Chile, Peru or Bolivia, and now Saudi Arabia.
–In the Dakar you leave your comfort zone, the comfort of working on a set, and you have to solve complex situations that arise, adapt to extreme and very different working conditions, being practically alone, with Paco Grande or before with Marc Martín or Jesús Cebrián, without the support of a team at his side. You learn a lot. The Dakar is an enriching and transformative experience. “It has changed me personally and professionally,” says the cameraman.
A work enrichment that has made him a better professional, the result of stress, of those marathon days, often 18 or 20 hours long, of getting up at 4 to take down the tent and catch a plane, of leaving the camp on an adventure to record images or to find 4G coverage in the desert, to arrive on time to the editing room and to satellite delivery to be able to enter the News, and then continue recording stories of pilots who arrive late, who get lost, who get into an accident, who help a rival…
–The accelerated pace of record-mount-send-record… has made me gain agility and creativity to resolve situations, and it charges me with energy. Every year I learn. And it makes me come back wanting to be a better professional. And then there is the coexistence with drivers and the entire Dakar caravan… This is one of the few sports where rivals help each other, and the same happens with colleagues from other media; We help each other – highlights the TVE cameraman, with a thousand images recorded in his memory seen through the optics of a camera.
Ashley Pla and Jordi Hurtado, photographed by Àlex Garcia on the set of the program ‘Saber y Ganar’
–In the Dakar you experience the sorrows and glories of the drivers. The passion and emotions that everyone transmits is very beautiful, from the first to the last, without distinction of level or budget. I remember the stage of the last Dakar in which Isidre Esteve arrived at the camp after spending two days trapped in a dune, and his partner, Lidia, greeted him excitedly. They are stories of overcoming, of adventure, of emotions…
…That Ashley Pla wouldn’t change for anything.
–If I didn’t do more the Dakar would be a bucket of cold water. I wouldn’t take it very well. The sky would fall on me. I know that one day it will end. Then I’ll find a way to deal with it.
in the suitcase
The art of a good shave
A technician’s suitcase is dominated by cables, connections, filters and all kinds of gadgets for work. But in the 30 kg (120 liters) of suitcase that he takes to Arabia, what Ashley Pla appreciates most is a manual razor that he has signed up for this edition. “I don’t grow a beard, it bothers me, I prefer to be in a hurry. So I shave every day. It’s a mania. To waste less time, I have found a razor with five blades that does not irritate the skin,” explains the cameraman. “This way I won’t start the day off.”
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