Documentary | 24 January 1999

In 1989, Reed Paget was a 23-year-old photographer and aspiring documentarian who wanted to record the seven wonders of the world on film. He decided to start in China, where he got a job teaching English, just in time to witness the student uprisings that led to the massacre in Tiananmen Square. Paget was able to sneak his film (and himself) out of the country, and next visited Vietnam and Cambodia, hoping to photograph Angor Wat. As one might expect, Paget and his traveling companion were both arrested, but upon his release, Paget discovered he'd developed a taste for danger. He spent much of the next few years scrambling to the world's trouble spots and throwing himself into the face of war or civil disturbance in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, South Africa, Germany, Moscow, Cairo, and Israel, which was as close to the Gulf War as he was able to get before missiles began to fall.