It has often been said by photographers that when you have a camera between you and a subject you are both engaged and removed from the reality of the event. I was picked up from my Hotel in Honduras by my host and companion, a female doctor around my age who had switched over from practising medicine to working for the World Health Organisation (PAHO), checking on community health and welfare.

Typically, her English was good and my Spanish was less than freestyle. We drove a couple of hours to a small out the way town where we visited women in the local refuge and Hospital.

We were met by doctors who introduced us to Daria a 20-year-old pregnant woman about to give birth. I faffed about taking flattering angles of the doctors, nurses and Daria who was then calmly taken away for an emergency caesarean.

“Did I want to photograph it?”  It was the first time I had been near an operating table and I wasn’t sure how I’d react, but said yes anyway. The blood and the gore didn’t affect me, but I was affected by a comment the doctor made afterwards saying there was a very real 20 min window between me taking initial photos and the Mother and/or the baby dying.