Ingo's friend and fellow cameraman Bob Prabhu, has written this obituary:

Ingo Julius Prosser
17.09.1950 – 03.04.2012

One of the finest cameramen of BBC TV News was none other than Ingo Prosser who died unexpectedly on the 3rd of April 2012 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. His untimely death rocked the whole of TV News staff on hearing this sad news. Over 80 people expressed their personal grief and sorrow on the social internet site, Facebook.

Ingo studied photography at Ealing Technical College before starting work as a freelance cameraman in the late 70s. He worked first for Ulster TV before joining BBC Northern Ireland as a freelancer. This was the time of massive political upheaval in Northern Ireland. His Managers noted his dexterity and most importantly, his ability to take good pictures to tell a fast moving and unfolding story.

Stephen Claypole, the TV News Editor (1984-87), was very impressed with Ingo’s work and encouraged him to apply for a staff post in London. In 1982, Ingo secured his first staff job at the BBC.  Stephen described him as “one of the best of the Cameramen, if not the best”.

Ingo as a person was amicable, active, enthusiastic with a very wicked dry sense of humour. He was a self motivated News person with a keen eye for pictures and sound. He knew what a TV news story was all about and showed it in television terms. He was a good team player and worked with many household names including Kate Adie, John Simpson, Mike Smartt, Andy Tighe, Mike Baker, Peter Gould, Neil Bennett and Clive Ferguson to name but a few.

He was also gentle with new TV Producers who in his estimation often had no idea of television (as he told me) but he helped them along if only to get – as he always saw it– his story on air. This sense of self ownership, self determination was his trademark and all too evident to his colleagues over his 30 years as a Cameraman.

He was meticulous in his preparation. One of the first things he used to do after getting his job was to check the line up of his camera in the basement garage at TV Centre. His camera car was always tidy and he always impressed upon his sound recordist the importance of keeping his camera car in a “proper clean manner”.

The ENG camera used to weigh about 12 kg and over a period, the weight inflicted an injury to his back and he was unable to carry the normal ENG camera on his shoulder. The BBC Management were very understanding to his problem and issued him with a smaller camera and other lightweight equipment.

Taking pictures was in his blood and using a small camera (often joked about in the Camera rest room as a toy camera) enabled him with new challenges. He managed to persuade a BBC Correspondent, the late Mike Donkin to use him and they went on many assignments together at home and abroad. He proved beyond doubt that the size of the camera did not matter; it was what you do with it that was most important.

The BBC Management saw Ingo as a dependable and good news picture-gatherer in hostile and non-hostile locations alike. They sent him to cover many stories over the years both at home and abroad. He was in Belfast during the Bobby Sands hunger strike against the British Government, the fall of the Berlin Wall with Kate Adie and Brian Hanrahan are just two assignments in a long and glorious career.

I think he will always be remembered for his Tiananmen Square student protest when the Chinese Government sent in their Army and tanks to clear their people from the square. The historic night of the 3rd of June 1989, saw Ingo at his bravest; he was armed only with his Sony Betacam Camera on his shoulder and his sound man, Mark McCauley who captured the sound and watched Ingo’s back.

The pair braved – some would say to the point of madness - staying in the square when the Chinese Army opened fire at the students. Ingo “filmed” a Chinese tank hurtling towards them before getting stuck on a barricade. The mob took their opportunity and attacked the lame tank crew. Ingo captured the whole incident by being in the right place and at the right time. That sums up who Ingo was and why the BBC had much faith in him.

John Simpson the BBC World Affairs Editor narrated this story at many dinner tables I had shared with him on different assignments. Ingos’s dramatic pictures, later scripted by other journalists round the world, showed the event at the cutting edge of Newsgathering in China. See more of Ingo’s pictures of that night in the video here.

His courage was not limited to just the field of action. Few will forget how a member of the public while inside the TV Centre in the public viewing area and outside the TV Newsroom decided to throw some furniture at the glass wall and create mayhem. Without any hesitation Ingo physically restrained the intruder with assistance from his fellow colleague, Nigel Sawtell, before the culprit was taken away. Ingo was totally loyal to the BBC and loyalty meant a lot to him.

Three things mattered most for Ingo in his life.  Pictures, cars and golf. His health started to change in the 1990s due to his back pain. He invested in a professional Nikon stills camera with many lenses and started taking pictures with perfect composition and lighting.

For two years he put his pictures in a custom made calendar and placed it in the Camera rest room. Today when you walk into the room, you will see many pictures of his colleagues at work with their BBC cameras plastered on to the wall. Ingo’s legacy.

With the onset of Parkinson’s, he struggled but kept soldiering on. He wanted to be kept busy. His disability was visible to his colleagues but he always put a brave face and never felt sorry for himself.  He still had the fire in him and bought a light weight broadcast quality Sony Camera with a light weight tripod, LED lights and microphones.

At a lunch meeting in the Wendover pub, he suggested to Steve Morris and me that he wanted to capture our Cameramen’s versions of stories through their eyes. A great idea! And we three set about making it happen with our first interview with Allan Smith - recorded in his garage converted into a make-shift studio!

We had lined up the next three Cameramen for interviews to record after Ingo’s retirement party on the 30th of March, 2012. Linda and Steve Morris organised his leaving party at the BBC TV Centre. Louise Croft and Amanda Douglas with Vicky Parnal.  l and Rachel Price took care of Ingo’s leaving video.

With some 75 people present Ingo’s farewell party went off in a high note. Little did we know what was to come and hit us all like a meteorite from outer space. We were all so dumbfounded with the manner in which his life concluded, knowing that he was to spend this Easter weekend with his wife in Paris.

Ingo leaves behind his wife, Fionnula and two sons, Donal & Mark and a lot of his comrades in the camera unit - past and present, with sorrow and sadness. RIP Ingo.

Bob Prabhu.
Retired BBC TV News Senior Cameraman.

   

This is from "Ariel":-

By Mark McCauley Cameraman

Standing in the middle of the road into Tiananmen Square, as an armoured personnel carrier comes hurtling toward you is a lonely place to be.

But it was where I had to be in June 1989 ... because Ingo Prosser the cameraman was there and I was there to record the sound and watch his back. I wondered 'Will they fire at us?' Ingo stood fast. We were the only people in the carrier's path - the driver diverted at the last moment and raced past. The crowd filtered in from the shelter of the roadside trees. The APC accelerated - it was getting away from us.

'BBC, BBC!' Ingo shouted, gesturing to a man that he wanted to climb on the back of his bicycle. The man obliged and we both set off, bicycle powered in pursuit of a tank. The Chinese army vehicle ground to a halt as the tracks became entangled with metal barriers and the clutch gave out. As we caught up both with the APC and John Simpson the APC was blazing from the numerous petrol bombs that had hit. The Chinese soldiers had a choice. Remain inside and die or come out and take their chances. Ingo positioned himself at the back door in readiness. Would they shoot as they exited? John rattled off a quick piece to the camera and out they came. The crowd surged forward but Ingo was right in close. Some of the crowd attacking the soldiers wanted to beat their heads with rocks. Ingo shouted and John stepped in to stop one of the mob from what could have been a fatal blow.

Ingo with Kate Adie, with Mark McCauley extreme left of picture
The next wave of soldiers came through and now gunfire filled the air. We sheltered in the small gully at the roadside and slowly retreated back to a nearby hotel. Ingo and John smuggled the tapes in their socks back to our makeshift edit suit and the pictures which were sent back are memorable to this day.

In the Autumn of the year Ingo was covering a party political conference in Brighton. For a photojournalist like Ingo this was the equivalent of being handed the black spot. Relief came when the BBC called on us to go to East Berlin to cover the first rumblings in the GDR. Ingo really took to this story with a passion and made it his own. His father was English but his mother was German. (Ingo once recounted how he failed an interview with the RAF. When asked if he had any family history in the forces, he replied with his usual dry wit that he had an uncle who had served with honour in the Luftwaffe). Ingo remained in Berlin and Leipzig until the memorable night when he walked with the first people of East Berlin as they crossed into the West. Those moments remained with him, as they have with all of us, and we recently talked through the events just so Ingo could get them right in his head. He was always making sure that he got things right.

Ingo working at the Elysee Palace
For that year of 1989 Ingo was nominated for both the Royal Televison Society Award and for a BAFTA.

Unfortunately a back injury forced Ingo to step back from the front line in later years, although he pursued many great feature stories filmed on smaller lightweight cameras. Recently Ingo was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and found it very difficult coping with the deterioration of his faculties.

At Ingo's retirement party - only two weeks ago - I looked around the room at the many people gathered there and was struck by the warmth of emotion for Ingo. Sure, he was tough and driven but underneath was a friendly, witty and extremely loyal man. If there are to be heroes and heroines of this business then let Ingo be one of them. I don't think he would have wanted the title though. I think he would prefer to be considered an ordinary person who rose to an extraordinarily challenging job.

It was a great privilege to work with a master and it's with great honour that I write these words. It is also with great sadness, realising that illness can wear away someone's powers so dramatically and that we didn't know. If Ingo has taught us a lesson it is to be great when you can but also to look after one another...for we can't be great all the time and that's fine.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/ariel/17676391