Photos and audio by Brian Snyder

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As the U.S. Senate approves a $2 billion boost for the "Cash for Clunkers" program, photographer Brian Snyder speaks with Tom Barenboim, owner of Clark Chrysler Jeep Dodge dealership in Methuen, Massachusetts, and parts manager Fred Coco about their experience with the program, and what happens to the clunkers once they are traded in.

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• Sodium Silicate (Wikipedia)
• How to use Sodium Silicate to kill clunker cars

Reuters photographer Brian Snyder is seen at center in his position at the Super Bowl. (Photo by Jeff Snyder)

When Reuters photographers cover a major event like the Super Bowl, each photographer is assigned a specific position on the field. Reuters places a photographer in each corner of the end zones to cover the action, touchdowns and reaction occurring in front of them. We have one photographer on each sideline, moving with the play and concentrating on the quarterbacks, sacks and their reactions. In Tampa for Super Bowl XLIII there were two photographers way overhead in the upper part of the stands, covering both the action and making wide pictures to show the whole scene. I was assigned a position in the first row of the seats in one of the endzones (center in the photo above) -- high enough to provide cleaner backgrounds while avoiding being blocked by the security personnel and NFL film crews on the sidelines, but low enough to see the players' faces and not just the tops of their helmets.

When you boil it down, you are responsible for making the pictures of the action that happens in the portion of the field that you are assigned to cover. For most of the game, all of the action went away from me; the touchdowns and sacks took place mostly on the other end of the field. When the Cardinals' Larry Fitzgerald scored the go ahead touchdown late in the fourth quarter, I could see none of it. The Reuters photographers on the other end of the field - Gary Hershorn, Shaun Best and Hans Deryk - made great images of that touchdown. Had the Cardinals held on to win, their photographs would have been the ones on the front pages and sports pages of newspapers everywhere.

But the Steelers got the ball back in the last minutes of the game and drove down the field towards me.  What proved to be the winning touchdown, the pass Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger threw to wide receiver and MVP Santonio Holmes in the corner of the end zone, happened right in front of me. I had switched to my shorter lens since the only pictures that mattered at that point in the game would be of the winning score (or failed attempt).

That focal length proved to be just wide enough to keep Santonio Holmes in the frame from head to toe, which proved significant since extensive video review by the officials was required to make sure he came down with his feet inbounds. Not often is a still photograph as (or more) conclusive than video replay, but the still picture clearly shows Holmes with control of the ball and both feet touching the ground for the game-winning touchdown.

The next morning, after the picture had appeared on newspaper front pages and sports section fronts here and abroad I would hear from friends, as well as people I had never met before, who contacted me to say that until they saw my picture they were unsure of the referees' call on the play. Despite seeing the play again and again on television, this still picture, seen the next morning, had been the thing that convinced them that the referees had made the right call.

On the field, once the officials had reviewed the video replays and confirmed that it was a touchdown, my runner took my disk to the photographers workspace on the other side of the endzone, and via Reuters remote editing software Paneikon, editors remotely editing from other parts of the country were seeing my images of the play, as well as those of the other Reuters photographers, within minutes. The editor looking at my take, Mike Segar, chose several of the images from the sequence I shot to move on the Reuters wire.

Since I was slightly farther removed from the play, my photographs kept all of Santonio Holmes in the frame, while Reuters photographer Scott Audette's images from field level in the corner of the endzone nicely complimented mine with a tighter view of the catch. Each of us had fulfilled our role at the game.

The city of Pawtucket in Rhode Island offers a vivid glimpse into the depth of America's worsening recession -- and a warning of the dangers of rising unemployment.

View Brian Snyder's audio slideshow from Pawtucket here. To read the feature story by Boston Bureau Chief Jason Szep, click here.

I don't think it can be said that Senator John McCain's loss of the U.S. presidency to Barack Obama was for lack of trying. Senator McCain campaigned hard in the final two days before the election.  On November 2 and November 3 we went to 11 rallies, in 9 different states, and worked 45 out of 48 hours.  We flew more than 4,000 miles over those two days. At each rally I shot a picture from the same spot in the buffer in front of the stage.  What you see in this combination of pictures are those images, one from each of the 11 rallies.  The covers of our schedules are at the end of the sequence.  While in the end past decisions and this unique moment in history may have stopped Senator McCain from becoming president, he certainly gave it one final, strong push.

Reuters Boston staff photographer Brian Snyder is traveling with Republican U.S. presidential nominee John McCain through election day. He and his colleague Jason Reed traveling with the Obama campaign have been posting daily blog entries sharing their experiences and favorite pictures of the day from their campaign coverage.

In my past campaign coverage experience U.S. presidential candidates do not often continue to campaign on election day. Instead they do a long series of satellite interviews with local television and radio stations in battleground states. But, after a seven state, 24-hour day of campaigning, Senator John McCain dropped off his ballot at his local polling place and headed back out on the campaign trail with a flight to Grand Junction, Colorado for a campaign rally, the final rally of what has been a long presidential campaign. Senator and Mrs. McCain climbed the steps to their campaign plane after that final rally, turned, and waved to the crowd gathered below for a final time as the McCain 2008 presidential campaign wound down. Hours later McCain would call Senator Barack Obama to concede defeat and congratulate the new president-elect.

Reuters Boston staff photographer Brian Snyder is traveling with Republican U.S. presidential nominee John McCain through election day November 4. He and his colleague Jason Reed traveling with the Obama campaign are posting daily blog entries on the Reuters photographers blog sharing their experiences and favorite pictures of the day from their campaign coverage.

The final day of campaigning before election day and we are scheduled to have rallies in 7 different states: Florida, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Mexico, Nevada, and Arizona.  Most of the rallies are airport rallies which means the campaign plane lands and taxis up to a hangar that has been set up for a rally.  This saves a lot of time since there is no motorcading. Visually, several of the rallies have been inside the hangar, with the open side of the building serving as one of the backgrounds, making silhouettes a natural way to photograph them (top image).  When Senator and Mrs. McCain took the sage in Blountville, Tennessee, they were silhouetted against the open side of the hangar, waving to the crowd on opposite sides of the stage (bottom image).

Reuters Washington staff photographer Jason Reed is traveling with Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Barack Obama through election day November 4. He and his colleague Brian Snyder traveling with the McCain campaign are posting daily photographers blog entries sharing their experiences and favorite pictures of the day from their campaign coverage.

When people ask me what its like to cover a presidential election campaign, traveling with Democratic nominee Barack Obama over the past months, my standard reply is it's like going to three or four rock music concerts a day, every day, for weeks on end. The adrenalin rush you get from the thousands of excited supporters in the crowd is infectious, even after a 14 hour day on the road and you are suffering a nasty case of severe sleep deprivation.

The rock concert analogy played out more literally on Sunday, as American popular music legend Bruce Springsteen headlined for Obama at a campaign rally in Cleveland, Ohio. Throwing his support behind the democratic nominee, Springsteen fired up the crowd with some of his songs, most with a political flavor, ending his set with a spoken political speech accompanied to the strumming of his guitar.

In a few carefully chosen words, Springsteen summed up the historical significance of Obama's campaign, and its unusual path from community organizer in Chicago, to a state senator, to U.S. senator, to possibly the next U.S. President.

Springsteen's message drew a lot of emotion in the crowd, crystallizing the hopes and dreams of thousands who have followed Obama's path in this election campaign which began an incredibly long 21 months ago, where he announced his candidacy for president in February last year.

The mini Springsteen concert was one of the more memorable rallies that I have covered in all the months that we have been on the road and it was great to get a front row seat to the spectacle. With one day until the U.S. presidential election, the excitement is infectious.