Weird weather doesn’t always give much of a warning so to get the pictures you want you have to be prepared. Follow these 10 easy tips and you can’t go wrong.

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1). Have a nose for a good story. Well before sunrise, a haze of martian-like dust wafted into my bedroom and the olfactory assault it delivered got me out of bed well before my year-old-son does. The best shooting light lasted only half an hour. In the pictures business, the early bird does get the worm.

2). Make like a boy scout.  Be prepared. Have your kit always ready to go next to the front door.  Mine has all sorts of goodies for all occasions.  The most precious item on this assignment was the lens cleaning cloth. It must have come out of the bag a dozen times on Wednesday morning. There’s also charged batteries, wallet with spare cash, press ID, eye drops (useful in dust storms), wet weather gear in the trunk and so on.

3). The journey to your destination.  You have this great picture in mind and you jump on the bike, in the car, on the train but keep shooting.  There’s a bunch of pictures you can make that others don’t even notice. My first picture for the day was shot through the windshield while crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

4). People, perspective, proportion.  A renowned landmark emerging out of a vermeil sky is nice, but give it scale and context (both physical and social). Make some pictures that include humans, dogs, birds or whatever beast happens to be in front of your camera. If there’s none in front of your camera then wait... or move.

5). Stay connected.  There's no use having a camera full of winners if that’s where they stay. Be mobile and connected. A netbook, card reader and 3G card are all part of my next-to-the-door kit.  After the first 20 minutes of shooting I filed half a dozen quick pictures to the wire, over an hour ahead of our nearest competition. (There’s always a deadline somewhere in the world).

6). Multi-task. After making an initial file of 6 pictures, my morning included shooting more in the continuing red gale. I shot more as commuters started pouring into the city by road and foot, capturing television footage for my RTN colleagues, filing more, ducking back across the harbour to take my sick wife to the doctor, texting colleagues so we were both on the same page, dressing my son, packing his lunch, taking him to a friend’s house, eating breakfast, filing video footage and getting more pictures on the wire as the dust began to thin.

7). Turn around. Don’t forget to look over your shoulder. You don’t want to miss the amazing picture behind you as everyone else gazes at the obvious in front of them.

8). Consider others. A few minutes spent capturing a little 5D Mark II video footage in the heart of the storm ended up as the opening sequence of Reuters TV's package on the day. Kudos and free beer to follow.

9). Don’t stop. Think of other ways to add impact to your story telling. (or use your colleagues' ideas like I do all the time). All this dust had cleared by midday but instead of a cup of tea with feet up, I headed back to earlier locations and shot pictures of what the town looked like now. A series of “during and after” combinations capped off a strong file.

10). Enjoy yourself.

Reuters photographer Tim Wimborne documents the tattoos of members of the U.S. military serving in Afghanistan in the audio slideshow above.

View full coverage of the War in Afghanistan here.

Babysitting
My guess is most Reuters photographers have a camera in their hand most of the time. You know, just in case. My journalist wife had to drive to the world’s largest coal port last weekend. I was babysitting. A new emission trading scheme was slated to be the following week’s main story in Australia so I grabbed toddler and cameras and off we all went. I ended up with a good carbon emissions file including an Asia picture of the week (below) in between splashing in puddles and chasing seagulls...with my son of course.

Drive-by
Two days later I headed in the opposite direction, to Canberra for the arrival of Spain’s King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia. On the way there the clouds lifted from some distant hills framing a new wind power farm. Pulling over on the freeway, a few quick frames out the other side of the car...and an image (below) included in the Best of the Week file.

Don’t forget to look behind you
Australia’s Prime Minister and main opposition leader both came to welcome Spain’s royalty. These two had been at each other's throats the past few days in a saga about a free pick-up truck and a faked email that had gripped the nation. I’m already there and it costs nothing to squeeze off a few well timed frames while the opposition looked the other way. Sure, it’s primarily a local interest story but depending on how it may have developed, it had the potential to take the Prime Minister down... and why say no to a nice colour half page in the country’s largest circulation national paper?

Getting something for next to nothing has never been easier.

 
So we got to thinking: Wouldn't it be nice to convert our workplace to a warm, fuzzy, green operation and help save the globe? If only we had the money for that...
 
Well, it's 2008 and things have changed. Reuters Pictures Down Under has charged head first into the Green Era, working hard to save the planet and harder to save money!
 
Of course, we did all the usual things like using less paper, not printing emails unless absolutely necessary and increasing our reliance on digital communication because it means less paper, less ink and less time. The office has also removed nearly all rubbish bins, replacing them with a range of recycling boxes for paper, plastic and so on. Reuters also removed the need for bottled water (which accounts for thousands of tons of plastic and greenhouse gases from transportation, production, etc) by installing chilled water filter outlets in the kitchen.

 
However, our biggest change so far has been road transport. In November one of our car leases came due. We dumped our 6 cylinder gas guzzler for a neat hybrid, which by the way has more cargo space than the previous road warrior. It's pretty zippy, feels like driving a spaceship and since we took delivery in mid November have used a little over 6 tanks of fuel...
 
It's warm, it's fuzzy, but it also makes economic sense. Our annual lease is A$1,000/year less than the larger car and our fuel saving is expected to be around A$1,600/year. Oh, and as a sweetener, pretty much the whole of the first year's fuel is covered by the manufacturer's gift of $1000 of worth of free petrol. We have two pix cars in Sydney so as the price of fuel keeps heading up we expect to be saving about A$5,500 a year on cars alone. Think of the extra feature jobs you can do with a saving like that!
 
Get out there. Go Green. Save dough and save the planet!

The Australian Open tennis tournament director is under pressure to resign for it.
Australia's top seeded player is furious about it.
Three quarters of ticket holders decided not to wait around for it. 

The Australian Open is always a long two weeks but you know you're in for an extra late finish when the first photographer to get the ‘night off' leaves at 11.30pm. The seed was planted during the afternoon when world number one Roger Federer, in a display of failing form, took well over 4 hours to subdue his third round opponent. As a result the evening session didn't kick off until almost 10pm. The night wore on and as the ranks in the court side photographer's pit thinned Darren Whiteside and I carried the Reuters flag for the second match on the sched which started close to midnight. Crowd favourite Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus up against local bad boy Lleyton Hewitt. And what do you know? It was a five setter 4-6, 7-5, 7-5, 6-7, 6-3.....

Spectators fell asleep, ball boys fell asleep, and journalists fell asleep but not us. This match smashed a new late finish record, with Hewitt putting down the winning serve at about 4.37am the following day.  Throw in post match editing, organising gear for the following day and packing up, we got to our hotel around 5.45am and I pulled the covers over my head just as the sun began to rise.

We'd had 17 straight hours on court shooting with hard seats, bad food and bloodshot eyes but we're smacking our lips for more.