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from Photographers Blog:
Lahore Inferno: Losing the battle with fire
WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT
Lahore, Pakistan
By Damir Sagolj
A man wearing traditional white Pakistani clothes disappeared from the window back into the burning building. A minute later, a different man wearing black emerged from inside but it looked like someone was holding his lifeless body. The body was slowly pushed over the edge of the window and then released. Twenty seconds later the man in white came out again. He sat calmly for a few seconds in the open window with his back turned outwards and then just fell.
GALLERY: MEN FALL FROM BUILDING INFERNO
And that was it; both men were dead in less than a minute. After several long hours of fighting a raging fire (or were they short hours? Time gets twisted in extreme situations like this), this part of the story ended in the way I had feared from the beginning - the worst possible way. I shot pictures of people falling from the building to their deaths, of others crying on the ground, of desperate and helpless rescue workers.
It was supposed to be an easy pre-election day in Lahore. We did expect some heat as the campaign of the two main candidates was coming to an end but what happened that Thursday still haunts me without any signs of easing. What started as an easy day for me and poor government workers in their modern office building in Punjab’s capital ended with more deaths than in election violence across the country over the next few days.
Earlier in the day, just after arriving in Lahore I received a short text message saying that a fire had broke out on the seventh floor of a government building and that there could be some people trapped inside. I was on my way to the hospital where Imran Khan, the former Pakistani cricket player and rising star in politics, was recovering from an injury. He was big in the news and there was a possibility for journalists to see him but a building on fire, with people trapped inside, is always the priority. I put Imran aside for a while and headed toward the LDA Plaza.
from Photographers Blog:
The tragic legacy of KISS
Santa Maria, Brazil
By Ricardo Moraes
It was an unforgettable end to enormous pain and a ravaged mind. The last day of coverage of one of Brazil’s greatest tragedies touched me so much that I’m only going to tell how the story ended.
The morning of January 30, 2013, I met a woman who was devastated, confused, and completely lost inside of herself - wounded to the heart.
from Photographers Blog:
The KISS that ended in tragedy
Santa Maria, Brazil
By Edison Vara
It was early Sunday when my cell phone began ringing nonstop. Reuters called to inform me of a tragedy that was happening in the Kiss nightclub in the city of Santa Maria, with more than 70 known dead initially. That number would soon rise past 230. After more than 30 years as a photojournalist I was still jolted by the news, grabbed my equipment, and left for the site three hours away.
When I reached the gymnasium in Santa Maria where the bodies were being taken for identification, I was shocked to see the parents, children, brothers and sisters of victims searching for information, but I had to photograph all these moments of desperation, with respect for those who didn’t want me to.
from Photographers Blog:
Riding through flames and fury
San Bartolome de Pinares, Spain
By Sergio Perez
Despite its relative short distance from Madrid, around 100km (62 miles), I have never been in the small village of San Bartolome de Pinares. It is situated in the heart of a small valley surrounded by reservoirs and forest and is well known to trekkers and cyclists alike. However, a traditional night celebration which takes place every January 16th, known as “Las Luminarias”, is little known.
During the celebration, in honor of Saint Anthony, Patron of animals, revelers ride their horses through the narrow cobble-stoned streets to purify the animals with the smoke and flames of the bonfires.
from MediaFile:
Great artists steal, tablet edition
By Aaron Presssman
The opinions expressed are his own.
“Good artists copy, great artists steal.” – Pablo Picasso via 1994 Steve Jobs
Amazon's new Kindle Fire tablet seems like the anti-iPad to many. With its chunky design, smaller low resolution screen and occasionally stuttering software interface, the Fire has been blasted by some of the iPad's biggest fans. And they've predicted it too will end up on the growing trash heap of previous iPad competitors that arrived with high expectations only to be found selling on Woot for 75 percent off six months later.
from Oddly Enough Blog:
Maybe the worst idea EVER?
People ask me where I get all the stupid stuff in this blog, and I have to say, honestly, the best of it is straight out of the news.
Here's an example. According to an Associated Press story, officials in Georgia are considering saving money by putting prisoners in fire stations.
from Oddly Enough Blog:
Let’s do something spontaneous, Baby!
Hey Blog Guy, how come you're sitting in that huge tub of ice cubes up to your neck?
That's my new "home." I eat, sleep and blog here, under constant monitoring.
Um, that's a little strange, Blog Guy. You want to explain what's going on?
Sure. A coroner in Ireland has officially ruled that a man who burned to death in his home died as a result of spontaneous combustion. The coroner said it's the first time in 25 years of investigating deaths that he has recorded such a verdict.
from Russell Boyce:
Asia – A Week in Pictures 31 July 2011
Ramadan started in Asia on Sunday and Indonesia-based photographer Ahmed Yusef produced this beautiful image to mark the start of the most important period in the Muslim calendar. The viewer focuses on the young woman's eyes as the red scarf draws you to her through a sea of swirling white created by a slow exposure. Also in Indonesia, Dwi Oblo's picture draws you into the picture through light and smoke to evoke a real feeling of people humbling themselves as they pay respects to their dead relatives as they also prepare for Ramadan.
Muslim woman attend mass prayer session "Tarawih", which marks the beginning of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, at Al Markaz Al Islami mosque in Makassar, South Sulawesi July 31, 2011. Muslims around the world abstain from eating, drinking and conducting sexual relations from sunrise to sunset during Ramadan, the holiest month in the Islamic calendar. REUTERS/Ahmad Yusuf
from Photographers Blog:
Meeting a homeless “Millionaire”
I’d heard of Rubina Ali in my earlier visits to the Gharib Nagar shanty colony outside Mumbai’s suburban Bandra station but had never had the opportunity to meet her. It took a raging fire through the colony to finally bring me face-to-face with the child star of the Oscar-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire".
On Friday night, after a long day out in the field covering various stories, I was finally on my way home. Suddenly I got a call from a friend about a major fire in the slums close to Bandra railway station in suburban Mumbai. I immediately called my colleague, Mumbai-based Reuters photographer Vivek Prakash, who lives quite close to where the fire had broken out. While Vivek rushed to the spot, I reached there shortly after. An inferno was burning in place of the small fire I’d imagined it to be.
from Russell Boyce:
Asia – A Week in Pictures 06 March 2011
I do enjoy a coincidence. The week after calls for prodemocracy demonstrations under the social media tag of "Jasmine Revolution" and the week before the National People's Congress (NPC), International journalists (and I of course include photographers under this title) are brought in by the authorities for "chat". During the "chat" they are reminded of the terms of their journalist visas and how quickly these visas can be revoked if the rules are broken on illegal reporting. Also outlined are places that special permission is needed to report from, Tiananmen Square heading the list. Our picture of a member of the PLA leaving the Great Hall in Tiananmen Square appearing to almost step on the photographer with this low angle picture, as I said I do love a coincidence.
A military delegate from the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) leaves the Great Hall of the People after a meeting during the annual session of China's parliament, the National People's Congress, in Beijing March 4, 2011. China said on Friday that its official military budget for 2011 will rise 12.7 percent over last year, returning to the double-digit rises that have stoked regional disquiet about Beijing's expanding strength. REUTERS
