The second in a series charting Editor in Charge Joachim Herrmann’s move from the Berlin bureau to Reuters global picture editing desk in Singapore.  

After exploring miles and miles of the islands shopping malls, I finally began my job as Editor-in-Charge on the Global Pictures Desk. Over the past few weeks I have observed colleagues working all three desk shifts, asked questions, searched for useful homepages and requested usernames and passwords, transferred data ata from Germany to Singapore. Oh man! All new, all different and hopefully I will remember everything.

But watching and learning from the six EiCs I have been shadowing is only the half of it. I feel ready now  and while I still have many questions about procedures and rules I have no hesitation about working with the pictures themselves! No matter where you are, Berlin or Singapore, working with pictures is the same all over and good fun to boot. Editing, cropping, tweaking and fine-tuning is the main part of our job on the desk.

My first shift, morning shift gets me up at 0600 hrs. What an unfriendly time! After a short ride in a taxi, (cars are quite expensive here in Singapore and when compared to a German autobahn the speed limit here makes driving here seem no fun at al),  I arrived in the office to replace my colleague David after his nightshift. He and his team had handled lots of pictures from various points all over the world and cleared the backlog. What a good start!

 The four sub-editors faced a quiet morning shift. I attend the 0830 hrs morning news planning meeting with senior editors from text and television to discuss news coverage for the day, talk to colleagues at the desk, chat on the phone or instant messenger with colleagues all over the globe and all the other desk routine.

Getting local breakfast is a challenging for me I waive the offer to get some fish ball noodle soup it is a perfect time for an espresso. But for now definitely no fish balls.

After our team processed some 250 pictures colleagues say this is a quiet shift where on average the desk sends about 600 pictures -  we sent all pictures we received and hand over to the next team at 1500 hrs.

Now its time for something else…. not coffee and Black Forest Cherry Cake, now I want Beef Hor Fun beef with noodles!

And tomorrow I start again at 0700, maybe tomorrow I’ll try the Asian style breakfast. 

These pictures were some of those which moved through the desk on my shift:

- A painted model poses for photographers at an exhibition stand at the Games Convention 2007 fair in the eastern German city of Leipzig August 23, 2007. The Games convention, Europe’s leading fair for computer games, runs from August 22 to 26. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke (GERMANY)

- A Ultra Orthodox Jew takes a break during prayers as workers push a cart at the Western Wall (Wailing Wall) in Jerusalem’s old city, early morning August 23, 2007.   REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis (JERUSALEM)

- USA’s LeBron James celebrates with the team after they defeated Venezuela during the FIBA Americas regional qualifying basketball tournament to decide two berths for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, in Las Vegas, Nevada, August 22, 2007.  REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson  (UNITED STATES)

- Afghan girls watch the photographer in the city of Ghazni, southwest of Kabul August 23, 2007. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood (AFGHANISTAN)