By Brian Snyder

Before his campaigns to be the Republican nominee for President of the United States, Mitt Romney challenged Ted Kennedy for the U.S. Senate. While Romney ultimately lost the race against Senator Kennedy, I covered his victory rally in September 20, 1994 when he won the Republican primary.

Some things have changed since then, but much has not. Romney’s parents, who were with him onstage in 1994, have since died, and he now campaigns not only with his children, but also his grand children.

His wife Ann remains at his side, often introducing him at campaign stops.

By Brian Snyder

When New Hampshire holds its first-in-the-nation primary, there will be over 40 candidates with their names on the ballot, from at least 26 different states in the country. And the only way to have your name be among those candidates is through New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner’s office.

Getting one’s name on the ballot is relatively simple: you must meet the eligibility requirements in the U.S. Constitution Article II, Section 1, Clause 4, and pay a $1,000 fee during the official filing period.

Any candidate who chooses to file their paperwork in person, and many do, sits down at an old desk in Secretary Gardner’s office and fills out a one-page form. When the candidate is one of the mainstream candidates, like Texas Governor Rick Perry, the small office is filled with photographers and reporters.

By Brian Snyder

Every story and photograph that goes out on the Reuters wire has a ‘slug,’ which is a short, one or two word way of coordinating  and categorizing pictures and stories.  For example, photographs from a Red Sox baseball game are slugged BASEBALL.   But the slug for a recent story I photographed, BUDDHISTS/LOBSTERS, combined two words I never thought I would see together.

Reporter Lauren Keiper and I recently joined a group of practicing Buddhists in Gloucester, Massachusetts for a ceremony to release over 500 lobsters back into the ocean.   The ceremony coincided with the Buddhist holiday “Chokhor Duchen” or “Wheel Turning Day.”  Buddhists believe animal liberation helps them live longer, especially when performed on holidays when they believe the consequences of their actions are multiplied.  The lobsters, which would have otherwise been headed to restaurants, were bought at a local wholesaler.

Full disclosure: I’m an omnivore, and living in Boston, my diet includes lobster.

I met Dan Roth in conjunction with a story being written by Reuters’ Toni Clark. Toni’s story was about a new kind of artificial heart, the LVAD (Left Ventricular Assist Device), which is implanted inside a patient’s chest. It is powered by external, rechargeable batteries connected to a cable coming out of the patient’s side, and pumps blood through the circulatory system on a continuous basis, taking over most of the heart’s work.

Dan is 23 years-old, has an LVAD implanted inside him, and is awaiting a heart transplant. All this after he had a stroke, had a defibrillator implanted in his chest and ultimately “coded” for 6 minutes.

Dan provided a compelling story for Toni and I. He plays in a rock band, works out at home and in a gym, twice a day changes the rechargeable batteries on his LVAD and at night plugs himself into the wall to power his LVAD while he sleeps. Dan graciously let me tag along to photograph much of this and all of these activities provided a nice set of pictures showing the full life Dan enjoys. But I was afraid the photographs made it all look a bit too easy. None of those images showed the trauma Dan had to overcome to get to this point.

In order to complete the set of pictures, I wanted to make an image that showed the enormity of what he had gone through. So I asked Dan to pose for a portrait with his shirt open, revealing the scar where his chest was cracked open to install the LVAD. Dan understood what I was trying to show, and I’m grateful he agreed.

Photographing the pitcher is the bread and butter of baseball coverage, especially in the playoffs. But photographs of the pitchers are important when two of the teams’ aces face each other.

Generally, the moment you are looking for is when the ball has just left the tips of the pitcher’s fingers. But in a game where the pitchers are likely to be a big part of the story (and therefore there will likely be demand for more images of them), you need to look for other moments in their delivery that look interesting. A pitcher’s motion slowed down to a series of still images can look very strange indeed. Their limbs can look as though they have been disjointed and strange looking pieces of skin can seem to poke out. Remember too that the pitcher’s motion will look completely different from my angle as opposed to another photographer’s view farther out the baseline or closer to home plate.

Watching the delivery of the San Francisco Giant’s Tim Lincecum, I noticed a moment early in his windup where, from my perspective, his face was framed by his arm. All that was left was to time my shutter to capture that point in his delivery.

When it’s all over, your hair is sticky with champagne and beer and your clothes are wet and smelly. Getting pulled over by the police on the way home might prove problematic. Sometimes, when you pick up your camera or lens a few days later, something doesn’t work. But being in the locker room amidst the celebrations after a sports team wins a championship is a lot of fun, at least I think so (yes, I understand if you’re questioning my sanity at this point).

The San Francisco Giants held a 3 games to 2 lead over the Philadelphia Phillies heading into Game 6 of the NLCS in Philadelphia. My assignment for the post-game, should the Giants win and clinch the series, was to cover the locker room celebrations.

Photographers use a variety of strategies to protect themselves and their cameras from the inevitable sprays of champagne and beer. Rain covers designed for cameras can protect them from more than rain. Clear plastic bags placed over the flash can protect it. And construction safety glasses can protect your eyes (champagne really burns when it gets in your eyes – you’ve probably seen players wearing swimming or ski goggles during the celebrations).

I’ve tried every combination of these tactics. This time, however, I went with a simple strategy. No cover for the camera – it often just gets in the way and means you miss pictures; besides, when I’ve used them in the past, I’ve still found champagne on my camera afterward. No safety glasses – it’s just one more surface to clean off. I went in the locker room just ahead of the Giants players equipped with one camera with a wide angle lens and a flash, and a towel loaned to me by the Phillies’ team photographer.

A towel is essential: once there’s champagne on the front of your lens, you cannot make pictures – and there’s no way there will not be lots of champagne on the front of your lens. (Tip: simply wiping off the champagne with a towel will just smear it around on the front of your lens, making it impossible to take photographs, so spit on the lens or lick it to clean it. Not so pleasant, but effective). It’s a very chaotic scene – celebrations are all around you, the room is small, the athletes are big, you are not the only photographer or videographer inside – so there’s not much time or space to delicately clean off your camera to keep shooting.

Reuters visited the Boston Children’s Hospital Primary Care Center, where H1N1 vaccines are being offered to patients who are at least two years old and healthy.