By Denis Balibouse

If I had my dream life as a photographer, it would be a mix of working like Ansel Adams, Michael Kenna and Hirochi Sugimoto, contemplating nature and shooting landscapes in black and white. However, I am a photojournalist, and I cover news: mostly sport, politics and finance, but sometimes heart-breaking events.

Last week in Sierre, western Switzerland, a bus carrying 52 people crashed in a tunnel, killing 6 adults and 22 children.

Last Tuesday night I was at home, after a quiet day doing mostly administrative stuff. At 10.31pm I received an SMS. The message was brief but described an accident involving a foreign bus in a tunnel on a motorway. It mentioned multiple casualties and forbade the media from entering the tunnel.

After a short phone call to the duty police officer to assess the situation, I grabbed my equipment, told my wife that I would be back as soon as possible and drove the 120km (74 miles) to Sierre. Usually, these stories are over quickly, and often not deemed newsworthy, but I had a bad feeling about this one.

During the drive I had time to think about how to approach the job. I tried to prepare as much as I could, knowing that on the scene things could change quickly. I arrived shortly before midnight and took a safe position on the bridge of the way-out of the motorway, overlooking the entrance of the tunnel, some 400 yards away.

By Denis Balibouse

serendipity noun; the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way: a fortunate stroke of serendipity

Going back to a previously covered event is a challenge in creativity in order not to produce the same pictures over and over again. I wondered how to achieve this before traveling to the Haute Maurienne Valley in the West of France to cover the last five stages of La Grande Odyssee sled dog race in the same location as last year.

I had taken with me what I thought would be enough equipment; 3 cameras bodies, 4 lenses, 3 tripods, remotes and their cables, all this packed in a robust backpack. I also took some mountain equipment (I don’t have the same fur as the dogs and the wait can be long).

An obvious way to be different is to change angles. I was lucky that the organizers were able to give us a few minutes in a helicopter every day. This helped to produce some interesting complimentary images. The key part of the 3 stages over 5 days is the polar base at the Mont-Cenis Path, a road that links France to Italy. Mushers and their dogs start the stage in the valley for about 60 to 70 kilometers and then ascend the 10 kilometer long road to the Path at 2081 m (6827 ft) where they sleep.

By Denis Balibouse

Everybody dreams of flying. Some have even burnt their wings trying to do it. So far, I’ve enjoyed it.

Thanks to my work as a photographer I’ve been lucky enough to experience flight in many different aircraft. I’ve flown in helicopters, paragliders and ultralight planes. I even did jobs for a well-known soft-drink company that proudly asserts that one of its products ‘gives you wings’.

On September 14, I moved one step higher up the ladder when I sat just behind the pilot of an L-39 C Albatros as part of a media demonstration flight prior to the air show in Sion, western Switzerland.

It all started a few weeks earlier when I contacted the air show’s press department about the possibility of placing a couple of Gopro cameras in the cockpit of some planes. I was hoping to have access to four or five aircraft in order to show different angles.

Asking well in advance often means organizers are still in the planning stages, allowing them to include press requests more easily. In my experience, last-minute requests generally result in disappointment.

This year’s riders of the Tour de France covered 3430.5 km (2131.6 miles), divided into 21 stages, according to the Tour’s official website.

What you may not know is that the Reuters pictures team covering 2011′s most-watched sporting event managed to tally up some 10,000 km (6213 miles).

I was excited to cover the race but aware that despite careful planning, any big job can have its moments of near disaster. After meeting at the Reuters office in Paris with team leader (and Italy chief) photographer Stefano Rellandini and French photographer Pascal Rossignol we checked all our equipment, made sure our laptops were working, that our passwords were valid and that Mifi was setup. We picked up our local phones and configured wireless transmission devices from cameras. One thing’s for sure — the planning stage is essential on a big job like this, and a good team spirit never hurts either.

The next day we drove to Vendée in the east of France, where the race was due to start and met with our veteran bike drivers Jacques Clawey and Michel Vatel. This year’s team consisted of three photographers. Photographers on bikes take two types of pictures during the race: postcard (landscape shots) and action. When you’re on the postcard bike the rules are clear: you can only take photos once the bike has stopped. Take a pic when the bike is moving, and you could be out. The ‘action’ bike’s rule? Don’t crash.

Growing up in the Northern Hemisphere, I read the books and saw the film adaptations of books by American writer Jack London. Books such as “The Call of the Wild” and “White Fang”. Since then I have been fascinated by the North American wilderness, wolves and sled dogs, so when I was offered the chance to follow the ‘Grande Odyssée’ dogsled race, I was overjoyed. I chose to cover the last five stages of the race, which took place in the Haute Maurienne Valley, a remote area close to the Vanoise National Park on the French-Italian border.

Covering more than 1,000km (621 miles) over 11 days, the race mostly crosses the Alps in France but features incursions into Switzerland. Unlike similar events in Canada, the United States or Scandinavia, La Grande Odyssée crosses over the mountains, meaning that the mushers and their dogs climb over 25,000m (82,000 feet) in total – almost three times the climb from sea level to Mt Everest’s summit.

The event’s organization was excellent, with a designated car and chauffeur available for each team of photographers after the daily briefing; one highlight was the opportunity to take photographs from a helicopter, although only for a few minutes, as it proved to be a popular request.

For the mass start (15 mushers on the same line, compared to individual starts for other stages) in the village of Bessans, I fitted a Gopro camera on the head of Swiss musher Pierre-Antoine Heritier, whom I met a couple of weeks beforehand for a test. He was running last in the race before that start but didn’t mind the extra weight on his head.

Another highlight of those five days of racing was the two nights that the mushers had to spend at the so-called Base Polaire. Located in the Lanslebourg ski area at an altitude of 2,200m (7200 feet), the mushers and their dogs arrive at night. The stopwatch is paused and restarted the next morning when the mushers and dogs commence their attempt to finish the stage. The mushers are completely autonomous, with no help from their usual handlers and the organization provided only water, fuel, straw and a tent. The mushers carry food for the dogs, a sleeping bag and anything else they feel they may need.