War photographers will often tell you that its the children that get to them, because children are so resilient and despite living in a violent world, children everywhere demonstrate the same innocent characteristics. That is one of the reasons why I admire this photograph taken in Iraq by Reuters photographer Carlos Barria. But is it just me that sees something special about it? To answer my own question, the photographer must have seen it too, so that makes two of us!

Earlier this year, Carlos was embedded with the US military in Iraq and was three blocks away when a deadly car bomb exploded in a Baghdad market, having passed the location a short time previously. He was shaken but quickly returned to photograph the aftermath, with fires still burning and people shouting and carrying away the wounded. It was in the middle of the mayhem that he saw this quiet image.

Why do I like this picture so much? Because of the expression on the boys face. It is the “1,000 yard stare”, an expression coined to describe battle fatigued soldiers, and epitomised by Don McCullins picture, Portrait of marine during the Battle of Hue, 1968. But to see it on the face of a young boy is shocking. It contrasts with the football he is holding, itself representing childhood innocence. The ball also suggests that whatever the circumstances, anywhere in the world, boys will always find time for a game of soccer. Yet the expression on this boys face marks him out from contemporaries elsewhere because he is clearly traumatized by events. His body language also contrasts to the adults behind him. He is awestruck by the sight of the US troops, the adults are just going about their daily business oblivious to what to them has become routine.

Images of violence end up in print because they so eloquently illustrate the days news. But in any war zone like Iraq there are many violent images and with such frequency that after a while all but the truly remarkable blur together in the memory. This image of a boy may have been neglected by picture editors on the day in favour of the action pictures, but I will remember it because it is just so unusual.

Mind you, everybody else I have shown it to says, “Isnt it just a picture of a boy standing by the side of the road?”.

John Voos is a Reuters photographer and EIC about to take up a new assignment with the UKI pictures reporting operation in London.

A starry backdrop leads the eye to the subject in Reuters photographer David Grays cheeky portrait of Michael Phelps, a young athlete whose star quality is very much in evidence at the World Swimming Championships in Melbourne.

Another star hangs over the head of Javier Solana, who appears to have experienced a momentary lapse in concentration in Yves Hermans candid shot.

It looks significant, what does it mean?

Well, just about anything you want it to mean really, depending of course on the context in which it appears, although it is hard to imagine this frame being used in anything but a rather negative way. Nevertheless it is well observed, well executed and an entirely legitimate piece of photojournalism. It represents a glimpse through the defensive shield. What it means is up to you, the viewer.

There are only a handful of press photographers working presently in the UK who can honestly say without a hint of arrogance that they have been there and done that! Alisdair Macdonald who sadly died on Tuesday last week, was one of that select handful. A truly remarkable photographer, his range of work is testament to his unique ability to nail it when it mattered. A Daily Mirror staffer he could easily have slipped into the role of wire agency photographer in every sense. It is often said that people never realize what they have until it is gone, but every Fleet Street photographer who knew Alisdair, witnessed his unbridled passion for pictures and his consummate professionalism and dignity in creating them.

Having covered a half a dozen Farnborough air shows myself alongside Alisdair, we would sit and wait for the afternoon aerial displays to start. The brief was simple. Shoot some pretty plane pictures and if one crashes make sure you have it. Contrary to the rest of us who would sit and wait only for the Red Arrows display, Alisdairs camera never left his eye from the opening Airbus 350 sequence to the flypast finale, and this he would do all week. The point here is that had something happened midair, there was only ever going to be one photographer to get that picture.

That picture. Charles and Diana kiss on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Not an easy picture to capture taking into consideration the hours of waiting, the weather, the long lenses needed, fighting your way through the public for a spot and making sure there is enough film in the camera for the moment. This was one picture Alisdair was never going to miss.

What photographer would not want these portraits of a Beatle or one of Britains finest actors gracing their walls? The Michael Caine portrait is deceptive in its simplicity. Down a London side street leaning against a wall and shot in black and white, nothing could have typified Caines look and appeal more than this.

True to his news roots, Alisdairs ability to react on the spot resulted in his fabulous picture of two workmen and two policemen casually wandering away from the freshly punctured water main. Pure poetry.

Alisdair was one of that select few who have embraced everything that this industry has thrown at them. Today we occasionally moan about lens quality, image resolution, not enough frames per second, the weight of our equipment, the processing speeds of our laptops and the signal strength of the nearest coffee shop wifi. Let us just imagine for a moment shooting a soccer match on a plate camera or a high court snatch on a rolleiflex? Most of us wouldnt have survived. A Fleet Street institution, has left this world and left his mark. We are all the better for having worked with him.

Ali Mac 1940-2007

All pictures courtesy of The Daily Mirror.

Everyone in the office had gone home. I was in a taxi on the way to sign the lease on my new house, thinking of the two weeks leave ahead of me when I got a text message alerting me to a siege at a Manila courthouse.Unhappy with the outcome of a legal case, a man armed with a pistol and a grenade was holding four hostages. Our first photographer on the scene, Cheryl Ravelo, immediately called for reinforcements and longer lenses and was quickly backed up by colleague Romeo Ranoco.

By the time I made it through the roadblocks, the scene was illuminated by floodlights, journalists had marked off spots along the fence facing the courthouse and locals were watching TV crews doing live shots. SWAT teams were already inside and in hidden positions nearby but the word was that the Mayor wanted to avoid bloodshed and was demanding a negotiated solution; some were saying that a police sniper was going to take out the hostage taker.

At midnight Cheryl went home to rest. Romeo and I settled in for the night, although the only pictures were of SWAT team members popping out for a smoke and it was impossible to doze on the hard ground with the noise of generators so close by. In the morning there were more rumours; an assault was imminent, the hostage taker was demanding money to release the hostages. More journalists showed up, others were replaced, all watched by a swelling crowd of spectators. Among the journalists, overtime claims and breakfast became the common topics but when breakfast coffee arrived it tasted like the cloud of dust kicked up from the street.

As the sun rose so my energy levels fell and the coffee did little to help. Nothing was happening; nobody had taken a photograph for hours. Some photographers dozed in sitting positions on their ladders. Many from the press were shouting and joking with each other, but they were the ones who spent the night in their own beds. It seemed like it was never going to end. I was on leave and had already secured my window seat on a flight out of Manila next morning that it increasingly seemed I would miss. I just wanted to curl up in a ball and go to sleep.

Then Cheryl arrived with the promise of a home cooked lunch for any photographer prepared to chip in a few dollars. The buffet was set for noon. More text messages, some even from inside the courthouse, brought more rumours; SWAT were ready, snipers were ready and we argued about likely scenarios as we waited.

The welcome distraction of the promised lunch, set up on a table right in front of the court, took our minds off things for a while. There was even ice cream.

Then we returned to positions with the three of us along the fence, covering every possible angle. Shortly afterwards an ambulance moved closer to the front of the building and a car was parked beneath a second story window. The drama was unfolding.

Moments later a man appeared at the window. He slowly opened it and looked around. The pistol and grenade were clearly visible. I could not believe my eyes when he started to climb out of the window, carefully lowering his leg and checking around for police. It was an easy picture. Then seemingly deterred by the height of the jump he withdrew back into the room. There was gunfire and a large blast. Windows shook violently, but didnt break. Members of the SWAT team rushed out of and took up positions in front of the building but there was no more firing. Another ambulance arrived then some of the hostages were rushed out.

It was over!

Wed like to hear from anyone who has witnessed news events first hand and has the pictures to match.

Everybody loves photographic competitions, dont they? Photographers love winning them. They quite understandably enjoy the recognition; the acknowledgement that in a competitive business, they were judged by a jury of their peers to be the best of them.

Any process which promotes excellence and positively raises the profile of the team and the brand is welcomed and we bask in their reflected glory. Their winning entries acquire a second lease on life, sometimes reaching a far wider audience than the first time round and serve as an inspiration to aspiring and established photographers alike.

On the other hand, as anyone who works in a team of news photographers will know, competitions are a double edged sword which can cut both ways.

The urge to improve ones circumstances is part of human nature but there are few things more effective than winning a competition for sowing the seeds of disaffection. Overnight an individual prepared to stand in the pouring rain for hours waiting with the rest of the pack for some errant politician can find themselves rather above this kind of work and no longer able to shoot in colour.

Self-belief is important in this trade but in some extreme cases winning a top award can extinguish any element of self-doubt completely and those afflicted are best avoided as travelling companions on long journeys for the duration.

Others suffer from incapacitating doubt that they will ever shoot anything as good as the pictures they won with and fear that everyone is watching them, which of course they are because where too there is praise there will also be criticism. The bigger the prize, the louder the accusations of bias, or cheating with set up pictures or excessive use of PhotoShop and of course the put downs, my personal favourite of which is, I had it better but didnt enter.

In truth every day is a competition. The prizes are the fronts and double pages of the worlds great newspapers and magazines, the backdrop to the TV news and tens of thousands of hits online.

I have always subscribed to the old wire service adage, you are only as good as your last picture, but then Ive never won a photographic competition. These guys have and you can see why.

Arko Datta won World Press Photo 2004 with this picture of an Indian woman mourning the death of a relative killed in the Asian tsunami catastrophe.   

Akintunde Akinleye won first prize in 2007 World Press Photo Spot News (Singles) for this picture of a man washing soot from his face at the scene of a gas pipeline explosion near Lagos.  

Finbarr O’Reilly, a Reuters photographer based in Senegal, won the World Press Photo of the Year 2005 with this picture of a mother and child at an emergency feeding centre in Tahoua, Niger.
 

Any politician will privately admit that there is an art to public speaking. It involves not only the rhythmic variation of their speech but, more importantly from a visual perspective, the active engagement at precise moments of their hands. As soon as hands move, flashbulbs simultaneously illuminate and freeze the moment. Tony Blair is probably the greatest exponent of exquisitely placed hand use at work in British politics today, and if he thinks youve missed the moment, he will give it to you again.

More than just a tool to articulate and punctuate speeches, hands can give away inner secrets as Alessia Pierdomenicos beautifully observed pictures show. Tony Blairs knotted and tangled fists are seen next to Gordon Browns serene and relaxed hands, giving away far more about the state of mind of either man than I am sure they intended.

In the case of the next two images, two recrops produced pictures that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. David Moirs picture of Scotlands manager Alex McLeish , once cropped to the hand and the badge, turns a perfectly good portrait into a very powerful and graphic image that could be used in every editorial context ad infinitum.

With Stephen Hirds excellent picture of Michael Stone being apprehended by Stormont security guards, the cropped image showing all the hands grappling around the gun is again a very strong image, with the red painted fingernails in such close proximity to the gun heightening the impact.

And finally, as Marcelo del Pozo illustrates so aptly in this picture, just hands, shot beautifully, are a picture on their own.

Kieran Doherty is a Senior Photographer working in London.

To illustrate International Womens Day Sydney photographer David Gray travelled through clinging mud to tell a story of true grit.

Anyone single-handedly running a 6,000 acre farm in the New South Wales outback in the grip of the worst drought for 100 years needs to be pretty remarkable, but when May McKeown told me on the phone that she was 68, she dispelled any lingering doubts I may have had that her struggle was the ideal subject for a photographic essay to illustrate the celebration of International Womens Day.

Mays property is located more than 700 kilometres north-west of Sydney, near the small town of Come-by-Chance, a mere nine hours away in a country where distances are measured in how many days it takes to drive there.

Unbelievably, as I got close it began to look as if it might rain, so I rang her for advice. I was almost at the end of the bitumen road and when the black outback soil gets wet it sticks like glue to tyres. The further you go the more it sticks until you get to the point when the wheels wont go round anymore and the vehicle grinds to a halt. Encouraged by Mays promise to ring me if it rained, I pressed on.

The rain started almost as soon as I left the bitumen road. The sound the mud made as it clogged the wheels got louder and louder the further I drove. Just when I thought it could get no worse I found her property. Another kilometre and I would have become bogged in one of the most remote spots on the planet. However, having stopped at the gate I had to struggle to get the car to move again and slid down the track to the house barely able to control its direction.

May ran out, amazed that to see me as minutes after our first conversation she had left a message on my phone advising me not to attempt the journey, (a message I received only next day when I got home).

For the next few hours I walked with her as she inspected the property. We walked because even her four-wheel-drive would have become stuck in the mud. Just before dusk the sun appeared from behind the storm clouds, bathing everything in the beautiful light you can see in some of the pictures.

Next day I followed her around while she hand-fed her remaining cattle in the way she has had to do for the past four years. Hopefully I have captured something which will stand as a memorial to her determined struggle to hang onto a way of life and a property which has been in her family for more than 150 years in the face of the elements and physical and financial hardship.

When you work in an industry where, as the old adage goes, ‘everything has
been done before’ it’s often a challenge to offer a fresh or different view
from an event or subject that has been photographed many times before.

One method employed by photographers is the use of remotely-triggered
cameras to offer a totally different angle, one that in most circumstances
would be almost impossible to capture by a photographer behind the lens.

In its most common use, certainly in the UK during winter months,
photographers use remotes as an extra man at soccer matches, positioning a
camera just behind the goal in an attempt to capture a different and often
more dynamic view of the winning goal or crucial save.

But this is a relatively simple use of the technique with the photographer
having easy access to the camera at the beginning and the end of the game to
retrieve the images.

For other events such as Basketball or Swimming where a camera may be placed
high in the ceiling above the hoop or in a purpose built housing at the
bottom of the pool, it may be necessary to secure the camera hours - or in
extreme cases the day before - the event and to run power and networking
cables to the camera to maintain its readiness for such a long period of
time.

For me though remotes really come into their own when the view they offer
really makes the viewer sit up and put down their coffee cup.

One such image is Desmond Boylans stunning frame of a bull careering through
the streets of Pamplona during the annual San Fermin festival. Such was the
impact of the picture across the world that a German newspaper published it
under the headline ‘How well is the photographer?’

He was of course fine having triggered his heavily protected camera
remotely from the ‘right’ side of the protective barriers on the route.

Moderator’s note: This post was initially mis-labelled as ‘filed by David Viggers’. 

One of the most affecting images I have seen for a long time is from the aftermath of a suicide bombing on a U.S military base in Afghanistan. Shot not at the scene but in a domestic environment thousands of miles away, it shows the distraught mother of one of the victims grieving the death of her soldier son.

Lee Chang-hee (R), mother of South Korean sergeant Yoon Jang-ho, is comforted by a relative at her home in Seoul February 27, 2007. Sergeant Yoon was among those killed in a suicide bomb attack outside a U.S. military base in Afghanistan where U.S. vice President Dick Cheney was visiting, South Korea’s Defence Ministry said on Tuesday.
REUTERS/Lee Jae-Won

It is rare in Northern Europe to see raw emotion expressed so publicly. Certainly any photographer seeking similar access to a bereaved parent in the UK would be accused of insensitivity and intrusiveness. This is a remarkable document not least because the photographer was clearly inside the womans home at a time at which in many other places the door would be firmly closed to all but family. Even so this picture seems to me to justify the intrusion because it succeeds so effectively in putting a face and a name to the daily toll of human carnage so often expressed only in terms of numbers.

Reuters Senior EIC, Entertainment Pictures Sam Mircovich recounts his experiences running Reuters coverage of the Oscar Awards, illustrated by some of his favourite images from the event…

Actor Forrest Whitaker arrives for the Vanity Fair Oscar Party at Mortons in West Hollywood February 25, 2007. REUTERS/Chris Pizzello

It’s over. The red carpet is rolled up, the stands have disappeared and the long night of anticipation and parties has ended. The 79th Annual Academy Awards will go down in the annals as the year an American Idol reject outshone a superstar and one of the most talented directors of our times was finally recognized by his peers.

Martin Scorsese (L) hugs Stephen Spielberg in front of George Lucas after winning the Oscar for best director for ‘The Departed’ at the 79th Annual Academy Awards in Hollywood, California, February 25, 2007. REUTERS/Gary Hershorn

From my own perspective, months of planning dissolved into a slow-motion dream as I focused on selecting the best of the thousands of images streaming from our four photographers covering the red carpet arrivals.

The red carpet is first and foremost a fashion show and can be completely overwhelming for a newcomer. Nominees, other A-listers and the occasional oddity all compete for attention and it is essential to know exactly who you are looking for.

Actress Jodie Foster arrives on the red carpet at the 79th Annual Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 25, 2007. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

On the inside the Academys decision to delay the actor awards until later in the show this year increased the deadline pressure on our photographers waiting for the winners backstage. When the first of them finally arrived two hours later the editing team leapt into high gear, then waited with baited breath with UK papers snapping at our heels for Dame Helen Mirren to show up only to find that when she did she was accompanied by three other winning actors which delayed solo pictures of her by a further 15 minutes. Fortunately, our pictures of her accepting her Oscar onstage were already moving.
Director Stephen Spielberg (R) takes a picture of host Ellen DeGeneres (2nd L) and Clint Eastwood (C) as singer and actress Beyonce (L) looks on at the 79th Annual Academy Awards in Hollywood, California, February 25, 2007. REUTERS/Gary Hershorn

Dozens of stars, hundreds of pictures and three after-Oscars parties later I headed back to my hotel room, the last of the Reuters onsite team to leave. On the way I found a pair of abandoned designer sunglasses which next morning I left in my hotel for the maid, hoping to pass on to her a little of the glamour of the event.