It is a shame you can’t see this in its full glory as a high resolution file. It is a corker of a soccer action picture by Nigel Roddis from the English Premier League last weekend showing Liverpool’s Lucas Leiva and Newcastle United’s Nicky Butt heading the ball at the same time. Our UK photographers shoot a lot of soccer and the nature of the business is such that once published it is usually forgotten about but Nigel’s picture was still being talked about in the office days later.     

Even for photographers who cover soccer twice a week with the best equipment, it is rare for all the elements to come together as well as they have here on a game that matters. There are lots of “almosts” but he has the moment bang on and it is sharp, clean, well composed and from a newsworthy game to boot. 

Nigel has well and truly nailed it.

I must admit to being disappointed but not really surprised that Scarlett Johansson has not yet accepted my offer of weekend shifts shooting soccer.  The year draws swiftly to a close and it would have been better if she had cut her teeth in the clear golden light of Autumn afternoons rather than in these dark Winter days. I’d like to think she’d enjoy coming to terms with the offside-rule; the cosy atmosphere of the wireroom and the witty banter of her colleagues. Who knows in time she might even begin to understand what some of them were saying. 

But cold, dark weather is nothing new to her, Ms Johansson is a New York city native so reasons for her reluctance must be sought elsewhere. She is no doubt mindful of the stiff competition she would face from the breed of dedicated soccer shooters who occupy the touchlines of the Premier League; the years it takes to establish a spot on the pitch at the edge of the penalty box as your own; the weight of the equipment compared to her Lumix demanding use of both hands and the fact that English soccer matches can be played not only on weekend afternoons but also on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings for much of the year.

But who knows where it could lead? A staff job even! 

I could end up with a talented young shooter with an A-list entree into the world of celebrity and fashion with the prospect of an annual performance review you could sell tickets for. Her bad back, chilblains and dependence on food served in styrofoam would be but a small price to pay for job satisfaction and the expectation of an assured place following the national squad at the European Soccer Championships and the World Cup Finals.

Of course, that explains it! I was forgetting that this is English soccer - there are no expectations of covering the national team in a major tournament, silly me. Now I understand why the phone doesn’t ring.

Mind you there is, as you can see,  mounting evidence of moonlighting by others in the public eye,

but just like Scarlett there is no sign so far from either Sienna or Fidel that they are ready to make that leap of faith and give up the day job.   

Coming to this cold it is by no means obvious that Mario Anzuoni has not recorded a scene of unspeakable violence. In fact far from being scream of terror during a visit from Uma Thurman this is a yell of triumph from musician Chris Daughtry seen refracted in a glass trophy at an award ceremony. 

What the devil is that - proof that aliens walk among us, or worse? Have no fear, it’s just a  youthful Tony Blair seen in the viewfinder of a TV camera by Ian Waldie.

But what is this hideous creature, like some pink Tweetie Pie? Actually it’s Tony Blair again, half man, half reflection photographed by Ian Waldie, again. 

I’m not quite sure what it tells us, but it is an interesting image nevertheless. We like to think we can sometimes see glimpses of the real person behind the public persona - let’s hope this isn’t one of those.

There is almost infinite variety in the way reflection can produce interesting pictures from even the most uncompromisingly routine assignnments.

In Marc Serota’s strong, clean composition this National Anthem color guard looks as though he is wearing a snow globe with the viewer’s attention drawn to the flags at the top of the frame.

The interlaced fingers convey a mood of tension despite the dimly perceived bulldog expression in Yuri Gripas’s static, inverted image of former Republican Senator Fred Thompson reflected in a table.

John Gress catches the reflection of these Texas delegates to the 2004 Republican National Convention and turns a simple hand shake into a hoedown.

Charles Platiau, bottom left quadrant, turns the camera on himself and his colleagues reflected in a mirrored door as they wait for the start of one of the Autumn/Winter 2007/8 ready-to-wear fashion shows in Paris.

Through a glass darkly, Brian Snyder’s Wiccan high priest in Salem, Massachusetts, peers at the viewer past the mystical symbols on an altar pentacle.

It’s always a challenge to come up with imaginative illustrations for internet business stories without resorting to screen grabs but Darren Staples uses the reflection of a computer screen in a human eye to illustrate a Google story. 

WASHINGTON, Nov 19 (Reuters) - The U.S. military will recommend criminal charges in Iraqi courts against an award-winning Associated Press photographer it accused of working with insurgents, the Pentagon said on Monday.

The military will present evidence against Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi, to Iraq’s Central Criminal Court this month, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.

Morrell would not discuss the evidence against Hussein, who has been held by the U.S. military since April 2006.

In a statement, the AP called for the immediate release of the photographer, who was part of an AP photo team that won a Pulitzer prize in 2005.

The U.S. military previously said Hussein was detained for possessing materials for roadside bombs, insurgent propaganda and a surveillance photo of a coalition installation.

Morrell also said the military was concerned about what it said was Hussein’s repeated access to insurgent activities “apparently risk-free to himself.”

“Since his detention, additional evidence has come to light that makes it clearer than before that Mr. Hussein is a terrorist media operative who infiltrated the AP,” Morrell said.
Hussein’s lawyers have not seen the evidence against him and an AP attorney said he does not expect to see it before the first court proceeding.

“This is not due process, not anything like due process,” said AP attorney Dave Tomlin.

AP president and chief executive officer Tom Curley said in a statement: “While we are hopeful that there could be some resolution to Bilal Hussein’s long detention, we have grave concerns that his rights under the law continue to be ignored and even abused.

“The steps the U.S. military is now taking continue to deny Bilal his right to due process and, in turn, may deny him a chance at a fair trial. The treatment of Bilal represents a miscarriage of the very justice and rule of law that the United States is claiming to help Iraq achieve.

“At this point, we believe the correct recourse is the immediate release of Bilal.”

PRESS DETENTION

Hussein, a 36-year-old Iraqi citizen from Fallujah, began working for the AP in 2004, according to the news agency. He photographed events in Fallujah and Ramadi, once hotbeds of the Iraqi insurgency, until detained by U.S. troops at his home.

He is one of a number of Iraqi journalists who have been held by the United States without charge since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a U.S.-based media watchdog group, said dozens of journalists have been detained by U.S. troops and at least eight Iraqi journalists have been detained for weeks or months without charge or convictions.
Journalists working for Reuters have been among those detained by the U.S. military and then released months later without charge.

Iraq is the world’s most dangerous country to report. The Committee to Protect Journalists estimates that 173 reporters and media assistants have been killed there since 2003.

(Reporting by Kristin Roberts, Editing by Howard Goller and Stuart Grudgings

Back on the subject of successful uses of reflection taken from the everyday pictures file I offer these images, the result of a by no means exhaustive trawl through our online archive.

This image by Jean-Paul Pelissier shows the car of Formula One driver Fernando Alonso in the pit lane reflected in a fireman’s visor. It is not until you have looked at this picture for a few moments that you remember that there is somebody behind the visor looking back us.

Still on Formula One drivers, Claro Cortes IV’s picture of Lewis Hamilton requires a second look to fully understand what is happening. Almost symetrical but not quite, the white line reinforces a first impression that this is some sort of technical malfunction which has given us two halves of consecutive frames.  

Eddie Keogh’s interesting action shot from this year’s Wimbledon of Marat Safin reflected in a window looks like motion blur but is just a result of imperfection in the glass. 

One of my favourites referred to in a previous blog is this image by Dylan Martinez of Filippo Inzhagi after his team won the Champions League final. Of course he’s kissing the cup but the way Dylan sees it makes it hard to tell whether the real object of Inzaghi’s affections is the trophy or the image of himself.

I first heard this many years ago when as a young freelance photographer working for AP in southern Europe I suggested to a visiting senior editor that lax security and one of the longest civilian runways in the world made the city’s airport an obvious destination for hijacked aircraft and that the absence in the bureau of any lens longer than an old 200mm would mean that we’d be hard pressed to cover it.  ”If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough,” he said but what he meant was, “I have other priorities”. 

I thought about it a lot a few weeks later when pieces of glass and the contents of the Turkish Embassy whipped past me as I sheltered behind a skinny pine tree on the other side of the street after the gunmen who had seized the building detonated explosives inside. I had arrived even before the security services and was closer than anyone else. True my pictures were better than those who had watched events from a safe vantage point beyond the line of police marksmen behind me – but I suspect that was mainly because for them, even with longer lenses, it was almost impossible to shoot a clean frame  without including me in it and nobody wants to show their picture editors that someone else appears to be trying harder.

As I faced the inevitable chorus of ‘admiration’ from the other photographers I cited the Capa quote which seemed to fit so well, neglecting to mention that in our office an 80-200 zoom was long glass. After dashing back to develop and print my pictures, I was shocked by the total indifference with which they were greeted by the bored wireman in London. It was no big deal, clearly not a news story that he or anyone else cared about.  

Now nearly 25 years on this just wouldn’t happen. Now it is routine to mitigate risks to our people in the field by equipping them appropriately. Local and international media are much more sophisticated and satellite TV and the internet have created a universal appetite for novel images from anywhere as a supplement to locally produced fare. Little goes to waste.  In fact there is so much available to us we face the risk of becoming inured –  creeping news fatigue – particularly to long running stories like Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Goran Tomasevic

The fact that we can see hard news breaking from anywhere in the world virtually as it happens makes it easy to forget the risks faced by those who bring it to us.

Steve Lewis

As of today November 15, in addition to local photographers on the ground, Reuters have at least 4 photographers embedded with frontline troops in Afghanistan and Iraq — Goran Tomasevic, Steve Lewis, Stefano Rellandini and Finbarr O’Reilly. These guys are right there at the sharp end. Non-combatant, they simply couldn’t get any closer and are very much in harm’s way.

Stefano Rellandini

There because they want to see and understand for themselves what goes on, they share their vision with us through potent images and eyewitness accounts and are prepared to take a calculated risk with their personal safety in order to do that, on condition that there are enough of us who care enough to look closely at the pictures and stories they produce.

Finbarr O’Reilly

If nobody wants to see or hear what you are trying to tell them, it really doesn’t matter how close you are or for that matter how good your pictures are.

When a huge plume of black smoke appeared in the sky over the City of London just before midday today, everyone scrambled. Some sought vantage points affording a view of the city and its landmarks while others moved towards the source of the smoke.

Rumours abounded - Canary Wharf was burning; a plane had pancaked at City airport. 

The reality was much less dramatic, an unoccupied warehouse on the Olympic development site in Stratford, east London was on fire, there were no casualties and the blaze was quickly brought under control by emergency services.

As far as John Voos was concerned when he shot these images from our office roof of the pall of smoke over St Paul’s cathedral, he was covering a full scale emergency. False alarm it may have been but his pictures nevertheless evoke memories of Herbert Mason’s famous image of the great Wren cathedral glimpsed intact through the smoke and ruins of Blitz-shattered London.

Kevin Coombs and Jacopo Pandolfi’s graphic images of Canary Wharf menaced by the black cloud look like scenes from Ghostbusters.

Fortunately it was a non-event but it could all too well have been otherwise. It certainly got the adrenaline flowing on a chilly November morning and it did make lovely pictures.

This is a brief tribute to all the Hassans, Ahmeds, Cems and Sputniks who have been my second pair of eyes in my search for beautiful and sometimes horrendous pictures.

As a child I would get really angry when others called me four eyes. I was not cross eyed but did wear glasses. Usually this resulted in a fight with my older sister mediating and bringing a small gift to the victims of these close encounters with a garbage can and/or me.

If I had only realised at that time having four eyes, or more precisely, a second pair of eyes is a huge advantage over anyone with only one pair.

On one of my last trips, to Lebanon, I began to realise just how important it is to have a good driver. Some call them “fixer”, others “driver” but to me it became clear that they were my second pair of eyes.

Hassan, a veteran Reuters driver, has worked for us since the Lebanon civil war days.

Hassan (C ) checking the bread which was delivered by the Red Cross to the Nahr Al Bared camp.

Essentially he is a better journalist, cameraman or photographer than any one of us with the only difference being that he is unaware of it. It is something he does instinctively, just as my hands go up and grab the guitar out of thin air as soon as Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” or Thin Lizzy’s “the Rocker” blasts out of the speaker of my stereo set at home.

By better I mean that from time to time all of us professional journalists are guilty of pretentiousness in what we want to say or try to show but with Hassan it is just a matter of ‘what I see is what you get’. As we were driving down the road from Tripoli to the Palestinian refugee camp, Nahr al Bared, we saw many movements of troops and other people.

Many times I said “no that’s not a picture” or “hmm, I don’t know, I don’t see it, it looks nice but it just doesn’t make it”. For him it was news and he was right, it was news. What were seeing was news and what was happening was worth reporting but for us “professionals” often we don’t bother because it doesn’t look sexy enough.

Waiting for many hours at the gates of a refugee camp it’s difficult maintaining  your concentration. So we killed the time discussing what could happen next. Will the army roll in, in the next few days or so? Will they destroy the camp completely? If they destroy the camp will they do it with the refugees in it?

We discussed the humanitarian crisis inside the camp although we had no idea of what was going on inside at all? We would discuss which lenses and cameras work best in these circumstances? Where could we get barbequed lamb sandwiches?

“OK. Look out, there’s an ambulance. Will they let the refugees walk? Oh, come on, please let the refugees walk, it looks much better for pictures and TV. Oh come on now, what are those soldiers doing over there? Come on man!!!!!! You are ruining my frame. Get away…. Thanks Buddy!!!! ”

So after two weeks of jumping on a few refugees with the few remaining photographers, camera teams and journalists it was time to change the strategy. But how?

Refugees were being evacuated by the Lebanese Red Cross. After being taken out of the camp they had to switch from the Red Cross ambulance into a Lebanese Red Crescent ambulance in a so called no man’s land where Lebanese soldiers checked for weapons and fighters from Fattah al Islam. From there they were escorted through the last checkpoint and again switched into a private car or bus before being transported to another refugee camp.

The pictures were all of refugees emerging, crying and hugging; the elderly being carried out by the young and strong and the sick and wounded being loaded into ambulances. There are too many photographers even though you are only two or three. It’s too embarrassing to jump on these poor people who have just emerged from hell, shoving a 14mm lens into kid’s faces to get an even more frightened and even better, a crying child.

Hassan wondered what I was doing at the back behind everyone else but after asking me just once he understood right away just what I wanted. No more words. We waited for the next ambulance to arrive and while the media pack ran after it, Hassan and I jumped into the car without anyone noticing us and drove to another camp where refugees were being given shelter with relatives or friends.

The scenes there were heart breaking. Young and old reunited; mothers and fathers looking for sons and daughters and children looking for their parents.

Photographers try to show the world as objectively as possible but do not always manage to do so. We only have one pair of eyes and can only look in one direction at a time and so we do miss beautiful or dramatic pictures. We are lucky to have our drivers, fixers and translators. Sometimes they have been watching us for years and years, they may even in some circumstances be better photographers than us. They take the necessary step back. They have the overview that we sometime don’t have - the framed, well cropped or perfected view on a story or on the world. Often they tell you of the small things happening to your left or right that you can’t see because you are concentrating on the obvious.

They are the ones who carry your extra camera body with a long lens or your backpack with all that extra stuff you need. They are the ones who tell you to put on your flack jacket or take cover when things get hairy.

They are the ones who see you cry when you come back from shooting something horrific  who put their arm around you,  give you some comfort and help you to accept what you have just photographed.

They chat cheerfully and make you that nice cup of coffee or that nice fish sandwich while you’re filing your pictures. They wait for you, while resting on  your bed watching the news on Al-Jazeerah, to take you to your next assignment.

Our favourite coffee brewer in downtown Tripoli

I am always struck by just how many people they know – as well as photographers, cameramen and journalist -  and how many people know them. We arrive somewhere and they approach the people there saying, “just wait, let me ask if they know”. Kisses and cigarettes are exchanged and it’s always, “luckily I just met a guy I was with during so and so, or, luckily I just met my cousin who is the head of so and so. They are always the ones to find the right way.

I don’t listen to just anybody, we all have a tendency to believe that we know it all and there is not much anyone can tell us. Last summer in Lebanon, on the way back from a small town near the Syrian border where we had been covering a funeral of two Lebanese soldiers,

we had to pass the Nahr-Al-Bared refugee camp which was under heavy mortar fire by the Lebanese army.

On the small roads we saw ambulances of the Lebanese Red Cross passing us at the other side of the road. We looked at each other and Hassan began to drive faster and faster. All of a sudden he pulled the car over some hundred meter in front of an army check point and said to me , slowly but very determined,” jallah habibi flack jacket, jallah habibi flack jacket, JALLAH HABIBI FLACK JACKET”. He meant serious business, no time for discussion. Just put on your god damn flack jacket. I saw in his eyes that this was not a joke. We took our body armour and helmets out of the boot and slipped them on.

Hassan adjusted his seat to accommodate his gigantic flak jacket, hit the gas pedal and manoeuvred his car through the road block which was in the process of being erected and speeded down the highway straight through the frontline.

The scene was out of Apocalypse Now. Soldiers taking aim, the streets littered with empty cases, army vehicles positioned strategically alongside the road and a burning, decomposing cow, shot a few days previously. The smell was just unbearable. This scene was one we are not able to photograph. One that you will always remember as of one of these pictures that, “if only I heen able to. ….”. Maybe it just has to be that way. Maybe some pictures should not be shot. When we speeded down this road it all was happening in slow motion and it seemed to take us a lifetime.

The soldiers preparing their weapons; carrying in fresh ammunition; soldiers taking a rest; the empty bullet cases; the army vehicles; the incredible loud explosions of the shells hitting the buildings and the Howitzers firing them. The warmth of the Lebanese evening sun which coloured everything red.

The smoke which made everything so hazy and mysterious and in the middle of it all, the burning and decomposing cow, which was just lit up by two Lebanese soldiers who pointed and smiled at me and made sure that the camera I was raising and attempting to point at them would go back on my lap,  to just observe this surreal scene.

When we safely reached the end of the road, in record time and not the lifetime I had imagined, I looked at Hassan who didn’t blink an eye, although I could see he was tense. The only words he said were, “I think we deserve a nice cup of coffee.”.

This was the man to trust. This was my bodyguard.  This man was my second pair of eyes.

 Hassan taking a nap in his car.

It is my first day on the San Diego fires and I am driving toward Rancho Santa Fe, on highway 76, known as Del Dios highway (the highway of God). There is smoke pretty much everywhere; up in the hills, down the creeks, and in the distance. I am looking for live flames, threatened properties, or fire-fighters battling the fire, in an area that has, with the exception of a few news crews, been completely evacuated.

I pull over to talk to a guy on a motorbike watching the fire burn on a small hill less than a mile from the road. He tells me he lives in the area, and used to be a volunteer fire-fighter. He says that the fire, helped by the winds, is going to come down this hill to the creek below our position where at least 10 houses hide among the woods.

I decide then to drive down to investigate. At this stage, live flames are on the side of the street and smoke surrounds everything. A gusts of wind momentarily clear the smoke, so I am able to find a safe spot to park my car. I leave it running in case I need to make a hasty retreat. I am wearing my fire suit, helmet, mask and goggles. Before I even leave my car I can tell that this fire is ferociously aggressive and moving quickly.

I leave my 300 2.8 telephoto lens behind to have fewer things to carry around the flames. I take only my 2 Mark IIs, with a 16-35 2.8 and 70-200 2.8 and a small waist pack for extra batteries.

As I walk around the neighborhood I realize that houses are untouched although the fire burns fiercely on the other side of a 2-lane street and the wind is blowing strong. I stay and wait while embers and ash fall from above like a hellish snow.

Slowly the fire advances and an hour later I spot the first flames on some of the roof tops. In less than 20 minutes, the whole group of houses is engulfed in 50-ft high flames. Their propane tanks hiss and burn and the heat is so high that I could barely hold my camera.

The first fire crew arrived after about 35 minutes but there is not much they can do to save these properties - when the fire burns so quickly.

At my next stop, the evacuation center at Del Mar Fairgrounds, I realize that the human toll of this fire is beyond imaginable proportions. There are piles of clothes, toiletry items and food, and most importantly tireless volunteers, helping in any way they can.

The stables are at capacity and a paper plate advertising “shower sign-up” welcomes the hundreds of evacuees.

My first photograph is of a woman feeding her cockatoo from her spoon. She tells me that “Sugar” loves potato soup. The fact that some of these people will not have a home to go back to stays with me as move among them, hearing their stories and looking for more pictures. They smile, despite their obvious displacement and I wish them a safe return to their homes. I hope they still have homes to go back to.

Mario Anzuoni’s image of a blazing bicycle features among the Reuters Best of the Month selection.