I’d like to add my own congratulations to the plaudits being lauded on Adrees Latif who has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography. It is one hell of a picture.

The following images are unlikely prize-winners but serve to demonstrate the delight with which news of his win has been received by his Reuters colleagues. In the first Paul Barker, Editor Asia News Pictures and Asia Chief Photographer Russell Boyce toast his image;

while in the second the editorial team from text, TV, graphics and pictures at Reuters Asia HQ in Singapore drink his health as Adrees himself listens-in via the telephone on the desk to the right of the frame, from his assignment in Nepal.  

I bet he’s pleased now that he diversified beyond basketball and maybe at long last my spell-checker will stop trying to correct his name to ‘Address’.

http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2008/04/pulitzer.html

Reuters Bangkok senior photographer Adrees Latif tells how he took the pictures which won him a Pulitzer Prize. The pictures were taken in Myanmar during the protests in September last year and include the photo of Japanese video journalist Kenji Nagai being shot.

“Tipped off by protests against soaring fuel prices, I landed in Yangon on 23 September, 2007, with some old clothes, a Canon 5D camera, two fixed lenses and a laptop.

For the next four days, I went to Shwedagon Pagoda, two-three kilometres from the centre of town and waited for the monks who had been gathering there daily at noon.

Since I was at the same pagoda every day, dozens of people, including monks, asked me who I was and what I was doing. As the ruling military regime is notoriously secretive, my replies were guarded.

Barefoot in maroon robes, and ringed by civilians, the monks chanted and prayed before starting their two-kilometre march to the Sule Pagoda in downtown Yangon. Each day their numbers grew, from hundreds to thousands.

By 27 September, the city had become packed with troops. Soldiers and government agents stood at street corners.

Finding the Shwedagon Pagoda sealed off, I went to the middle of town to find groups of young people taunting soldiers at Sule.

Within minutes, the crowd swelled from hundreds to a few thousand. The soldiers threw barbed wire coils across the roads.

Knowing that hundreds of people were gunned down in similar circumstances in a 1988 uprising, I climbed an old crosswalk directly overhead, to get to one of the few spots offering a clear view.

Below me, protesters were singing and waving flags; to the side, young men were thrusting their pelvises at the soldiers.

At about 1.30pm local time, two dark green, open-top army trucks approached, followed by dozens more packed with riot police. They were hit by a barrage of water bottles, fruit and abuse from the crowd.

I had already locked on my 135mm lens and set my camera shutter speed to 1000, aperture to F/7.1 and ISO at 800. With the camera on manual, I wanted to stop any movement while offering as much depth-of-field as possible.

Two minutes later, the shooting started. My eye caught a person flying backwards through the air. Instinctively, I started photographing, capturing four frames of the man on his back.

The entry point of the bullet is clear in the first frame, with a soldier in flip flops standing over the man and pointing a rifle. In the second frame, the man is reaching over to try and film.

More shots rang out. I flinched before getting off two more frames - one of the man pointing the camera at the soldier, and one of his face contorted in pain.

Beyond him, the crowd scattered before the advancing soldier. The whole incident, which went on to reverberate around the world, was over in two seconds.

I kept low on the bridge, capturing some more images from among a crowd taking cover. However, with soldiers firing shots and smoke grenades below, I had to get off the bridge.

With adrenaline pumping through my body, I put my camera in my bag and followed the protests for another hour and a half. Feeling the demonstration had lost its strength, I made my way back to my hotel via backstreets and along a railway line.

My initial caption read: “An injured man tries to photograph after police and military officials fired upon and then charged a crowd of thousands protesting in Yangon’s city center September 27, 2007.” Initially, I thought he was merely trampled. I had no idea he was dead.

Two of the frames showed the man’s face. A few hours later his colleagues in Japan had identified him as Japanese video journalist Kenji Nagai.

The images dominated front pages across the U.S. and the world. Mourners at Nagai’s funeral in Japan clutched the picture, which played a role in the public outrage that prompted Tokyo to scale back aid to the ruling military junta.”

The State visit to Britain by French President, Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni drew widespread attention not the least from the massed ranks of photographers and televison crews keen to record the couple’s every step.  No cliche was left unturned as members of the press vied with one another to describe their partnership.

But… a state visit by a French President would always draw interest, and with the added glamour angle you had a winning formulae.  The drab world of formal visits was to be given a makeover - I for one hoped so. In my view, the visit was not so much a breath of fresh air blowing away the cobwebs, but a mix of contrasting elements standing together. With this visit we hoped to  see contrasts of age, style and appearance. In addition the sense of anticipation was heightened because the people involved represented the historic differences between the English and the French. Would they come together in a new entente cordiale? Would the charge be led by the French President? Not on your life, it was led by his wife, the amabassador extraordinaire.

Did Carla Bruni-Sarkozy disapoint? Here are the photographs, judge for yourselves.

(Apologies for the cliches and metaphors - all of them mixed)

France’s first lady Carla Bruni is off to a good start as she rides in a carriage with Britain’s Prince Philip on route to Windsor Castle. Photograph by: Darren Staples

Bruni rides in a carriage on route to Windsor Castle.    Photograph by: Darren Staples

Usually there are are so many obstacles that either get in the way or need to be included in a photograph, that simple clean shots can often be missed. Here is a good example of a simple but solid picture of Bruni with Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle.   Photograph by:Kieran Doherty

This photograph shows the many contrasting elements of the visit, as  Bruni  speaks with Prince Philip during the welcoming ceremony at Windsor Castle.  Photograph by : Philippe Wojazer

It’s wasn’t all about Bruni of course, and we needed a pciture of her husband too. However, his expression tells us more about her (or, at least, his feelings for her) than about the situation.  She is applauding him after his address to members of both Houses of Parliament at Westminster.  Photograph by: Stephen Hird

Another example of the expression on the faces of others telling us something about Bruni herself, as she and Nicolas Sarkozy meet war veterans after laying a wreath at the statue of General de Gaulle in London. Photograph by: Darren Staples

The mood of the moment captured perfectly as Sarkozy and Bruni share a laugh as he delivers a speech at a meeting with the French community in London. Photograph by: Philippe Wojazer        

Here is another example of a simple, clean and effective photograph as Bruni visits the Royal Naval College in Greenwich.    Photograph by: Kieran Doherty

Bruni could hardly put a foot wrong, all she had to do was turn up to impress, as she proved when she arrived for a state banquet at the Guildhall.   Photograph by: Stephen Hird

On my way back from a routine election assignment in Hsinchu, a fellow wire photographer quizzes me on my age.

“Errr… 26″ I reply and the other wire photographer goes “Wah sey!” which translates as something like “Whoa” if there is such a word in english. He proceeds to to tell me that he can’t remember where he was when he was 26.

Which is probably also why Russell, the Asia Chief photographer, asked me to write about my newbie experience operating and planning my first big team story,  namely the Taiwan presidential election won by Nationalist candidate, Ma ying-jeou.

My plan was simple, don’t screw up and don’t miss any news. I must admit though, I would not have had such a comprehensive coverage of the elections without the guidance of Reinhard Krause and Russell Boyce (If I was an ‘Angel’, they would be Charlie).

Also, kudos to Darren Whiteside, Bobby Yip and Pichi Chuang who covered all the assignments in Taiwan with such energy and creativity. These guys really are the best!

(Darren in the centre with red bandana on the Taiwan Killer media bus, picture taken by Bobby Yip)

(A ride on the Taiwan Killer media bus gets you a shot like this)

After months of following the campaign, the big election day finally came for Taiwan.

The plan was to file early voting pix for U.S., Canada and South American clients who might have an interest in the Taiwan elections. Filing early at say 9am here would be 9pm over there, very close to or past newspaper deadlines. Also, filing early ensure your pix hit the news websites first.

Now with all the nice looking voting feature pictures done, comes the boring but mandatory pix of the presidential candidates voting. I say mandatory because if you manage to get a pic of the candidate looking victorious even before results are annouced way later at night, early edition papers or websites might use the voting pix as an alternative to the night jubo pix if the candidates do not appear till really late at night.

The big mama of elections is really getting a simple pic of the president-elect gesturing in victory. I quote “The first person to get that pic out usually gets the headlines tomorrow”.

The planning that goes behind that though is another story.

5am on election day, my assistant and I carry eight stepladders to the headquarters of both candidates to ensure that we have the best positions at night to shoot the victor. We arrive at the KMT location at 6am only to find that TV crews were already poised to attack the media stages. We lock and chain up three stepladders at different locations at Ma’s headquarters whom we expect to win. Shortly after at around 7am, AP and AFP arrive to place their stepladders too.

12 hours later, the area was packed with supporters and as planned, I got a postion in front of the stage, Reinhard shot from the right and Russell from the left. As Russell was the closest to the media centre, he would shoot for five minutes and immediately file while Reinhard and my assistans would “Speedy Gonzales” the cards to him to edit the first batch of jubo pictures.

My spot was slightly tricky though, because the organisers had rearranged the stepladders in front of the stage, I was forced slightly further back, which made my shot messy, while AP and AFP had slightly off centre positions but a better angle to get a nice background which read “Moving Forward” in Chinese.

“Screwed!” I thought to myself. After much comtemplating and negotiating with a local photographer who agreed to let me move forward to the stage on the basis that I don’t stand up, I got a much better angle for an opportunity to shoot the jubo shot well. Turns out, I was the first person to kneel at the new president (who would not arrive till about an hour later ) because of my “No standing up agreement”. A good lesson to never underestimate your relations with a local newspaper photographer this was though, he saved my skin!

Ma arrives. “Get the right exposure! Horizontals and verticals! Tight and loose! Don’t screw up!” A million thoughts that across my mind. Phew.

All’s well that ends well and it’s finally time to treat myself to beer and a foot massage. In a month following the two candidates around I’ve seen more of them than I have my Mum.

The recent general elections in Spain were held in the wake of an ex-socialist councillor shot dead in the Basque Country in a place near my hometown. I was working on the afternoon shift when I saw the first alert of the assassination appear on our text service. I almost jumped out my chair. Somehow my internal alarm bell still goes off instinctively whenever something happens in the area where I used to work. It was only after a couple of seconds that I realized I’m 12,000 kilometers from where the assassination took place, and I couldn’t just grab a camera and go. There wasn’t much I could do, except get in touch with the photographer in the Basque Country, make sure he was aware of the breaking news, and then prepare for his pictures to land on the desk.
                     
Above: Basque police collect evidence outside the house of a former socialist councillor after an attack in Mondragon, northern Spain, March 7, 2008.  Photograph by Vincent West

Above: People stand during a silent protest in Burgos, northern Spain March 7, 2008, against the murder of Isaias Carrasco. Photograph by Felix Ordonez

Above: Spanish vice president Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega (R) and Spanish Socialist Party spokesman Jose Blanco (C) walk in front of the coffin of Isaias Carrasco carried by Basque Socialist Party general secretary Patxi Lopez (back L) and Basque socialist’s president Jesus Egiguren, during a funeral in Mondragon, northern Spain, March 8, 2008. Photograph by: Vincent West

The political fallout of the murder clearly made for an intense election weekend in Spain. The picture desk received and sent a constant stream of photographs –  including presidential candidates, polling stations, street reactions, the winners, the losers and a funeral.  The pictures flowed quickly into the desk,  and by the time the last pictures arrived we were up against most deadlines . I was inevitably assigned to handle the file. I guess there was no surprise there, because as I am being familiar with the region, it’s facts and politics, people and names,  it made editing faster and smoother — and that is what our business is all about.

Above: A father and daughter prepare a ballot at an Oviedo polling station during Spain’s general elections March 9, 2008.  Photograph by Eloy Alonso

Above: A Catholic nun looks for her Senate ballot at a polling station in Aravaca, outside Madrid, during Spain’s parliamentary election March 9, 2008. Photograph Susana Vera

Above: Muslim women cast their votes at a Ceuta polling station during Spain’s general elections March 9, 2008.  Photograph by Rafael Marchante

The job of getting the Spanish election pictures out to the wire worked in perfect coordination between myself and the photographers in the field, which made me happy because I felt as if I was still there with them,  even though by working on the picture desk I am now on the other side of the line. It certainly made me forget the huge distance that separates us - a distance that didn’t exist until December 2006, when I joined the Global Pictures Desk in Singapore.

Above: Spain’s Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero gestures to supporters outside the Socialists party headquarters in Madrid, March 9, 2008.  Photograph by Alessandro Bianchi

Above: Spain’s opposition leader and Partido Popular (PP) candidate Mariano Rajoy embraces his wife Elvira Fernandez after his defeat in Spain’s general elections at the party’s headquarters in Madrid March 9, 2008. Photograph by Susana Vera

Before that I was immersed in my work of photographing bombing and riots; demonstrations and undercover midnight police operations; soccer matches and the running of the bulls;  news conferences and film festivals, and a plethora of etceteras in the troubled Basque Country region in Spain, where I had been a freelance photographer for Reuters since 1997. Adrenaline was my daily fuel, and I never thought I’d give it up for anything else in the world. But then I did.

Above: Me shooting the Tour of the Basque Country cyclist race. Photograph by Jesus Diges     

There are numerous reasons why I opted for such a change but I guess one stood out most at that time. The political struggle in the Basque Country was, happily, calming down and while it might sound cynical, we all know there’s not much news if there isn’t bad news. So of the various alternatives presented to me then, I decided to jump at the opportunity to work as an editor on the pictures desk in Singapore. After all, what better place was there to learn how a picture desk operates? and to witness what happens to the pictures once they’ve been shot and filed to the desk.

Above: Masked demonstrators hold pyrotechnic rokects and petrol bombs during riots on the streets of San Sebastián,  July 27, 1997. Photograph by Pablo Sanchez.
 

Above: Spanish Civil Guard members carry an environmental activist after he was arrested during a demonstration against the demolition of the village of Itoiz in northern Spain late June 16, 2003. Photograph by Pablo Sanchez.

Above: Masked Ertzainas (Basque Police members) stand guard outside the home of a suspected ETA member after arresting him in the Basque Country town of Zaldibia August 22, 2001. Photograph by Pablo Sanchez

Henri Cartier-Bresson is credited with saying: “Actually, I’m not all that interested in the subject of photography. Once the picture is in the box, I’m not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren’t cooks. And I can’t imagine a better place to learn to “cook” than the Global Pictures Desk. Cartier-Bresson has a point. In all my years as a photographer, and I’m sure my colleagues out there will agree, hunting images can prove to be the most exhilarating experience - at times intense, at times a necessary task, many times exciting, but all in all a truly great pleasure. It’s almost impossible to describe the rush you feel when you put your credibility on the line and try your utmost to find the best possible angles to illustrate reality, frame by frame. You often feel part of history as it unfolds. While the hunt is not about a claim to fame, I won’t deny that it feels good when, on the day after shooting the photographs, you find you are the creator of that picture that adorns every front page. Absolute gratification.

Above: A runner leads a fighting bull into Pamplona’s arena during the seventh run of the San Fermin Festival on July 13, 2001. Photograph by Pablo Sanchez

 Above: People crowd a cave near the Basque country village of Zugarramurdi to attend an “Aquelarre” (witches’ sabbath) June 21, 1998. Photograph by Pablo Sanchez

Above: A dog plows through heavy snow near Alsasua in Spain’s Basque country February 28, 2004 after freezing weather and heavy snowfall in many areas of Spain. Photograph by Pablo Sanchez.

Anyways, back on track. I guess I have an inkling of what the hunt is about, but what would be the fate of all the hard-won photographs without a crew of committed editors working around the clock to ensure that the pictures are perfectly presented to our clients all over the world. I mean, who will eat raw hunt - print the untouched images? Who will ever consume the product of my stalking if no one contributes the proper spices, sauces, oils and condiments - print a picture without the right crop, good colour balance or toning, and correct captions? I wish I knew then what I know now - that the people on the pictures desk are my group of dedicated picture editors working within many limits of multiple international datelines which feels like hungry patrons waiting at the table. Our clients can expect to be served with the best possible array of pictures that have been professionally primed under our stringent code of photo shopping ethics and ensure the speedy delivery of our top quality pictures and captions.

As a pictures editor I am now a cook and i’ll continue fine tuning my personal “cooking” style. I know that taking photographs will always be my first love but being familiar with both worlds allows me a fuller appreciation of how it all works together. I do miss taking pictures a lot more than I expected but I know I am helping “cook” - I know how important my contribution as a picture editor is. This also has made the transition between the two sides of journalism relatively painless. I do believe working for Reuters is like working in a three-star Michelin restaurant.
 

Business and economy news is one of the most challenging parts of covering the story in Tokyo.Why? Fashion shows have their beauties, red carpets have their stars, and sporting events have their action, but what is going to catch a reader’s eye and make them do more than glance at our picture on a story about GDP?
In Tokyo we’re trying to make our financial coverage as compelling as other subjects and our approach is to try to have fun with these assignments, and working around the tight access restrictions. What we see is tightly controlled, and even in news conferences we are usually corralled into a small section of the room and forbidden to move. The subdued demeanor and limited variation in clothing (black, navy or gray suits) worn by this country’s business leaders is another challenge. There are no Richard Bransons here. Not even a Bill Gates. We had a Carlos Ghosn, but he isn’t around much anymore.

Executive Interviews:

It’s easy to get beaten down and lose hope when we walk in to shoot photos of the CEO of an industry-leading company only to find the room is lit with dim florescent lights and the only decoration is nicotine-stained curtains. But the great thing about an interview is that unlike a crowded news conference you can set up lights, move around and seize control of the light away from the florescent strips in the ceiling and do some fun strobe work. I like snouts because they’re great for getting rid of the phones, plants, decorations, thermostats, light switches and anything else that clutters up a photo. A snout can be anything that fits over the head of your strobe to limit the spread of the light from it, letting you control where light falls and where it does not.

GDP and other Economic Figures

GDP and other economic figures are broad enough that you could almost shoot anything for these, but at the same time it’s a bit bewildering to try to sum up a country’s economic mood with one frame. I think we’re most successful when our pictures are beautiful and convey a strong mood at the same time, as in the photo below.

Stock Markets

In Tokyo there is no stock exchange in the usual sense. There is a building, but inside is mostly computers. The actual trading is being done by people sitting at desks in brokerages. To get people reacting to stocks we shoot on the street and are always on the search for a brokerage or other business that has a sign that gives us the opportunity to show people reacting

Commodities

Commodities are probably my favorite economics-related story to cover because getting a commodities photo usually means putting on a hardhat, going into a noisy processing plant of some sort, getting oil and coal dust on our clothes, and witnessing beautiful scenes in ugly environments.

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Pictures by Kim Kyung-Hoon, Michael Caronna, Yuriko Nakao, Toru Hanai, Michael Caronna, and Yuriko Nakao respectively