Photographer Tim Chong captures the momentus Singapore Grand Prix, the first Formula One race to be held at night.

I saw the story of 80-year-old body builder Ray Moon on a tabloid type current affairs TV programme in August. The segment said he was in training for the Victorian Bodybuilding Championships in September, taking place in Melbourne. I thought to myself, what a crazy story!

I got hold of the manager of the gym where Ray trains and he put me in touch. I explained to Ray that I wanted to spend a few days with him and the kind of pictures I wanted to shoot - Ray at home, training, having the famous body builder’s spray-on tan and then competing.

Ray was not having any of it. He said ‘No’ to all of my ideas, except the competition shots, saying my presence would spoil his concentration in the lead-up to the event. ‘No problem’ was my answer, as I felt the story would still be strong enough without the other pictures.

I passed his contact details onto my Sydney-based text colleague Pauline Askin, who would write the story, and off I trudged on September 14^th to shoot the pictures.

When I came face-to-face with Ray he was wearing a short terry-towelling bath robe and slippers, sporting coiffed white hair and one of the most remarkable spray-on tans I have ever seen. This is going to be interesting I thought. I asked if I could shoot some shots of him warming-up and he agreed.

I went into the dressing rooms at the venue and was struck by the smell of tanning oils and the sight of men and women who looked nothing like your average human being. I noticed that my own body shape was inversely proportional to the sculpted forms around me backstage.

This is going to be really interesting I thought. After about fifteen minutes photographing Ray and the other competitors in the warm-up area, the organisers shooed me out and the event was underway.

Off I went into the auditorium to find myself a decent spot to shoot from. This wasn’t easy. A lot of the shooting positions would’ve made for very untidy pictures with lots of messy signage in the backgrounds. Ray did not appear on stage for two hours, so whilst waiting I photographed the other events, seeing if there was any change in the lighting and on the lookout for any other unusual or quirky moments to send to our picture clients.

When Ray finally came out to compete in the seniors’ event I was too busy concentrating on getting good, varied pictures of him to really enjoy the spectacle.

The event finished and Ray - the sole competitor in the over-60s section - was declared winner.

As I sneaked backstage to thank him and say goodbye, he was having his official photo taken. Click. I took the photo as well, thinking what a nice picture it would make to end the story.

Once back in the office, having downloaded, edited, captioned and sent a selection of pictures to our global pictures desk in Singapore, I was able to relax, smile to myself and appreciate what a very interesting and successful day it had been.

(A wider selection of images from this assignment can be seen here)

Recently, I went to the Chinese border-town of Dandong on the Yalu River to see what I could photograph to match stories about reports that the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was sick. Dandong is one of the closest towns on the border to the secretive country, and was the obvious choice due mainly to the chances of a journalist entering the highly restricted and reclusive country at such short notice being practically impossible. They don’t accept journalists at the best of times, let alone when their ‘dear leader’, as he is officially known, is not well. Kim has led communist North Korea for 14 years and if he was dead, the potentially nuclear-capable country could quickly become a scary and somewhat horrifying scenario.My hope for the assignment was that maybe I could get pictures of North Korean soldiers on border patrols, or perhaps even people working in the fields - something that showed life on the ‘other side’.

A local contact told us of boats for hire about one hours drive north of Dandong. I thought ok, it would be something like a small fishing village where the locals occasionally subsidise their incomes by taking people for rides to see the secretive side of the river, but when we arrived we found a thriving, well organised tourism industry. There was a fleet of six large boats that took 20 people at a time, or a fleet of speedboats that took five at a time. You could go for 20 minutes or for over an hour, cruising along the Chinese side of the river photographing or filming North Koreans washing their clothes or themselves, riding bicycles, tending their crops, or just fishing as they tried to get any extra food to supplement what measly portions they were obviously receiving.

Myself, text journalist Chris Buckley and Reuters cameraman Johnnie boarded a boat and headed towards the small town of Qing Cheng which was once connected to China via a bridge that protrudes from both sides of the river but had it’s middle portion blown-up 60 years ago - a symbolic reminder that this country is separated from the rest of the world.

The first amazing sight was a boat full of North Korean soldiers floating down the river. I thought for sure they would follow us, but most of them just waved and smiled. Mind you, thankfully, there was another boat between us and them, and they didn’t really see us I am pretty sure.

The next thing that surprised me was the sight of maybe a hundred people either walking, riding bikes or on animal-drawn carts travelling along a road that hugged the banks of the river. This was where I managed to get a picture of a military officer riding a motorbike with who I presume was his wife and young child aboard. A rare sight indeed I am sure.

We then came across a building that extended out into the river, and where three men huddled inside. We could only just see them through a hole in a wall, and it certainly personified the sad state these people were in.

The finale of our trip produced probably my favourite image I have taken involving North Korea. I only just noticed her behind the tree - a female North Korean soldier on patrol along the border fence was desperately trying to stay out of sight. And what made the picture was the way in which she failed - she just couldn’t resist taking a peek at us.

After we got back to the hotel and I had sent my pictures, I couldn’t help but think how distressing the whole scene was. A whole tourism industry built on people being treated like zoo animals. There would be hundreds of tourists everyday riding in these boats, which even had signs aboard them saying you weren’t allowed to give food to anybody, especially if they asked for it. No wonder the children threw rocks at them.

I just hope that my pictures make people aware and feel sympathetic to the North Korean people’s situation, and ask that when perhaps one day you visit the lovely city of Dandong, you will just be satisfied with looking at North Korea from the Chinese side of the river.

Audio slideshow: A Pentagon visitors center expert describes the new memorial.

Having covered the events of 9/11 and 6 of the last 7 memorials, this year was very different. In the past I had a very hard time covering these memorials emotionally. It was tough seeing these people grieving the loss of loved ones and having, not even through six degrees of separation, known anyone that passed away hard to grasp. But year after year we have gone down to the site to mark the anniversary of one of the worst attacks on American soil in history.

This year it seemed different. For me, it seemed not as emotional as the years past. With less exceptions people seemed to be getting on with their lives to a certain extent. I also noticed how the kids of the victims are getting older - not nearly as many babies and younger children. Seven years have passed and the children are growing older. I also think that the presidential candidates visiting the site took some of the focus away from the families’ and loved ones’ day of mourning. It became a separate story to cover other than the anniversary.

When I first began making photographs, I began using color and slide film. Working with film was always a challenge, but one could expose the film or chrome differently to achieve a desired affect. I have always been fascinated by the way a camera can record color.

The art of black and white photography is being able to play with tonality and contrast. Some photographers are able to process a scene in black and white. It’s such an art, and there is such beauty in black and white imagery. I love color though, by underexposing just a fraction I feel like a photographer is able to saturate the colors a bit. Shadows can create a mood. Underexposing also creates contrast.

There is a tonal range in an image. Cameras record light differently than we see it, our eyes are able to process more of a range of light than a camera can, meaning we are able to see the detail in shadows. I love to look around and see how the light is falling on a particular scene. I’ll observe the scene, look for the most interesting light, or the most fascinating subjects, or something different.

As a news photographer, we have an obligation to tell the story as we see it in front of us. Sometimes we are bound to the news value rather than an aesthetic, but such is the business of photojournalism, we are there to record a scene and to show history as it’s being made. But there are other moments. In many situations, I feel that scenes are recorded and the significance is narrowed down to a frame or two that are supposed to represent exactly what happened.

What is the significance of a scene? What was the moment that defined an event?

But there are myriad moments that define an event.

The media at times dictates news rather than recording it, but all around there are moments happening that define it as much as anything else. Finding those moments is easy, it’s recording them in a way that somehow reflects their emotional significance that provides more of a challenge. Through the art of photography, we are able to capture those moments in a way that reflects the way we see them. We are thinking and feeling, and our cameras are there to record that, our presence in a scene, how we process everything that is going on around us. I care about how that looks, as a photographer we are interested in the aesthetic, but the ultimate goal is to make the viewer feel what it was like to be there, or feel something about the scene. If my images are able to capture that, then I have done my job.

I was lucky enough to be able to cover the Democratic National Convention, and being able to see history in the making and at the same time record it was an amazing experience.

View an audio slideshow from the Venice Film Festival here.

During a Vatican briefing this week on Pope Benedict's trip to France, a television producer got up and asked the question that surely was foremost in the minds of many photographers and television crews struggling to hold back yawns as subjects such as France's secular history were discussed:

Will Carla Bruni be at the airport to welcome the pope?

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi smiled. He said Carla Bruni's husband -- who happens to be Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France -- had made it known that he might be at the airport. But he said he did not know if Bruni would be there. Heads of state usually wait for popes at their palaces but sometimes, to show their added respect for the pontiff, they also go to the airport.

In Paris, government officials confirmed Sarkozy would break protocol and greet Benedict at Orly airport, something he is not required to do because this is an official visit rather than a more formal state visit. They said they expected Carla to be there ... but didn't want to be quoted on that.

It seems wherever Sarkozy goes these days,  the visual media is less interested in him than in his current wife, the fomer Carla Bruni. The Italian-born singer, song writer and former supermodel who has been the darling of the media since she entered Sarkozy's life late last year. Bruni, 40, married Sarkozy in February after a whirlwind three-month romance that started one month after Sarkozy, 53, divorced his second wife, Cecilia.

Carla, who has said she sees herself as being akin to the late U.S. first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, was not married to Sarkozy when he last saw the pope in Rome in December, so she did not -- to the disappointment of the media -- accompany him. Sarkozy considers himself a "cultural Catholic" and attends mass only occasionally. Under Church law he is not allowed to take communion since he has not received annulments from his previous marriages.

The pope's trip to Paris and Lourdes begins on Friday and the media surely will have more weighty political and religious subjects to consider. But for the visual media at least, the moment to die for-- whether it takes place at the airport or the Elysée Palace or in Notre Dame Cathedral-- will be that of Carla and the pope.

by Rick Wilking

photos by Brian Snyder, Boston Globe image by Jim Bourg, remote camera

In a never-ending quest for the illusive “different” photo Reuters set up remote-controlled cameras at Sen. Barack Obama’s historic acceptance speech in Invesco Field at Mile High in Denver.At any major event we need to provide our clients with what we call “the bread and butter” photos - the pictures that tell the story in a very straightforward way and will end up in history books someday. But in addition to that what we really want to shoot are just very cool images - pictures that grab you by the throat and scream at you in the face or sometimes more subtle images you look at for awhile before you “get it.”

Occasionally one of the best ways to get these killer pictures is to put a camera where you cannot physically be, like in the dirt at a horse track (see previous blog by Jason Reed at the Preakness) or in a secure zone at a campaign event where security just does not want to let you stand. Such was the case in Denver for the Obama speech.

Photographers Brian Snyder, myself and editor Jim Bourg hung 4 remotes at the event,one on each side of the ramp he walked in on, one high up to capture him surrounded by the crowd and another in a head-on reverse spot. I triggered the ramp remotes wired to a switch triggered by my foot and I and photographer Brian Snyder fired the upper ones with radio controls. I used the foot switch as I was shooting three other cameras hand held.    We’ve done this type of thing for many years and in most cases we pull the memory cards from the cameras immediately after the event to get them on the wire.

But at the Obama speech time was of the essence with the event coming right on east coast deadlines so we went one better and set the cameras up to automatically transmit the images real time as they were fired. We were “going live” as TV types used to say.

We did this with some software tricks and ultra-portable PC’s connected to the cameras by either a firewire or USB cables depending on the camera model. The computers were also connected to the Internet with an Ethernet connection our techs wired to each camera position.

As the shutter was triggered, the image was stored on the internal card and simultaneously put into a folder  in the computers stashed under the stage. A piece of Reuters proprietary software was watching that folder and automatically sent a thumbnail of the pictures to a server in New York whenever an image was transferred by the camera.

Editor Jim Bourg sitting up in the press box at the event was dialed into that server to watch the thumbnails come in and when he saw something he liked he “pulled” the full-size high-res version of the file off the PCs and from there it was on the wire, often within minutes of being made.

Whenever you set up remotes the stars have to line up just right to get the image you are hoping for. In the case of Denver we were expecting the candidate to be brightly lit with spotlights and we aimed the cameras to capture what we were told would be a fantastic fireworks show erupting over his head.  Neither really happened as advertised but we still got some unique images our competition could not match. Photos editors noticed with one of the best examples being the Boston Globe using one of Jim’s pictures taking up most of the top of the front page the next day.

Here’s hoping for more good camera karma.

August 29, 2008 was a strange day. As I covered commemorations for the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the tension in the air was palpable. Hurricane Gustav was coming and decisions had to be made. Do we stay or do we go? I was staying.

In 2005, Reuters assigned me to cover Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath. After seeing first hand the scope of the storm’s devastation, I decided to move back to New Orleans. I then began to focus my work completely on documenting the city’s recovery. In the months following Katrina, there was a pioneering spirit among the few living in the city, and I became personally involved in the story. Last year, I bought a home here.

As Gustav approached, I knew I couldn’t stand to be outside New Orleans as this new chapter was unfolding. By Saturday, officials were making dire predictions about the probable impact on the city, and I got a little worried. After shooting pictures of resident evacuating early Sunday, I spent the afternoon securing my house and belongings. Although I live in the Bywater, an area that did not flood in Katrina, I needed to take a few precautions. I put my desktop computer, external drives and other valuables on the highest shelves in my house. I planned to work completely out of my rental car, with a laptop, inverter and portable batteries. I placed my duplicate drives (which should have been shipped to a safe city) into an ice chest and brought them to the Chimes Bed and Breakfast in Uptown, where most of Reuters’ staff was housed. They have three stories and didn’t flood in Katrina either. I stayed for dinner, went home and slept easier after hearing Gustav’s punch was weakening. I was awoken by storm gusts and my power was out.

I live two blocks from Inner Harbor Navigational Canal. We call it the Industrial Canal and its role in the Katrina nightmare is notorious. My first stop was the east bank of the canal, where the breech in the Lower Ninth Ward occurred in Katrina. After climbing the floodwall, I became a bit concerned to see water already two to three feet from the top. I drove around the neighborhood, shooting a bit, and then headed over the Claiborne Bridge. I stopped at the top of the bridge for a wide view. That’s when I saw waves cresting over the top of the floodwall onto the east bank of the canal, my side. I photographed the scene, called correspondent Tim Gaynor, and went to a coffee house in my neighborhood with power to file the pictures.

When I returned to the bridge after filing, news crews were crowding it, probably tipped by their desks after seeing Reuters pictures of the situation on several news websites. I was glad they were. I wanted everyone to see the impending danger. Water was now accumulating at the foot of the bridge. Not a good sign. I photographed National Guardsmen arriving on the scene of the flooding, and went back to the top of the bridge. The waves had gotten stronger. It was amazing to watch the force of the water push against the concrete walls and try to imagine the incredible pressure on them. How could they possibly hold? Every thing I owned was just beyond those walls. They had to hold. They did, at Category 3. We need to build higher, stronger walls because other, stronger storms are sure to come.

In the days since Gustav, I have photographed the clean up and people returning to the city. I haven’t had to go far from my neighborhood to find pictures. My house is the only one on the street without electricity, so it is powered at night with a generator. But it’s there. So is my stuff. Things are feeling a little less dangerous, for now.