A five day prayer meeting is temporarily held at a monastery in Tongren, Qinghai province. Monks blessed sweets, fruit and biscuits then distributed to the worshipers, who scrambled to get them.

Click here to view an audio slideshow.

There was great interest in the visit to Mexico by Cuba’s foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque, especially since Mexico’s previous President Vicente Fox had broken off diplomatic relations with the island nation. Adding to the expectation was the fact that the minister’s first attempt to visit Mexico this year was canceled when Cuba was hit by a hurricane.

Perez Roque’s trip was finally reconfirmed with a packed agenda, with one event closely following the next. The first was a visit to the monument to Cuba’s independence hero, José Martí, followed by a visit to another monument to Mexico’s own hero, Benito Juárez. The monuments are not far apart, but because of the tight schedule most photographers assumed that Perez Roque would be driven between them and they went ahead to take an early position. To the surprise of a few, including myself, the minister decided to walk the distance.

As I was running alongside the Cuban delegation, between them and other colleagues that had taken up a position on the sidelines, Perez Roque suddenly turned to me and said he’d like to take pictures of us for a change. He asked me for the camera I was carrying in my hand, exactly the one with the short zoom that I needed to shoot him from so close, so instead I offered him my second camera equipped with a longer zoom.

I keep thinking that maybe I was a little selfish when the minister asked me how to use the camera I was loaning him, and I only took the time to tell him where to look and which button to press. I was naturally more concerned with taking my own pictures than with teaching him how. I’ve always thought that politicians should stick to politics and photographers to taking pictures. And I also believe that while covering the news a photographer should remain as invisible as possible, so my question is whether or not I should have just ignored the minister’s request. I guess this type of anecdote serves to analyze what we can do and what we shouldn’t do as photographers. In a case like this of an informal encounter between a public figure and photojournalists, is it a valid news picture or not?

After transmitting my pictures taken with the short zoom I checked the card on the other camera that Perez Roque had handled, and I saw that he had indeed taken a couple of shots. So I put together a combination photo of one of his pictures and one of mine.

The third and final debate between the 2008 U.S. presidential nominees had just ended. Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama and Republican nominee Senator John McCain had just shaken hands moments before and turned away from each other, when Senator McCain suddenly lunged forward with his hands out in front of him and stuck out his tongue.

It appeared to me that McCain was reacting to moderator Bob Schieffer informing him that he was headed the wrong way off the stage, that he was not supposed to be following Senator Obama, but was supposed to be heading towards his own wife and family around the other side of the table.

In any case, when I saw McCain lunge and his hands start to come up I hit the shutter and made two frames before it was over. Some other photographers who were there expressed surprise when they saw my picture and said they had never seen it happen at all and asked when it had occurred. When I saw the television tape of it later on the news I too was surprised at how momentary and fast the move by Senator McCain was. Strangely enough Senator McCain again stuck his tongue out in a similar way 3-4 minutes later while standing between his wife Cindy and Senator Obama at the front of the stage, a moment captured by my colleague Shannon Stapleton and other wire service photographers in attendance and once again shown on national and international television.

The picture, as with all my pictures that night, was remotely edited by an editor off site, viewing my pictures as I shot them over the internet and working with other editors who processed and captioned the pictures along with photos from the other three Reuters photographers shooting the debate. This photo was just one of 40 of my pictures that were transmitted on the Reuters wire from this debate and one of more than 100 from our crew of photographers, which included Gary Hershorn, Shannon Stapleton, Jim Young and Carlos Barria.

By the time I got back to my hotel room that night people were already discussing the photo on the internet and by the next morning my email inbox was filling with messages about the picture. Some people complimented me on the photo while others strongly criticized both myself and Reuters for shooting and transmitting a news photo of a very public moment that had taken place in front of more than 60 million television viewers at the culmination of a major and historic public event.

Click on the play button above to view an audio slideshow on the Loita Maasai in Kenya blessing women from their village to ensure they have children in a rare fertility ceremony.

Lucy Nicholson presents a multimedia blog on Reuters’ coverage of the Beijing Olympics.

I’ve spent the past month embedded with the German armed forces Bundeswehr - operating as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in northern Afghanistan - accompanying troops during missions from their bases in Masar-e-Sharif, Feyzabad and Kunduz. This is the first time the German army have allowed news agency photographers to be embedded with operational units, in the way the U.S. have allowed journalists similar access for many years. To be close to the units operating on the ground is the only way to report on their day-to-day work.

Tuesday, September 30th was a special day. It was the first day after the month’s new moon and Muslims all over the world were celebrating the Eid al-Fitr festival, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. It is a joyful day for Afghans too. Families prepare delicious food and celebrate together with friends and relatives.

I was attached to a unit of German and Belgian soldiers driving to the town of Taloqan, about 75 kilometres east of Kunduz. There was tension in the air. Some roads were closed to military vehicles because suicide attacks or roadside bombs were expected during the holiday period. Just a week before, a suicide bomber driving a car had got close to a German army convoy, causing damage to armoured vehicles. German military personnel travelling inside had a lucky escape.

Our convoy was forced to use another route with very bad roads - no better than dust tracks - which were only accessible with off-road vehicles. We reached Taloqan after a rough, two-hour long journey and I noticed immediately that something was different from my last visit to Taloqan a few days before. The people were dressed more fashionably and children ran around the streets in brightly coloured clothes, much smarter than their usual dusty attire.

We passed the busy bazaar crowded with people, where children were playing on wooden merry-go-rounds. After parking the vehicles at the small army compound, we went on a foot patrol around the bazaar. The soldiers distributed greeting cards for the Eid al-Fitr festival to locals and were quickly surrounded by children. 

As I took pictures, I was aware of the tension in the soldiers’ faces. The fear of being attacked was ever-present. German and Belgian soldiers don’t wear their helmets during foot patrols as it makes them appear less aggressive, but it also makes them more vulnerable. They looked intently around, vigilent, monitoring the situation at all times.

There was collective sigh of relief when the soldiers reached the main gate of the compound in Taloqan after the foot patrol. They were back, safe and sound, without incident. Laughing children and the mostly friendly faces of the people they’d encountered in the bazaar were the images that would remain in their memories.

We left Taloqan and headed back to the base in Kunduz. Another two hours on the road. I started editing and sending my pictures as soon as we reached Kunduz. In order to get the strongest satellite signal, I perched my kit on the bonnet of an armoured vehicle outside the main building.

Suddenly I heard a bang. I thought it could have been the sound of a mortar or a rocket, but it could also have been the sound of a firework set off for the Eid al-Fitr festivities. There was silence, so I continued to file my pictures. Then a couple of minutes later there was a second bang and now I was sure this was a rocket attack on the base.

I grabbed my kit and ran to the nearest shelter in the building. We were under fire. The joint operation centre gave the alarm and a coded loud speaker announcement confirmed this was a rocket attack. Seconds later there was a third bang and shortly afterward the sounds of a faraway explosion. Then silence again. In the shelter, the soldiers looked at each other, waiting for the next rocket, but nothing happened.

We waited for hours in our shelter. Fortunately, the base had not sustained any damage. This had been the first rocket attack in two weeks. “That’s normal, daily business in Afghanistan”, said one of the soldiers to me.

Ken Shrum is the owner of the Windom Grain and Feed store near the intersection of Main street and Wall street in Windom Texas. Shrum has to drive 30 miles to pick up his own feed in order to keep his costs down.

Photographer Jessica Rinaldi visits with small business owners to see how the financial crisis is impacting those along Main street.

Jumping up and down isn’t typical behavior in the office, but to show the effect of slow and fast shutter speeds jumping, waving arms and impromptu jigs were par for the course during the Intro to News Pictures classes held last week by Tokyo Chief Photographer Michael Caronna.

L: Hugh in midair on fast shutter speed R: Hugh in midair on slow shutter speed

Staff from Editorial and Business departments at Thomson Reuters in Tokyo learned about composition, shutter speed, aperture and the legal implications of photography during the half-day session. Most importantly, they learned why they should never, ever, under any circumstances, even think about using the ugly, deer-in-the-headlights, demon red-eye producing flashes on their cameras.

No flash here, just light from a cloudy day.
The goal of the Intro to News Pictures sessions was to help staff turn any point-and-shoot camera in their hands into a useful tool for taking strong photos that accurately and beautifully depict a scene. On its own, a camera is just a hunk of plastic and metal. Sure, anyone can push a button and take a snapshot with today’s technological marvels, but it takes a photographer to consistently produce pictures that people want to look at.

This is not a boring composition.

By taking control of shutter speed and aperture, participants learned during Intro to News Pictures how to make their cameras take more than snapshots. They learned to freeze motion, or emphasize it with blur through the shutter speed choices they make. Participants also learned how to draw attention to the important subjects in a photo, through creative use of composition, depth of field, and sensitivity to shape and form.

This was our tool for the session: A Canon G9

But working the camera to produce a sharp, beautiful picture is only half the job. News is about people. People talking, people doing things and people not really terribly excited about having a camera pointed at them. To address this, dealing with camera-shy subjects and helping them to understand what, as news photographers we are trying to accomplish was also covered in the session. Moving portrait subjects into better light, planning photos before the shutter button is pressed, and being wary of the legal dangers lurking in captions and in handout photos were also important topics.

Happily, everybody seemed to have a good time and by the end of the session participants had banished boring and clutter-filled snapshots to history, and were producing surprising pictures.