U.S. actress Goldie Hawn poses on the red carpet as she arrives at the screening of the film ‘Elegy’ at the 58th Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin February 10, 2008.  Photo by Fabrizio Bensch

Each year film stars from all over the World bring their gloss and glamour to the red carpets of the worlds’ most important film festivals such as Berlin, Cannes and Venice. With them come hundreds of photographers, writers and TV crews all on the hunt for stars. The Berlinale film festival in February opens the annual season in the winter cold of the German capital. Paparazzi stalk stars outside restaurants and hotels all looking for exclusive pictures. We concentrate more on the daily photo calls, press conferences and the red carpet premieres at the festival cinema. I have covered the festival nearly every year since 1991 and things have changed a lot in that time. Where there used to be only a couple of dozen of us at press conferences and premieres but today in the digital age there are at least 100 accredited photographers producing tens of thousands of images every day from the Berlinale.

Guests arrive at the screening of the opening film ‘Shine A Light’ running in competition at the 58th Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin February 7, 2008.
Photo by Fabrizio Bensch

IN addition to me our team of photographers included Tobias Schwarz, Johannes Eisele, Christian Charisius, Hannibal Hanschke all working long days running from one event to the next in Potsdamer Square where the Berlinale cinema is located. As well as the usual remote filing our editorial team of Amanda Andersen, Michael Leckel, Kirill Iordansky and Wolfgang Ratty used our remote editing system, which allowed them to edit events live from the ‘comfort’ of the Berlin office. These days everything is always ‘on deadline’. When there are stars like the Rolling Stones, Madonna and Penelope Cruz at an event everyone wants the pictures now!.

 
 
U.S. director Martin Scorsese (C) poses with Rolling Stones members Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ron Wood and Mick Jagger on the red carpet as they arrive for the screening of the opening film ‘Shine A Light’ at the 58th Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin February 7, 2008. Photo by Johannes Eisele
 

Madonna poses during a photocall to present her film ‘Filth And Wisdom’ running at the 58th Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin February 13, 2008.
Photo by Hannibal Hanschke

A photocall often takes just minutes. As soon as a star like Madonna emerged in front of the blue backcloth their would be a deafening noise from the assembled media - “Look left! Look straight ahead! Over here!”.

DDP Photographer Michael Kappeler sets up his remote
camera before the photocall with pop star Madonna
 

This view is from my remote camera fired synchronously with my other cameras.

A festival is as much about those moments as anything else, it is just like a film… everything is an illusion.

Gold and Silver Bear awards are lined up for the fortcoming Berlinale film festival at the Noiak bronze foundry in Berlin February 5, 2008. Phot by Fabrizio Bensch

Here are some more pictures from the Berlinale - 

http://pictures.reuters.com/c/C.aspx?VP= Mod_EmailPackage.EmailReceiver_VPage&RP= Flash&PID=2C04EB9ORTA4&M=PPA&SST=1&SH=F
 

For news photographers covering accidents, natural disasters, war and conflict is all part of the job. In some parts of the world sudden death is an everyday event. 

How we photograph scenes of death and injury is a tough call. We have to make decisions about how close we can get to the victims. If we are not working then perhaps we are just in the way and may even be making matters worse. At what stage do we stop shooting pictures to help somebody who is hurt? What if it is a colleague?

It is a balancing act and anyone who has ever covered a funeral will recognise that  tangible point beyond which the presence of cameras becomes intrusive and hurtful for the bereaved.

Is it different if our exposure to death is not unexpected? What happens when it is anticipated, even meticulously planned?

I have an idea to try and document the process involved in obtaining human donor organs for transplant. I approach staff at one of Berlin’s biggest hospitals, the accident hospital Berlin-Marzahn and then wait several weeks for the call to come. It comes on a Friday afternoon. A surgeon rings to say that a female patient of around 50 years has suffered brain trauma and is clinically dead. Her family have agreed to donate her organs for transplant and he has just called-in the specialist “explantation” team who are enroute to the hospital to begin the exhaustive checks to decide which organs would be applicable as donor organs.

Four hours later at 9pm I call the anaesthetist to try and find out when the operation will  begin, he doesn’t know but says the decision will be made in the next six to twelve hours and that he’ll ring me when he does.

At 1.30 as I go to bed my mobile phone rings. The surgeons of the operating team are ready and the operation is fixed for 4 am.

A nurse from the intensive care unit meets me at the hospital. The anaesthetist  is continually on the phone, coordinating flights and transport vehicles for the organs. The liver, both kidneys and the spleen are available as donor organs via the Eurotransplant International Foundation which is responsible for the mediation and allocation of organ donation procedures in Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Slovenia.

At 3.30 I am standing in the intensive care unit which is completely silent apart from the occasional noise from monitoring equipment. The motionless donor is brought to the unit in an elevator. I change into sterile blue scrubs, mask and cap and go into the theatre. Instruments are being laid out on special tables, everything made ready. Then the intensive care nurses and I sit and drink coffee while we wait for the surgeons.

The surgeons, on call 24 hours a day, come from all over the city. They change their clothes and scrub-up. Everyone is very calm, concentrated, nobody speaks much. The donor is brought in on a trolley and the operation begins.

She has been kept “alive” for days by artificial respiration. The surgeon isolates the abdominal wall and I take pictures. I have to keep a distance while taking pictures during the operation because of the risk of infection.

With a remote controlled camera I can photograph directly from above over the operation field. The only sounds are the surgeons giving each other instruction and the life-support machines with their flashing lights and the beeping  heartbeat monitor.

The liver, kidneys and spleen are ready for removal. Then there is a moment of silence. It is 5.42 am as the surgeons looks over to the anaesthetist, ”we can switch off”. The rhythmic beeping  stops, there are no vital signs, the female donor is dead. It is not until hours later that I realise I had unconsciously registered that moment. 

The team carries on working intently. Blood flow into the organs is interrupted to flood the organs with a special liquid. 

Then first the liver is detached followed by the two kidneys and the spleen. The operation site is continuously cooled with iced water and the organs are transferred into cooling bowls. Surgeons clean off the fat before packing the  organs into plastic bags surrounded by a chilling liquid which are then placed into cool boxes.

More than four hours after the procedure began the anaesthetist carries the cool boxes to to a waiting ambulance which rushes the organs to the airport.

The surgical team are exhausted but satisfied that through their efforts a dead woman and her family may have, by the gift of her organs, given others a second chance.

I had mixed feelings as the unmarked, white-painted, Royal Jordania airline flight from Amman approached Baghdad international airport. After a tight turn and in order to lose height quickly, a nosedive, it touched down on the runway. What could I expect this time, six months after my last embed with U.S. troops in the Iraqi capital?

The conflict in Iraq is a familiar everyday story in our mass media world. Here a suicide bombing with dozens of dead , there a car bomb that kills and maims dozens. The pictures of life in a war zone have become familiar and similar scenes are shown again and again. For viewers a world away from the conflict these images are nevertheless unreal, far from their everyday experiences - but this is daily life in Iraq, for every Iraqi.

During my last stay in Baghdad in March I was confronted with the reality of the inconceivable, cruelty of this war. Corpses, bound and tortured lying in the roads; the dismembered bodies of Iraqi soldiers; children, women and men trying to live their everyday lives constantly afraid of becoming victims of the next bomb attack.

US servicemen often ask me what I expected to find in Iraq? My answer is always, “I don’t expect anything. I just witness what I see”. And I can see everything I want to see.
After three weeks in the city I can see that a little progress has been made.

The embedded journalist program is the only way a western journalist can operate with a degree of safety. Even so you have to take care every step you walk for fear of triggering a roadside device or being ambushed.

You live with the military 24/7, sleep in the same tents and eat the same food. They talk freely, openly and often controversially about their circumstances. They are a friendly bunch, usually happy to meet a German photographer as many have been stationed in Germany and have good memories of their time there.

For a foreign journalist there is no other way to work in an environment that is all to often lethal for even seasoned locals. Of course my report is just a window on events there but hopefully adds to a balanced picture overall.

Even from an armoured Humvees, wearing heavy body armour and a kevelar helmet, the small “baby steps” are apparent. The “concerned citizen” program, where local groups cooperate with US troops and provide limited security in their neighbourhoods has seen life return to the streets - small shops are open again and butchers are back in business.

I spent some time with a Blackhawk helicopter MEDEVAC unit, called the “Witchdoctors”. These are the medics who rush to the scene of roadside explosions and the number of emergency calls has diminished markedly in the past few months.

Today, patrolling through Baghdad’s Haifa Street - one of the most embattled hotspots between insurgents and U.S. soldiers -  apart from the Iraqi army checkpoints, some sort of stable existence seemed to be returning and people were out and about doing their daily shopping, there even new street lights.

Of course this is still miles away from peace, but the small changes, the “baby steps”, I have witnessed give me some hope for the future in Baghdad and if not for this generation, then the next, their children.