As commuters struggled with their umbrellas as they crossed London Bridge and winds reached 150Kph in France, Reuters Bucharest photographer Bogdan Cristel was climbing on the back of a 1000cc Honda Varadero to cover the first stage of the Paris-Nice cycling classic.

Bogdan has never covered a pro cycle race before and because he will be part of our team covering the month-long 2008 Tour de France cycle classic,

we had decided that this was a suitable event to get some training in with our professional motorcyclist Jacques Clawey. The idea was good - it just turned out to be the wrong day to do it.

In fact the wind was blowing so hard and the rain so heavy that the race organizers were obliged to shorten the 200kms stage to some 60kms, ferrying the cyclists by bus for much of it.

Bogdan and Jaqcues struggled on to the new departure point through blinding rain and hail and witnessed several accidents as other accompanying motorcyles fell foul of the wind and slippery roads.

Despite their heavy protective rain suits and cameras shut in saddle bags, by the time the race finally got underway, they were both completely drenched. The saddle bags had taken in several inches of water from the flooded roads and the Canon Mark IIN cameras were mis-firing, as were Bogdans’ strobes. As fast as he could wipe his lens with a piece of Chamoix leather the rain would bead it up again.

Despite the hardships, Bogdan managed to get a couple of usable race action pix in the few minutes that the rain eased off just before the arrival. As we had another photographer Jean-Paul Pelissier pre-positioned on the arrival line, with cameras sheltered under a very serious rain cape, we made the most of an otherwise horrendous day of sport.

Race over and installed in their hotel in Nevers, central France, Bogdan and Jacques spent several hours drying out their clothes, equipment and papers with the aid of a hair dryer.

To all the photographers who spend Monday, March 10 outdoors, including Pascal Rossignol, Toby Melville, Eddie Keogh, Luke MacGregor, Phil Noble, Stephane Mahe, Paul Armiger, Stephen Hird, Jean-Paul Pelissier and of course not forgetting Bogdan and our motorcyclist Jacques Clawey, I would like to extend a very big thanks indeed.

Up until just last Friday, most of the photographers on the street seemed pretty much in agreement that, technology-wise, they had it made. But today I had the pleasure of chatting with a very young personality photographer who, toting his tiny HDV cam and custom-made mini-shotgun mike,  told me, straight faced, that carrying all those digitial still cameras, lenses and laptops was too cumbersome and a thing of the past. Ahhh, youth!!

Those of us who have been in the newspictures business for many years have seen tremendous technological change, nearly all for the better. Few photographers in their thirties knew the era of film and analogue pictures transmission and the woes it entailed. A young sports photographer we recently spoke with simply refused to believe that in the olden days photographers had to manually follow-focus soccer players and manually set the exposure. Surely everyone knows that all you have to do in order to get a high-speed internet connection is to hang out in your nearest MacDonalds or Starbucks right? After all, hasnt it ALWAYS been like that?

Well, I was rummaging through some boxes of old photo prints today and came across a picture I had taken in London at the royal wedding of Charles and Diana in 1981. There was nothing extraordinary about the image itself, but what made it interesting was that it came in the form of three 10 x 8 inch black and white prints of the same image, a colour separation. Each b&w print represented a colour: Yellow, Cyan, and Magenta. At one time converting a colour image to three black and white printers was the only way  to transmit a colour image (until both AP and UPI later developed a drum transmitter with a built in colour filter to handle the transmission of a colour print) .

It occurred to me that I had never seen this picture reassembled as a full colour image, save for a few newspaper clippings and so I decided to do this y means of today’s digital technology. I simply scanned the three prints and aligned them in Photoshop. The results were surprisingly good considering that the very long and tedious separation process (sometimes taking up to three hours for a single picture) was done totally by guesswork. AP, with a rather larger budget than UPI (for whom I was working at the time) had the luxury of a “densitometer” to calculate the tone of the three black and white printers., while we had to guestimate what the final colour project would look like at the receiving end. 

The amount of mobile gear needed to handle analogue colour transmissions on the road was enough to make the Rolling Stones roadies go on strike. A wire service photographer had to lift over a hundred kilos of gear on and off planes and spend hours locked in the darkest space available in many a god-foresaken place just in order to produce one colour project to satisfy the demands of the very few newspapers experimenting with colour at this time.

The equipment came in three or four large cases, One case contained a large plastic basin with hoses to connect to the hot and cold water taps in a hotel room. The basin was filled with warm water in which the stainless steel developing tanks were immersed. Another case contained an enlarger, film dryer and other printing material, including special registration frames and a special registration hole puncher, The last, and largest case, contained dozens of bottles of (very heavy) liquid chemistry (which would never be allowed on planes nowdays). This was all in addition to the photographers cameras, lenses, typewriter, analog picture transmitter and personal bag.

The separation process was finicky and frustrating with each of the three black and white renditions of the colour image having to be done one at a time. The first printer had to be dried very slowly to avoid shrinkage, then under the enlarger, matched and overlayed within a millimeter to the next, otherwise the picture would be out-of-register when reassembled. After several hours the photographer would appear, disheveled and cursing from the darkroom bearing the prized three printers. But even then, the hassles were far from over. Each of the three black and white printer took 15 minutes to transmit and with often noisy analogue telephone lines, many repeats would be required until all three printers had been successfully received. Quite often (invariably just as the only restaurant for miles was about to close for the night) the print would become loose on the transmitter drum or the adhesive registration marks would progressively peel off the print as the drum turned requiring the whole process to be repeated. 

But here we are heading for 2008 and it looks likely that pretty soon all we need to do our job will slip neatly into a large belt pouch.  Funnily enough sound, which for wire-service photographers all those years ago played such a big part in transmitting images as their pictures beep-beeped over those flaky phone lines as analogue noise, is back again. This time as live sound and commentary to the moving images we now produce as we adapt our product to the multimedia demands of the internet.

Rest assured, my colour separations have now been safely returned to a box in the cellar. No looking back. Hold on for the ride, its going to be fun!

I have just returned from a trip to Toulouse in southern France. The main reason for the trip was to drive down from Paris with a replacement people carrier for our 7-man Reuters pictures team covering the month-long Tour de France cycle race. I was also somewhat concerned about the state of the teams morale after the latest in a series of setbacks that has plagued our crew since the Tours unusual departure from London.

The Tour de France is a logistical nightmare. We start preparations the best part of a year in advance due to its unique continually-moving nature. Hotel accommodation, communications and transport are hard to assure when some 4000 people descend on the tiny towns in deep rural France.

Our crew is made up of two mobile photographers , Eric Gaillard and Stephano Rellandini each with our regular professional motorcyclists Jacques Clawey and Michel Vatel driving them. A large camping car, used as our mobile bureau, is driven overnight to the following days arrival site by team leader Jacky Naegelen. This assures us a good position in the Technical zone close to the arrival line. Lastly our Renault Espace mobile transmission vehicle driven by a third photographer, Vincent Kessler and manned by journalism student Ian Langsdon who sits in the back to edit and transmit pictures by GPRS or 3G. This vehicle drives a few kilometres ahead of the race and picks up discs from the two shooters on motorcycles throughout each stage. It also carries all the extra equipment too cumbersome for a motorcycle and the personal bags (packed for a month away from home) of our motorcyclists, photographers and editor. So, all in all, we strive to leave as little to chance as possible. But sometimes, I guess, chance just insists on working against us.

Despite immaculate preparation by team leader Jacky Naegelen, a veteran of some 20 TDFs, our own mobile transmission vehicle, a 1-year-old Renault Espace turbo, still under guarantee, was not released from its pre-Tour checkup at Renault because of  a consistent problem of the battery discharging. Renault was unable to pinpoint the problem and by the time we were ready to leave for the Tour, our car was still in a thousand pieces in the shop. So Renault, after much insistence, loaned us a similar vehicle for the duration of the Tour. Then we had re-kit this vehicle at the last minute with the special aluminium rear editing desk, radio communications and antennas. We also had to change all the paperwork with the Tour organisers, so the mood took a downturn. But the crew took off that afternoon and headed for London.

The mood darkened more as soon as our crew pulled up outside their Whitehall hotel where in the middle of unloading our bags, our two motorcyclists were given parking tickets.  The mobile office (camping car) just missed getting clamped and we were obliged to park the other transmission vehicle in an unguarded lot over a mile away. Obviously the police were making no exceptions for the Tour de France press.

The following morning in London, photographer Eric Gaillard had a brand new Canon Mark III and lens stolen. Then, in the afternoon, photographer Vincent Kessler complained of pains in his arm.  After being checked by the Tour de France doctors was diagnosed with a suspected coronary irregularity and he had to be repatriated to France for further tests. Zurich photographer Christian Hartmann came to the rescue and kindly replaced Vincent in London until we could find a permanent replacement for the rest of the Tour. So far, not so good.

Things kind of improved for a few days when the race moved back to France and the crew picked up its coverage rhythm. Brussels photographer Thierry Roge had replaced Christian for the remainder of the tour and took up his duties driving the Renault Espace and covering arrivals. We were doing very well with our pictures coverage and things were looking good . But on July 19, as the race wound its way between Marseille and Montpellier I had been sitting at my desk in Paris communicating live with Ian on Instant Messaging when suddenly he typed  S—t, S—t, were on fire!. Receiving this kind of communication from  anyone you know is bad enough but from ones own 21-year old son is indescribable. I called his cellphone and he picked up. O god, were on fire, the whole Renault is going up in flames. I told him to keep calm, forget the gear and move away from the vehicle. Then we lost communications.

What happened, it appears, is that while the vehicle was cruising along at about 60 kph ahead of the pack, awaiting an arrival of disks from the motorcycles, the Renault’s turbo caught fire, sending a ball of fire from the front right-hand side along the underside of the vehicle. Within seconds the car was completely engulfed in flames. Thierry Roge, driving, managed to grab his camera bag on the seat beside him and jump out.  Ian, seated at our custom made desk in the back, baled out as the car slowed and immediately tried to remove as many personal bags as possible from the back door of the vehicle.

Eric Gaillards computer bag was hurled out first, Ians personal bag was next.  But the personal bags were very big and heavy and he was only able to throw them about two meters away. Within seconds the heat was too intense to stay anywhere near the vehicle and he had to back off and as the raging fire spat large flaming pieces of burning plastic as far as the few bags he had saved. Thierry and Ian had no choice but to watch helplessly as the burning plastic sparks set their bags on fire just meters out of reach.

 Eric Gaillards black laptop bag (R) and Ians personal bag in flames (arrow)

By this time our two motorcyclists carrying Eric and Stefano had arrived, but neither photographer realized immediately that it was the Reuters car on fire so they started shooting pictures. It wasnt until they spotted Thierry and Ian, both somewhat in shock, that they realized the horrible truth. By this time there was not much left to do but to cover the event  journalisticaly. The race had been re-routed to a parallel road because of the thick smoke, so the fire became part of the story. Stefano and Thierry made stills as Ian was shooting video clips on his Canon Ixus. Despite a warning by gendarmes to the contrary, Eric made a dash and grabbed his burning computer bag, which because of its smaller size, Ian had manage to hurl the farthest from the fire.
We see Erics dash in the sequence used by Reuters Television from Ians footage.
 
Gendarmes arrive at the scene as Ian shoots video at left

Stefanos still-burning 300mm 2.8s and other lenses made an eerie image.

Behind the car, the contents of Ians bag he couldnt quite reach

      
The keys to Ian’s flat                              Trail of burned bags  

 Later that evening our motorcyclists went off and bought basic toilet kits for everyone and in the morning Jacky organized a trip to a nearby sports outlet to buy enough basic clothing and bags for the remainder of the tour.

Last night, around the dinner table, we talked over the incident and managed to put everything into perspective. Nobody had been injured, the equipment was largely replaceable and our old people-carrier was brought back into service soon after. Coverage, which had been excellent up until then, even continued in our favour the following day with many of Stefanos and Erics pictures of the fire published including in the International Herald Tribune. Eric had the entire front of Liberation and Ians video was picked up by RTV used on Eurovision. In a show of solidarity, AP, AFP and lEquipe had offered up all of their production until we were able to resume coverage.

This morning I left our team in goods spirits, ready to tackle the critical Pyrenees mountain stages and the following swing north, back towards the French capital. Maybe it was the good nights sleep after a hearty dinner accompanied by a rather generous amount of Gaillac wine, but something seemed to have cleared the air. There was a noticeable renewed energy amongst the team, almost as if their perceived Tour de France curse had been lifted along with the smoke from the fire.

Lets all wish them well for the rest of the Tour de France.

Thierry Roge ready for the rest of the Tour

Our Video 3 weblog links  (you need sound ON)

http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoI d=61009&videoChannel=45

http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoI d=61231&videoChannel=45

http://www.picturepage.reuters.fr/tdfmov ie/tdfinterview.wmv

Mal Langsdon

 There is one specific image I am after today. The challenge is to bag a clean, tight frame of Frances president Sarkozy surrounded by the mounted Republican guard as he waves from a command car driving down the Champs Elysee. This year we have a new president so it becomes more important not to screw up. Unfortunately this president is a tad shorter than Chirac so the challenge is even greater.
Working against us:

1: A mere 15 second window of time to make the picture during which the president comes into view (some half mile away) until his accompanying riders are no longer seen in the background. We really are talking about a very, very long throw here!

2: The heat waves at such a distance render everything soft (Sarkozy riding in a jeep amongst 150 steamy horses does not help either). So we prayed for overcast weather. But this was not to be and the temperature at 0600 was already over 30 degrees, rising rapidly. The same image in years past had been made with a 600mm and 2x doubler or 800mm f5.6 but had always required a large pull and plenty of sharpening because of the heat distortion.

….right around here should do the trick

Working in our favour:

1: A thermos full of strong expresso.

2: The Beast! A 1200-1700mm f5.6 IF-ED Nikon zoom converted to Canon. The tripod a gigantic Manfroto with a video head.

The photo position on the review stand is very narrow and photogrpahers are usually packed in like sardines, which is why we are there real early.  Even those using regular long lenses and monopods are frowned on by the military press attaché. Our lens instantly grabbed his attention as we proceeded to occupy a good part of the 3 meter wide press box. Ooh la la, it is too BIG Monsieur, it will
not FIT !!!But it did.

Mal readies “The Beast” 

 The two of us set up The Beast, using, with abandon, many meters of Reuters tape to secure the position.
 For those wondering, the 1200-1700 is manual focus (remember that?), but it is in
fact easier to shoot this picture manually than with an autofocus, which has trouble locking onto a tiny figure amongst hundreds of riders bobbing up and down.

Jean Paul took his 300-800mm to another nearby podium to shoot from the opposing
angle.

By the time the parade started at 10am it was over 35 degrees. President Sarkozy climbed abord the open command car at the top of the Champs Elysee some 2 miles away and I watched through 1700 millemeters of glass as the shimmering mirage-like image slowly descended Paris massive avenue. After about 15 minutes, Sarkozys vehicle, surrounded by the riders, was almost within range.

The Canon Mk IIn was set up with two cards, one recording high quality JPGs the other (SD) recording RAW. With only manual settings possible between the Nikon lens and Canon body, the excellent light allowed a healthy 2000thth at f.11 at 800 asa, more than enough to compensate for the considerable lens shake.

But then things started to go pear-shaped. President Sarkozy, known for his exuberant U.S style politics, ordered the entire parade stopped as he jumped from the command car half-way down the Champs Elysees and plunged into the crowd to greet the astounded bystanders and tourists. Luckily, Paris staffer Philippe Wojazer who had been standing by at the Elysee Palace press room had caught wind of Sarkozys plan and had ran the short distance from the palace to be there just in time. Chirac would never have dared such a break from tradition.

…..he’s in there somewhere!!

Sarkozy returned to the command car and continued the descent of the Avenue, but it took him a few moments to regain his composure and start waving to the crowd again.
This was right in my target area. With only seconds left to go until the riders moved out of frame, I focussed in on Sarkozy, a nice large image in the viewfinder, but he was waving only to one side of the avenue, his hand mostly blocking his face. Then it was over.

Indeed a lot of time and effort for a less-than-perfect frame. But we did push the limits a lot further than the opposition, who were there with their standard 600mms and monopods.

Whether it be intelligent use of remotes, trying unusual lenses, using new untested technology or simply taking the risk on a totally unorthodox shooting position, daring to be different is what distinguishes Reuters photographers from the rest. After more than 30 years in this business the biggest kick is still from taking a measured risk and pulling it off.

Who knows, if it’s overcast, perhaps well try our parade again next year with The Beast and maybe add a doubler! Lets say 3400mm and be there!

Mal Langsdon is Reuters Head of Pictures Operations for  France, BENELUX, Italy, Iberia and Greece, based in Paris