My initial contact with Abdinasir Mohamed Guled was when he submitted a photo to our user-generated content service, called You Witness at the time, now Your View. The caption read "hi reuters" and the location was listed as Mogadishu suqa holaha district. This was enough to peak my attention.

I spoke with Abdinasir, who at the time was busy covering the story of pirates off the Somali coast. Below is his account of his journey from contributor to You Witness to regular stringer for Reuters.

A Somali family arrive at the Elasha Biyaha camp for the internally displaced  after they fled from renewed clashes in Mogadishu, May 13, 2009.  REUTERS/Abdi Guled

"Before working for Reuters I was working for a local radio station in Mogadishu and for various websites. I was working as a producer and would contribute to CNN.

I do like taking photographs, however it is not always easy in Somalia. One day I took a picture of Ethiopian soldiers walking on the street. They were really annoyed. One of the soldiers asked me what I was doing and I told him I was fixing my camera. He asked me to show him the picture and told me to leave the area. Be careful, always.

Ugandan peacekeepers from the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) return to their base from routine patrols in Somalia's capital of Mogadishu, May 7, 2009. REUTERS/Abdi Guled

I had seen the submit your photos icon on www.reuters.com. I clicked on it, filled out the form and sent my photos. The first editor I sent to was Corinne Perkins. We kept in touch, step by step. She gave me pointers and sent along some notes. She sent my submitted photos to the Africa chief photographer, Radu Sigheti. Radu called me and asked what I would be able to do. I said I can provide pictures from Mogadishu and some regions in Somalia. After three days, there was a U.S. airstrike on Somalia. I called one of my colleagues who was in the town that was hit and asked him to send pictures to me to send to Reuters. He sent them secretly. I sent the photos. Reuters was very appreciative as they were exclusive pictures. I had the ambition to work with Reuters.

People walk through rubble after U.S. war planes killed an Islamist rebel said to be al Qaeda's leader in Somalia and as many as 30 other people in Dusamareb, May 1, 2008. REUTERS/Abdi Guled

The first job I did for Reuters was to pick-up photos of al Qaeda militants and send them to Reuters. I was working very closely with the Reuters staff, especially the photographers. After some months of working with photos I became involved with text, where I am working now. I wrote a text story on Islamist forces and was able to secure photos of them too. No one had seen photos of them before. I was the first to receive those photos.

Masked Islamist fighters stand behind a group of eight soldiers of the Somali government and one Ethiopian soldier after they defected in Mogadishu September 6, 2008. REUTERS/Abdi Guled

From the first moment I sent my pictures to Reuters, it changed my life. My salary has increased more than 400%. I have become an ambitious person. I don't want to leave Reuters and plan to be with the company until death. I love Reuters and want to stay in Somalia.

It is very dangerous working in Somalia. There are areas where no international media can go. I always try to keep myself out of those areas. Sometimes being from Somalia can help. For example, if you try taking pictures inside an insurgency stronghold, you can be killed if you are seen taking pictures. To go to such places as a non-Somali is not safe.

Even though I like my country, I don't see a good future for Somalia. I have many friends who have fled to other countries but I told them I will remain here until death. I am still here. I will always be here. I will try to satisfy myself and tell myself this is the best country to work in."

A man walks down a deserted street after fighting between Somali government and Islamist insurgents in the capital Mogadishu February 25, 2009.  REUTERS/Abdi Guled

When Ingolfur Juliusson's first pictures of the riots in Iceland came in to Your View we had no pictures by Reuters photographers or stringers on our professional picture wire. Seeing this and the quality of the images, I sent them along to our chief photographer of the region. In cases where we use citizen journalists pictures on our professional wire it is usually the chief photographer who negotiates usage and payment for the photographer. As our chief photographer was out of the office and knowing that Europe was on deadline for these pictures, I contacted Ingolfur directly and negotiated a payment for 5 pictures.

The selection was quickly moved on the wire and it wasn't long before we saw some online play.

This screenshot is from http://www.dn.se/

A number of Your View contributors have had their pictures moved on the Reuters Pictures wire.

Click here to view a slideshow and click here to view this week's showcase.

On Jan. 14 Reuters hosted a live video Q&A with our renowned photographer Finbarr O’Reilly about his experiences in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. Finbarr addressed what drew him to Africa and the most difficult aspects of being a photographer in a war zone.

Finbarr is still available to answer questions, submit them in the comments section below or send a Twitter message with the hash tag “#finbarr” .

Check out “Death all around,” his multimedia report from a Congolese refugee camp, dispatches from Chad and Afghanistan, selected photos from his portfolio, and an audio slideshow from his most recent Congo assignment.

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On my latest trip to report on Congo’s seemingly unending cycle of violence, I wanted to go beyond generic images of downtrodden refugees and brutal conflict.

I spent two years in Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda from 2002 to 2004, covering the regional war that engulfed much of central Africa, and I grew to admire the strength and humour of the long-suffering Congolese.

I returned in November to cover the rebel offensive on the eastern town of Goma. When heavy gunfire erupted while I was photographing at Kibati refugee camp, I was quickly offered shelter in a flimsy tent by Boniface Buhoro, a tailor trying to protect his sister and three-year-old son.

Such kindness is typical of Congo ʼs resilient population, subject to miserable circumstances, misrule and war. Refugees frequently offered warm greetings, friendly smiles and handshakes in squalid camps where they may not have eaten for days.

Amid the chaos of fighting, people fleeing their homes and the demand for quick news pictures, I tried to slow things down by taking intimate portraits.

By shooting with a very low depth of field, I hoped to extract my subjects from their surroundings and portray them as individuals with names and stories that matter.

More than five million people have died, most from lack of access to food or basic health, during a decade of fighting in Congo. This makes Congo ’s enduring conflict the deadliest since World War Two.

Most of the victims perish far from sight, deep in the bush. This time, death seemed all around.

Driving to the front line early one morning, mist hung over the road and smoke from Nyiragongo volcano darkened the sky.

Marking the first rebel position were the bodies of two government soldiers, a bullet through each of their skulls.

Traveling north later, I reached the hilltop village of Kirumba , where local Mai-Mai militiamen had clashed with government troops fleeing the Tutsi rebel advance.

The army quickly buried their dead, but the Mai-Mai corpses were set on fire by beer-drinking troops.

I found them the next morning, fat still bubbling on one charred corpse, its genitals cut off. Another body had an umbrella stabbed into its face. Soldiers joked and laughed.

Back near Kibati camp, I followed a funeral procession into a sun-dappled banana grove. A tiny purple casket containing the body of eight-month old Alexandrine Kabitsebangumi, who had died from cholera, was being lowered into the dark earth.

The grove was filled with graves. As women sang a haunting hymn, the mourners moved aside, allowing me to photograph.

There’s no joy getting a good picture from a baby’s funeral.

Another victim, another memory, another ghost.

Congo is still defined by Joseph Conrad’s book, Heart of Darkness, which described “the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience.” The horror Conrad depicts in his haunting novel, written more than a century ago, lingers today, with Belgian colonial greed replaced by rapacious warlords and profiteers still raping the nation’s vast resources at a great human toll.

But signs of hope linger. I covered the tumultuous run-up to 2006 elections and after tense days of photographing riots, mob violence and gun battles in Congo’s capital Kinshasa, I would head not to the nearest bar, but to a dilapidated compound, home to children crippled by polio. There, among dozens of twisted bodies and withered limbs, the day’s tension melted away.

The 100 children at the Stand Proud compound in Kinshasa must rank among the world’s most disadvantaged. Handicapped, impoverished, often rejected or abandoned, and living in Africa’s deadliest war zone, they should have little to celebrate. Instead, the lively “polio kids” offer an oasis of hope, unity and optimism in a vast country marked by despair. Despite their polio-damaged legs, wrapped in casts or makeshift braces fashioned from scrap metal, the children dance enthusiastically to loud Congolese music or challenge visitors to madcap games of soccer.

These moments, along with the brave, resilient people I met in refugee camps define the country’s character more than the misery and violence.

Two hours after the news broke about a military jet crashing into San Diego homes, I received an email to You Witness from Ron Belanger with a link to dramatic photos of the incident. Here is Ron's account of events.

I was working at home near MCAS Miramar in San Diego mid-day Monday, when I heard the unmistakable "pop… pop…" sound of ejection seats firing nearby but hadn't heard the jet's engines. As a retired Navy pilot and aircraft accident investigator I suddenly realized this meant that a pilotless aircraft and ejection seats would soon be coming down. I took cover under my desk then heard a deafening sound as the plane crashed and the house shook violently.

When I ran outside there was a large black cloud of smoke rising and I could feel the heat. I tried to call 911 but the line was already busy as other witnesses called in the emergency. I grabbed my shoes and camera and ran down to the scene which is five houses over from mine. Several of us asked neighbors if there was anyone in the house. Since that wasn't known, we went down the right side, where part of the house was still standing, shouting out to anyone inside but there was no answer… just the roar of the fire and the sound of small explosions. We couldn't go in because the house was fully involved in flames at every opening we found. As we were checking out the back yard, a propane tank from the camper which had been pushed into the house exploded. We quickly retreated since there was nothing we could do.

Pilots and investigators who arrive early on an accident scene are trained to document the scene and take photos if possible so that's what I did. Copies of the pics are being provided to the accident investigators and public safety agencies.

We received Ron's images shortly afterwards and quickly had our senior photographer contact him and negotiate a payment and rights of usage. A little over an hour later, the images were on the Reuters Pictures wire and sent around the world. Ron has received calls from friends and family globally after they saw his images online and in print.

A selection of other You Witness images used on the wire can be found here.