Editor’s Note: Eliana Aponte is a highlighted photographer this month on the Reuters website. See an extensive portfolio of her recent work here.

 
Being a photographer is one of the best jobs in the world because when you enjoy what you do it is more a hobby than a job. In our case, it is a hobby with considerable responsibility.

As a journalist traveling through different countries, meeting interesting people, or working in inhospitable places, storytelling is a privilege. I have always thought that my eyes are the eyes of many people, and that through them others can see what is happening.
 
When I started as a photographer I always wanted to contribute my bit to make the world a better place. Many of us think that when we are young and full of dreams. As time passes, I realize that the real changes in history are made by the people who are living their own lives. Photographers just document what happens, nothing more.

Reuters  photographer Eliana Aponte (2L) is seen while working next to colleagues in the West Bank village of Qabatiya near Jenin, May 15, 2006. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

When I was in Colombia, I spent almost a month in the wildest part of the country where the sun never shines, the sounds of animals never cease and the darkness is neither gray nor black. Reuters was witness to the freeing of 300 policemen and soldiers who had been kidnapped by FARC guerrillas and held in the jungle.

It was the hardest experience in my life, both as a photographer and as a human being. I learned there is nothing more degrading than being deprived of freedom in the jungle. I slept, ate and lived like any of the real hostages in those camps. It shocked me to see their blank stares, the paleness on their faces and their hope to walk out of there one day alive; this is what I remember the most.
 
Life in the jungle is an arduous test of mental and physical strength, both of which are necessary to survive. When we arrived at the first camp, everyone wanted to know who we were, and why we were there. To a certain extent our presence there was a confirmation of their freedom but the skepticism in their eyes remained. We told them many times that their captivity was almost over, but they didn’t believe it. We were led to three different camps after long hikes and many hours by boat and vehicle through inhospitable terrain, without the faintest idea of what part of the jungle we were in. As the days passed we reached the conclusion that we were being led in circles around the same area just to throw off our sense of direction. For those who don’t know the jungle, everything is the same, green everywhere.

Forty-six Colombian policemen held prisoner by Marxist FARC rebels huddle in a boat June 20, 2001, as they are escorted by guerrillas from behind, near the end of a two-day river journey on their way to being freed in a unilateral release set for June 28. REUTERS/Eliana Aponte

The big day arrived and 300 policemen and soldiers recovered their freedom. All local and international media received them as they exited the jungle. The guerrilla leaders called it a humanitarian gesture.

A Marxist FARC rebel crosses over to land as 46 Colombian policemen held prisoner by the group huddle in a boat near the end of a two-day river journey on their way to being freed in a unilateral release set for June 28. The FARC have already freed more than 40 sick policemen and soldiers in return for the government returning 15 sick guerrillas held in state jails. Picture taken on June 20, 2001. REUTERS/Eliana Aponte

The saddest part of this story is that 6 years have passed and some of the group we saw are still kidnapped in the jungle; not all of them made it to freedom. Soldiers and policemen are still rotting in the jungle more than 11 years later.

But my work has had also beautiful and happy moments. I covered the carnival of Rio de Janeiro, which filled my soul with images of happy people to which dance is sacred in their lives. While walking back and forth taking pictures through the early hours of dawn, I did not feel tired because their happiness was enough to overcome my fatigue.

Members of Brazilian samba school Salgueiro dance in Rio de Janeiro’s Sambadrome during the first of two nights of competition, February 22, 2004. REUTERS/Eliana Aponte

Being a woman photographer among so many men has some advantages, depending on which part of the world you are in. Women have the ability to show another angle that men often do not see. I call it female sensitivity. We tend to do stories that are more human, emphasizing sensuality and childhood. I assume that it has to do with the maternal instinct we carry within.

The beauty of this job is that we get to cover all types of events, from politics, religion, and war, to sports and fashion. We often witness history being made.

Jewish Ethiopian men attend a morning prayer service at compound awaiting immigration to Israel in Gondor March 8, 2007. More than 5000 Ethiopian Jews are waiting to immigrate to Israel to reunite with their families. REUTERS/Eliana Aponte

A few days after being posted to Jerusalem I received a call from my editor who asked me to go to Hadassah hospital where Ariel Sharon had been taken. I froze for a few seconds. I ran to my hotel room, grabbed my equipment and I headed to the parking garage. I could not find my car, and when I finally managed to locate it I started to drive without first realizing that I didn’t have a clue where the hospital was.

I am a disaster with directions; I literally can get lost in an elevator. But that night my internal compass worked beautifully and I made it there. When I got to the place, there were at least 150 journalists. It was the news of the moment worldwide.  For me, it was also kind of ironic. The day Sharon fell sick I had photographed the pool pictures of his usual meeting with the ministers and to my surprise soon after, those were the last photos of Sharon as Prime Minister that the news agencies distributed of him.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon attends a ceremony completing the sale of Bank Leumi to a private U.S. investment group in his office in Jerusalem January 4, 2006.  REUTERS/Eliana Aponte

This is the way this job is. I never know what will happen tomorrow or, in this case, from one minute to the next. This is what I like most about my job; routine doesn’t exist.

In 2004 I went on an embed with U.S. troops in Iraq. I had to wait days for them to let us do something. It was one of the worst stories I have covered. Usually the fate of embeds are run by luck, and unfortunately I didn’t have much. As I waited I had no choice but to play cards with the soldiers on the outskirts of Falluja. They were young soldiers with little or no experience in war. Many were there simply because they couldn’t find any jobs back home.

One day we were sitting playing cards when suddenly a mortar landed near us; we heard the explosion and we all ran to take cover beneath armored vehicles. Five seconds later another mortar landed and killed eight soldiers. We all watched as their bodies flew through the air in a surreal scene that still haunts me. We were paralyzed. There was silence until the captain shouted, “This is Iraq. Move!” I took some pictures from the distance, they didn’t let me get closer as the injured where rushed onto a helicopter.

U.S. Marines carry an injured colleague after exploded a mortar at their position in Sunni Muslim city of Falluja, November 10, 2004.   REUTERS/Eliana Aponte

Traveling the world taking pictures and doing stories is interesting, but ultimately what counts for me are the memories, good or bad, that stay with me. The rest will only be a document, a file for history being done by an honest photographer.

Thanks to the camera, I have learned about various cultures in the world, their sorrows and joys, their hatred and alliances. It has taught me that tolerance and respect are key for human survival. No matter what our beliefs are, it is important to be impartial and tell the facts as they are.

A Mexican group performs the Aztec dance in honor of the dead in San Gregorio Atlapulco cemetery during the Day of the Dead in Mexico City, late November 1, 2009. On the Day of the Dead, Mexicans pay homage to their dead relatives by preparing meals and decorating their graves. The Day of the Dead festival has its origins in a pre-Hispanic Aztec belief that the dead return to Earth one day each year to visit their loved ones. REUTERS/Eliana Aponte

Pigeons create controversy among city dwellers whether they are being pilloried as "rats with wings" or celebrated as endlessly feedable feathered friends.

Through photographer Simon de Glanville's pictures, viewers come eye-to-eye with the creatures.

Over the past 10 years, De Glanville has taken pictures of pigeons, squirrels and dogs for a project entitled "London Wildlife". His favourite locations for photographing urban wildlife include London's Peckham, Brixton and Chinatown neighbourhoods.

What is your opinion of pigeons? Do these pictures change your perspective on pigeons?

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.

****

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.

Actress Jessica Biel arrives for the premiere of “Easy Virtue” in Leicester Square, London October 28, 2008.   REUTERS/Luke MacGregor   (BRITAIN)

London-based Reuters photographer Luke MacGregor shot the picture above by using a slow shutter speed, around 1/50th of a second, and continually shooting frames with no flash in the hope that he would catch the moment a flash from another photographer illuminated Jessica Biel posing on the red carpet.

This reminded me of an earlier red-carpet picture of Jessica Biel where Luke had used the same “catch flash” technique. The picture of her arrival at the BAFTAs, below, caused a mini stir of discontent amongst the desk editors in Singapore. Some editors championed the picture, others wanted to reject it, or ’spike’ it in journalistic terminology. One editor even said the technique was like “shooting by accident”.

U.S. actress Jessica Biel arrives at the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) awards ceremony at The Royal Opera House in London February 10, 2008. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor   (BRITAIN)

Luke himself says “I guess it is a little like shooting by accident - except that I have planned to shoot by accident and have thought through the situation to try and get what I want using some form of judgement”. 

The technique only works when there are enough photographers using flash. You have to judge the optimum time to shoot. You have to wait until a subject reacts - waving or gesturing to the crowd for example - and then you stand more chance of catching other flashes.

It is an imprecise science, often resulting in blank and over-exposed frames. The combination photo below shows the frames before and after the picture Luke chose (top right) from the Easy Virtue premiere.

Luke likes the “catch flash” technique as it gives a similar effect to off-camera flash. It doesn’t illuminate the immediate background and so avoids the harsh shadows of direct flash.

Personally, I think pictures like this bring a nice variety to the wire. It is a great way to have your work stand out from the many hundreds of pictures shot by the large crowds of photographers who attend these red-carpet events around the world.

The picture below, taken at the Cannes Film Festival this year, gives you an idea of the competition Reuters shooters are up against.

Photographers work at the 61st Cannes Film Festival May 18, 2008.   REUTERS/Christian Hartmann   (FRANCE)

Reuters Washington staff photographer Jason Reed is traveling with the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama through election day.

It is on extremely rare occasions that individual wire service photographers get exclusive behind the scenes access with the U.S. presidential candidates for even just a few moments during the 2008 campaign. When we do it represents a fleeting chance to grab a few unguarded moments where the candidates are more relaxed and less wary of scrutiny away from the glare of the lights and the constant presence of dozens of intrusive cameras and microphones. When you cover the same man, day in and day out, with most of the time spent jostling with dozens of other photographers to get essentially the same shots from the same positions, any chance to get a few exclusive unguarded moments with just the candidate and yourself is a huge bonus.

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.

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.

1. Dujiangyan, 2: 30 am, May 13th.

In misty light I arrived at Chongqing Airport with my TV colleague Royston. We drove straight toward Dujiangyan, with rain spitting gloomily and the air damply hazing my breath. The city seemed as though the Big Bang had just happened, everything had stopped. The crying and sirens all around made me dizzy and I cannot really remember how I arrived at the ruins of what had once been a school, with its 900 pupils buried in the rubble. A rescue team was desperately looking for anybody still alive, while I stood on the mountain of dust and the dead, shooting pictures. The sound of the shutter seemed to me to be like death itself scratching away.

2. On the road

Go to Wenchuan.

Go to Wenchuan.

Go to the epicenter of the earthquake .

But how on earth? All roads were damaged and all gas stations controlled by troops. A 500 ml coke bottle filled with petrol was priced at 20 yuan (2.88USD) on the black market. On May 14th, I fuelled a rented motorcycle with several of these and began my long journey to Wenchuan, all off track. 10 kilometers later, I was stopped by police, so Ibegan to walk. Half way there I was offered a lift by Wang, an emergency  worker, driving a bulldozer. In return I had to promise to check on his good friend Tan, the headmaster of a primary school inside Wenchuan town.

At first on a handsome motorcycle, then on an awesome bulldozer, and finally on foot, I reached my destination seven and a half hours later. It was May 15th. The first living being I encountered as I arrived at the primary school was Tan the headmaster, soaked head-to-toe in blood. He told me that all his family had been killed, only he survived and he could not even estimate how many of his pupils were dead. The news of Tan’s survival was delivered to Wang the bulldozer driver via satphone and my editor in Beijing.

I was most delighted to bump into Reuters text colleague Emma Graham-Harrison, who had got there by walking for 10 hours. I was ravenously hungry and she shared her food and water purification pills with me. My computers and satellite phone batteries were flat. I set off with my car charger and luckily found an abandoned car torn into two parts. Unfortunately shortly afterwards I was accosted by a drunken policeman who forced me away, accusing me of ”damaging public property”.

 That night we slept in the street. The next morning we went back to Dujiangyan by boat. I met emergency worker Wang again in Chengdu, his leg had been fractured in an accident but to show his gratitude for the new’s of his friend’s survival he invited me to dinner at which he told me how Headmaster Tan had become a hero among the local rescue teams. And then again, the haunting images emerged from behind my nightmare.

3. Text message

On my way back to Chengdu, my mobile phone got signal after days of black-out. Over one hundred text messages flooded in, mostly from family and friends concerned for my well-being, although there were some from a mortgage broker which I found upsetting in the circumstances.  

It happened and it just happened, quietly but tangibly …  it only lasted 5 seconds…
 
May 12, 2008, 2:28 pm on the button, I was stooping to pick up a gift before rushing off to visit a client with two colleagues. The sudden dizzy feeling made me mentally rebuke myself for skipping breakfast and lunch; in those 5 seconds, I swore to myself never to do it again if I had to attend a formal meeting. But of course, my expressions remained calm. 
 
“It’s an earthquake“, a sharp yet clear voice from the corner of the office broke this temporary silence which instinctively ignited my relief of being faint. “Hey buddy, maybe you are not so bad”, I said to myself.
 
So, that is how it started … on a normal working day, it just happened.
 
No worries, we had already had contingency plans…
 
Photographers immediately  rushed to the airport, we skipped the client visit and began to tackle the breaking story. From that moment, for the first time ever, the Beijing Pix Desk began running 24/7 with three editors: Grace Liang, Reinhard Krause and myself.
 
The first pictures of white collars wandering downstairs after escaping from a shaking Beijing office building hit the wire 10 minutes after the quake struck while we continued moving pix from around China showing general damage like burst water pipes and cracked walls.  

 
 
While the mobile phones of all our local friends’ and stringers’ remained unreachable, the story escalated. “A middle school building collapsed in Dujiangyan, near Chengdu, burying 900; another toppled in Chongqing…” The snaps just kept coming - who knew at that time that it was just the tip of the iceberg of a much worse tragedy.
 
The local stringers had already headed to these two spots before I got their first SMS which had been delayed for almost 4 hours.
 
“Stay safe & fast ftp,” I replied in hopes that a short message would move more quickly.
 
Shortly after 9, the first image of real damage landed on the desk - then the second, then the third, and then the fourth … By midnight, we had already moved 40 pictures from the worst-hit areas of  Mianyang and Dujiangyan, with half of them exclusive stuff. And so it continued …  
 
 
 
 By 7 am, 61 pictures earthquake-hit Sichuan province had been sent and by 2:28 the next day, 24 hours after the shock, 100 Reuters pictures had moved to the World… And then our staff photographers also began filing from different spots.  
 
 
 
 
So, that was the first day after the earthquake,  then the second, then the third - it was a sleepless fortnight until the story began to quieten down a bit…
 
I can barely remember how many packages we moved from this terrible news story and all of them telling heart-breaking stories, ”relatives mourn near the body of their dead children”, “a 61-year-old survivor is rescued after being buried for 164 hours”, “a girl has to have her left leg amputated to save her life”…… There were too frequent heart warming moments as people all over the nation donated money and blood to the sufferers, 66-year-old premier Wen Jibao crying while visiting the area, exhausted young soldiers resting around their camp fire…

 
We received more and more images  from an ever increasing area including the epicenter and remote villages. In Beijing we tried to take an overview of the pictures file and ensure it was relevant and comprehensible, making  best use of the images we had and respecting the dignity of the victims. It took professionalism and a degree of detachment while deep inside our hearts we were shocked and crying. Now things are calmer we have time to think back over that time and the images frozen in our memories - so it’s blogging time.

 
I would like to register special thanks to everyone who contributed and to the diet of Red Bull, coffee and cigarettes on which we survived for that sleepless fortnight …  
 

Covering wars is the hardest, most dangerous and most exciting part of my job. This is not only shooting pictures, it is a way of life. To follow the story, make contacts and be respected by soldiers I am following is hard and complex job. Photographers who are doing the same job as me will understand my thoughts. Others may never have that privilege. Words can only explain. With pictures I am trying to show the reality. Nevertheless, I want to explain what happened behind some of my pictures I took during my recent time with U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

On March 21, I arrive at Kandahar Air Field (KAF). On my way out of the KAF flight terminal, I find my good friends U.S. Army Colonel Ed Kornish and Sergeant Major Andy Bolt waiting for me. Soon after, over coffee and cigarettes, Colonel Kornish says there is a mission planned in Zabul province and we’d better hurry.

Just a few hours later we are on our way in four Humvees. Around three in morning, we stop to take a rest in a small base near the village of Shajoy and at first light we move to join the Afghan National Police (ANP) at one of their bases nearby.

Then we all move off towards another village, where the soldiers and police hoped to surprise a group of Taliban fighters. The convoy of four ANP pick-ups and four Humvees soon leaves the tarmac and heads into the desert, avoiding even dirt tracks to escape the ever-present danger of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). I can’t see anything. Dust is everywhere, coming in through the gunner’s position on top of the truck. I cover my face with part of my scarf and with the other part I try to protect my cameras from the dust.

A few times the convoy stops for soldiers to observe the area or for the ANP to question villagers. An Afghan villager resists the ANP when they find his motorbike has no papers. The officer quickly detains him and punches him few times for good measure. I watch it from a distance but I’m too far away to take pictures.

About 20 minutes later, I see an ANP foot patrol in front of a mud-wall compound carrying rifles and RPG-s, and I jump out of the truck and run to join them. The ANP soon find a PKM Soviet-made machinegun, the other policemen start to shout and run towards a hill-top. I start to follow him.

Straightaway, the police open fire at three motorbikes carrying six Taliban fighters trying to escape. The Taliban dropped the bikes and returned fire. Wild chasing started, U.S soldiers follow the Taliban up the hill as one ANP truck drove around the hills to block any escape and other officers join me on the hill.

Another group of ANP arrive and a policeman fires off four or five rounds from his PKM by mistake, hitting the ground less than a metre from my feet. I just look at him. It was not the time to say anything.

I start to climb another hill with a few ANP to catch moments of the fight as gunfire and RPG rounds continue from a distance. It was a very hard climb and I start to think again of quitting smoking, or throwing away my body armour, helmet and water to get to the top. Somehow I reach the hilltop. I hear the screeching sound of a bullet hitting a rock nearby and I dive for cover.

A few metres on I see on two Taliban giving up their weapons. One of them is on the hill, the other in the valley. There is more chance of tripping and injuring myself going down the rocky slope, so I run as fast as toward the top of the hill to capture the moment of surrender. When I got there, Colonel Kornish and Captain Perry show up red in the face from the climbing and adrenalin. I’m not really sure what kind of pictures I’m taking as I can’t see too well from the sweat pouring into my eyes.

I move down with Colonel Kornish and Captain Perry and see three dead Taliban lying between the rocks, their bloody faces already covered with flies. The second detained Taliban looks up at me as I shoot pictures of him. He sits on ground as ANP stand guard. Soon after Sergeant Major Andy Bolt shows up, his truck was damaged and he is disappointed he could not engage the Taliban at close range. He hugs me and tells me he was worried about me when he saw me through binoculars alone on the hill top.

I took some good pictures, but more than half of them were unusable because my 24 mm lens was damaged when I dived for cover on the hilltop. I had been so busy I didn’t even notice the lens was broken.