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)

When I first began making photographs, I began using color and slide film. Working with film was always a challenge, but one could expose the film or chrome differently to achieve a desired affect. I have always been fascinated by the way a camera can record color.

The art of black and white photography is being able to play with tonality and contrast. Some photographers are able to process a scene in black and white. It’s such an art, and there is such beauty in black and white imagery. I love color though, by underexposing just a fraction I feel like a photographer is able to saturate the colors a bit. Shadows can create a mood. Underexposing also creates contrast.

There is a tonal range in an image. Cameras record light differently than we see it, our eyes are able to process more of a range of light than a camera can, meaning we are able to see the detail in shadows. I love to look around and see how the light is falling on a particular scene. I’ll observe the scene, look for the most interesting light, or the most fascinating subjects, or something different.

As a news photographer, we have an obligation to tell the story as we see it in front of us. Sometimes we are bound to the news value rather than an aesthetic, but such is the business of photojournalism, we are there to record a scene and to show history as it’s being made. But there are other moments. In many situations, I feel that scenes are recorded and the significance is narrowed down to a frame or two that are supposed to represent exactly what happened.

What is the significance of a scene? What was the moment that defined an event?

But there are myriad moments that define an event.

The media at times dictates news rather than recording it, but all around there are moments happening that define it as much as anything else. Finding those moments is easy, it’s recording them in a way that somehow reflects their emotional significance that provides more of a challenge. Through the art of photography, we are able to capture those moments in a way that reflects the way we see them. We are thinking and feeling, and our cameras are there to record that, our presence in a scene, how we process everything that is going on around us. I care about how that looks, as a photographer we are interested in the aesthetic, but the ultimate goal is to make the viewer feel what it was like to be there, or feel something about the scene. If my images are able to capture that, then I have done my job.

I was lucky enough to be able to cover the Democratic National Convention, and being able to see history in the making and at the same time record it was an amazing experience.