Remote cameras are triggered either by a cable or wireless transmitter, allowing a photographer to shoot multiple angles of an important moment like the finish of a horse race. They can provide an usually high or low angle to vary the type of pictures we like to provide to our clients.  On news assignments remotes can also yield an alternative angle from a tight position or one that does not allow a camera to be hand held. The only limit to shooting remotes is the photographer’s imagination!!

With a cut-off time of 10am before the first race of the day, we set up five remote cameras under the inside rail of the track, and another on an observation post beyond the finish line with a high angle general view of the end of the race. Putting in place the gear - five EOS-1D Mark II cameras, an assortment of lenses from 16mm to 200mm, and their little mounting plates was a breeze, about 5 minutes in total, compared to the next step - getting them all to work!

Over the next hour, there ensued an awkward dance which involved laying our two-wire electrical cable in the mud alongside the inside rail of the track, clipping each remote camera’s slave cables into that string, and connecting a foot-switch that would fire all the cameras at the same time. All easier said than done when up to a dozen other photographers are doing exactly the same thing at the same time. Sports Illustrated alone laid out 12 cameras for the finish line picture.

The next most crucial step, involves “Dark Arts”, invoking the sort of magic that only boy wizard Harry Potter knows and attempting to appease the Gods of Technology and Good Fortune as, with all of your fingers crossed, you switch on the cameras to complete the electrical circuit and pray that none of them start firing indescriminantly at 8 frames per second, a sure sign that at least one of the connectors is set to the wrong electrical polarity.

Alas, in the distance we heard one of our cameras start firing off dozens of frames. We disconnected it from the string, reveresed the connector only to find that another of camera had started blazing away. There really is no science to setting up a string of random, separately functioning electrical devices like digital cameras, and with a lot of trial and error, we finally got all the cameras to behave themselves.

The fifth remote, high on an observation tower, was too far from the string of wired remotes so we utilized a set of Pocket Wizard wireless triggers which use a specific radio frequency determined by the user. That allows several photographers to fire just their own cameras, independent of other frequencies. The transmitter, a small box the size of a pack of cigarettes with an antenna atop, can be triggered with a button or placed into the hotshoe of a handheld camera and will fire whenever you press your handheld cameras’ shutter, like I did in this race.

In the eight hours and 11 races before the Preakness Stakes is run, we cover all the cameras with plastic bags and elastic bands to protect them from the water truck which comes by at the end of each race, spraying a ton of water on the track to keep it moist. Without the bags that water would destroy thousands of dollars worth of camera gear. We also do a test run, firing all the cameras during one of the early races, take the memory cards out and take a look the images on a computer screen then, based on the results, go back to each camera and fine-tune each camera’s focus, the exposure (with a 1/2000th sec shutter speed to freeze the motion of the horses), and adjust the composition if needed. Of course, whether the winning horse finishes up against the rail or 30 feet outside of the rail is beyond our control so we hedge our bets and assume the favorite, Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown will not only win, but do so along the rail.

In the end it was a successful day for the Reuters team. The pictures were fine and newsworthy; Big Brown did win the Preakness Stakes, not alongside the rail but not too far out, and Big Brown and his jockey Kent Desormeaux  go to the Belmont Stakes with high expectations of winning all three races, the elusive Triple Crown.

Before Big Brown had made his way to the winners circle, I had pulled the memory cards out of all the remotes and was feeding the key finish line sequences (only about 5-10 images per camera) into our other “remote” setup, the Reuters Paneikon editing software which allows a Reuters editor anywhere in the world to remotely edit pictures almost in real time. Canadian Chief Photograph Peter Jones, sitting at his desk in Toronto, took in our images within seconds of the race finishing and had all the important remote pictures on the wire and onto the front pages of Yahoo news and MSNBC.com within minutes. The front of the New York Times Sunday Sports section used our picture of Jockey Kent Desormeaux looking back at the other horses across the finish line, a key and telling image that told the story of how far ahead he beat the field, made with our third remote camera about 100 feet past the finish line.

Thinking about how many aspects can determine the success or failure of remotes, based on previous experience and other photographers’ anecdotes, here is a random list of things that can go wrong. Looking through it, I marvel at how high our success rate with remotes has been…

Any ONE of these things can ruin hours of set up time. The more cameras you add into the mix, the more chances that any of the following will happen:

* The water truck drowning the cameras and/or short-circuiting our wired connectors.
* Ditto rain, destroying thousands of dollars worth of equipment.
* An errant camera firing indiscriminantly and without warning, setting off all the other cameras in your chain.
* Getting the right exposure until the sun goes behind a big cloud = everything underexposed.
* At the criticial moment forgetting to step on the footswitch, or stepping on it too early and then every camera’s memory buffer fills up and temporarily stops shooting at the exact moment you need them all to be shooting.
* Another photographer moving your camera because it’s in the way of his own.
* Another photographer thinking that your precisely-setup camera is his own, deciding that all your settings are wrong, and changing them.
* Camera batteries dying halfway through the race.

* The winning horse finishes about 50 feet outside of the rail and becomes a small dot on all your remote cameras.
* Pre-focusing in the wrong place. Out of focus = unusable.
* Lens flare from the sun screwing with your exposure.
* Someone accidently cuts your trigger cable with a shovel as they ”helpfully” try to bury them out of the way in the mud.
* Forgetting to turn the cameras on after eight hours of waiting, or forgetting to put memory cards in the cameras, or not formatting (erasing) the card so that the card is already full from all the test pictures and therefore has no room for the “money shots”.
* Another photographer using your wireless transmitter frequency and filling your cameras cards with images of nothing but test frames before the race starts.
* Police calling in over the radio for extra donuts in the infield and using radio frequencies that interfere with your signal getting to your camera and firing it.
* Batteries on the transmitter dying before the race
* Someone stepping on your footswitch and filling all the cards on all your remotes with images of nothing before the race starts.

I could go on and on but you get the picture. Fortunately the Gods were smiling on us…
 

 
On the plus side, freelance photographers will be happy at the result. Whether or not one supports him, one thing is as sure as the sun rises — Silvio Berlusconi sells photos. Freelancers tell me that their incomes go up significantly during a Berlusconi term, now his third, because he creates news. The grey outgoing prime minister, Romano Prodi, failed to generate the same amount of editorial interest as his predecessor. Now, although the Italian economy may be in the doldrums, at least some of my colleagues can benefit.

The following images are unlikely prize-winners but serve to demonstrate the delight with which news of his win has been received by his Reuters colleagues. In the first Paul Barker, Editor Asia News Pictures and Asia Chief Photographer Russell Boyce toast his image;

while in the second the editorial team from text, TV, graphics and pictures at Reuters Asia HQ in Singapore drink his health as Adrees himself listens-in via the telephone on the desk to the right of the frame, from his assignment in Nepal.  

I bet he’s pleased now that he diversified beyond basketball and maybe at long last my spell-checker will stop trying to correct his name to ‘Address’.

http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news  /2008/04/pulitzer.html

Reuters Bangkok senior photographer Adrees Latif tells how he took the pictures which won him a Pulitzer Prize. The pictures were taken in Myanmar during the protests in September last year and include the photo of Japanese video journalist Kenji Nagai being shot.

“Tipped off by protests against soaring fuel prices, I landed in Yangon on 23 September, 2007, with some old clothes, a Canon 5D camera, two fixed lenses and a laptop.

For the next four days, I went to Shwedagon Pagoda, two-three kilometres from the centre of town and waited for the monks who had been gathering there daily at noon.

Since I was at the same pagoda every day, dozens of people, including monks, asked me who I was and what I was doing. As the ruling military regime is notoriously secretive, my replies were guarded.

Barefoot in maroon robes, and ringed by civilians, the monks chanted and prayed before starting their two-kilometre march to the Sule Pagoda in downtown Yangon. Each day their numbers grew, from hundreds to thousands.

By 27 September, the city had become packed with troops. Soldiers and government agents stood at street corners.

Finding the Shwedagon Pagoda sealed off, I went to the middle of town to find groups of young people taunting soldiers at Sule.

Within minutes, the crowd swelled from hundreds to a few thousand. The soldiers threw barbed wire coils across the roads.

Knowing that hundreds of people were gunned down in similar circumstances in a 1988 uprising, I climbed an old crosswalk directly overhead, to get to one of the few spots offering a clear view.

Below me, protesters were singing and waving flags; to the side, young men were thrusting their pelvises at the soldiers.

At about 1.30pm local time, two dark green, open-top army trucks approached, followed by dozens more packed with riot police. They were hit by a barrage of water bottles, fruit and abuse from the crowd.

I had already locked on my 135mm lens and set my camera shutter speed to 1000, aperture to F/7.1 and ISO at 800. With the camera on manual, I wanted to stop any movement while offering as much depth-of-field as possible.

Two minutes later, the shooting started. My eye caught a person flying backwards through the air. Instinctively, I started photographing, capturing four frames of the man on his back.

The entry point of the bullet is clear in the first frame, with a soldier in flip flops standing over the man and pointing a rifle. In the second frame, the man is reaching over to try and film.

More shots rang out. I flinched before getting off two more frames - one of the man pointing the camera at the soldier, and one of his face contorted in pain.

Beyond him, the crowd scattered before the advancing soldier. The whole incident, which went on to reverberate around the world, was over in two seconds.

I kept low on the bridge, capturing some more images from among a crowd taking cover. However, with soldiers firing shots and smoke grenades below, I had to get off the bridge.

With adrenaline pumping through my body, I put my camera in my bag and followed the protests for another hour and a half. Feeling the demonstration had lost its strength, I made my way back to my hotel via backstreets and along a railway line.

My initial caption read: “An injured man tries to photograph after police and military officials fired upon and then charged a crowd of thousands protesting in Yangon’s city center September 27, 2007.” Initially, I thought he was merely trampled. I had no idea he was dead.

Two of the frames showed the man’s face. A few hours later his colleagues in Japan had identified him as Japanese video journalist Kenji Nagai.

The images dominated front pages across the U.S. and the world. Mourners at Nagai’s funeral in Japan clutched the picture, which played a role in the public outrage that prompted Tokyo to scale back aid to the ruling military junta.”

But… a state visit by a French President would always draw interest, and with the added glamour angle you had a winning formulae.  The drab world of formal visits was to be given a makeover - I for one hoped so. In my view, the visit was not so much a breath of fresh air blowing away the cobwebs, but a mix of contrasting elements standing together. With this visit we hoped to  see contrasts of age, style and appearance. In addition the sense of anticipation was heightened because the people involved represented the historic differences between the English and the French. Would they come together in a new entente cordiale? Would the charge be led by the French President? Not on your life, it was led by his wife, the amabassador extraordinaire.

Did Carla Bruni-Sarkozy disapoint? Here are the photographs, judge for yourselves.

(Apologies for the cliches and metaphors - all of them mixed)

France’s first lady Carla Bruni is off to a good start as she rides in a carriage with Britain’s Prince Philip on route to Windsor Castle. Photograph by: Darren Staples

Bruni rides in a carriage on route to Windsor Castle.    Photograph by: Darren Staples

Usually there are are so many obstacles that either get in the way or need to be included in a photograph, that simple clean shots can often be missed. Here is a good example of a simple but solid picture of Bruni with Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle.   Photograph by:Kieran Doherty

This photograph shows the many contrasting elements of the visit, as  Bruni  speaks with Prince Philip during the welcoming ceremony at Windsor Castle.  Photograph by : Philippe Wojazer

It’s wasn’t all about Bruni of course, and we needed a pciture of her husband too. However, his expression tells us more about her (or, at least, his feelings for her) than about the situation.  She is applauding him after his address to members of both Houses of Parliament at Westminster.  Photograph by: Stephen Hird

Another example of the expression on the faces of others telling us something about Bruni herself, as she and Nicolas Sarkozy meet war veterans after laying a wreath at the statue of General de Gaulle in London. Photograph by: Darren Staples

The mood of the moment captured perfectly as Sarkozy and Bruni share a laugh as he delivers a speech at a meeting with the French community in London. Photograph by: Philippe Wojazer        

Here is another example of a simple, clean and effective photograph as Bruni visits the Royal Naval College in Greenwich.    Photograph by: Kieran Doherty

Bruni could hardly put a foot wrong, all she had to do was turn up to impress, as she proved when she arrived for a state banquet at the Guildhall.   Photograph by: Stephen Hird

“Errr… 26″ I reply and the other wire photographer goes “Wah sey!” which translates as something like “Whoa” if there is such a word in english. He proceeds to to tell me that he can’t remember where he was when he was 26.

Which is probably also why Russell, the Asia Chief photographer, asked me to write about my newbie experience operating and planning my first big team story,  namely the Taiwan presidential election won by Nationalist candidate, Ma ying-jeou.

My plan was simple, don’t screw up and don’t miss any news. I must admit though, I would not have had such a comprehensive coverage of the elections without the guidance of Reinhard Krause and Russell Boyce (If I was an ‘Angel’, they would be Charlie).

Also, kudos to Darren Whiteside, Bobby Yip and Pichi Chuang who covered all the assignments in Taiwan with such energy and creativity. These guys really are the best!

(Darren in the centre with red bandana on the Taiwan Killer media bus, picture taken by Bobby Yip)

(A ride on the Taiwan Killer media bus gets you a shot like this)

After months of following the campaign, the big election day finally came for Taiwan.

The plan was to file early voting pix for U.S., Canada and South American clients who might have an interest in the Taiwan elections. Filing early at say 9am here would be 9pm over there, very close to or past newspaper deadlines. Also, filing early ensure your pix hit the news websites first.

Now with all the nice looking voting feature pictures done, comes the boring but mandatory pix of the presidential candidates voting. I say mandatory because if you manage to get a pic of the candidate looking victorious even before results are annouced way later at night, early edition papers or websites might use the voting pix as an alternative to the night jubo pix if the candidates do not appear till really late at night.

The big mama of elections is really getting a simple pic of the president-elect gesturing in victory. I quote “The first person to get that pic out usually gets the headlines tomorrow”.

The planning that goes behind that though is another story.

5am on election day, my assistant and I carry eight stepladders to the headquarters of both candidates to ensure that we have the best positions at night to shoot the victor. We arrive at the KMT location at 6am only to find that TV crews were already poised to attack the media stages. We lock and chain up three stepladders at different locations at Ma’s headquarters whom we expect to win. Shortly after at around 7am, AP and AFP arrive to place their stepladders too.

12 hours later, the area was packed with supporters and as planned, I got a postion in front of the stage, Reinhard shot from the right and Russell from the left. As Russell was the closest to the media centre, he would shoot for five minutes and immediately file while Reinhard and my assistans would “Speedy Gonzales” the cards to him to edit the first batch of jubo pictures.

My spot was slightly tricky though, because the organisers had rearranged the stepladders in front of the stage, I was forced slightly further back, which made my shot messy, while AP and AFP had slightly off centre positions but a better angle to get a nice background which read “Moving Forward” in Chinese.

“Screwed!” I thought to myself. After much comtemplating and negotiating with a local photographer who agreed to let me move forward to the stage on the basis that I don’t stand up, I got a much better angle for an opportunity to shoot the jubo shot well. Turns out, I was the first person to kneel at the new president (who would not arrive till about an hour later ) because of my “No standing up agreement”. A good lesson to never underestimate your relations with a local newspaper photographer this was though, he saved my skin!

Ma arrives. “Get the right exposure! Horizontals and verticals! Tight and loose! Don’t screw up!” A million thoughts that across my mind. Phew.

All’s well that ends well and it’s finally time to treat myself to beer and a foot massage. In a month following the two candidates around I’ve seen more of them than I have my Mum.

Above: People stand during a silent protest in Burgos, northern Spain March 7, 2008, against the murder of Isaias Carrasco. Photograph by Felix Ordonez

Above: Spanish vice president Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega (R) and Spanish Socialist Party spokesman Jose Blanco (C) walk in front of the coffin of Isaias Carrasco carried by Basque Socialist Party general secretary Patxi Lopez (back L) and Basque socialist’s president Jesus Egiguren, during a funeral in Mondragon, northern Spain, March 8, 2008. Photograph by: Vincent West

The political fallout of the murder clearly made for an intense election weekend in Spain. The picture desk received and sent a constant stream of photographs –  including presidential candidates, polling stations, street reactions, the winners, the losers and a funeral.  The pictures flowed quickly into the desk,  and by the time the last pictures arrived we were up against most deadlines . I was inevitably assigned to handle the file. I guess there was no surprise there, because as I am being familiar with the region, it’s facts and politics, people and names,  it made editing faster and smoother — and that is what our business is all about.

Above: A father and daughter prepare a ballot at an Oviedo polling station during Spain’s general elections March 9, 2008.  Photograph by Eloy Alonso

Above: A Catholic nun looks for her Senate ballot at a polling station in Aravaca, outside Madrid, during Spain’s parliamentary election March 9, 2008. Photograph Susana Vera

Above: Muslim women cast their votes at a Ceuta polling station during Spain’s general elections March 9, 2008.  Photograph by Rafael Marchante

The job of getting the Spanish election pictures out to the wire worked in perfect coordination between myself and the photographers in the field, which made me happy because I felt as if I was still there with them,  even though by working on the picture desk I am now on the other side of the line. It certainly made me forget the huge distance that separates us - a distance that didn’t exist until December 2006, when I joined the Global Pictures Desk in Singapore.

Above: Spain’s Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero gestures to supporters outside the Socialists party headquarters in Madrid, March 9, 2008.  Photograph by Alessandro Bianchi

Above: Spain’s opposition leader and Partido Popular (PP) candidate Mariano Rajoy embraces his wife Elvira Fernandez after his defeat in Spain’s general elections at the party’s headquarters in Madrid March 9, 2008. Photograph by Susana Vera

Before that I was immersed in my work of photographing bombing and riots; demonstrations and undercover midnight police operations; soccer matches and the running of the bulls;  news conferences and film festivals, and a plethora of etceteras in the troubled Basque Country region in Spain, where I had been a freelance photographer for Reuters since 1997. Adrenaline was my daily fuel, and I never thought I’d give it up for anything else in the world. But then I did.

Above: Me shooting the Tour of the Basque Country cyclist race. Photograph by Jesus Diges     

There are numerous reasons why I opted for such a change but I guess one stood out most at that time. The political struggle in the Basque Country was, happily, calming down and while it might sound cynical, we all know there’s not much news if there isn’t bad news. So of the various alternatives presented to me then, I decided to jump at the opportunity to work as an editor on the pictures desk in Singapore. After all, what better place was there to learn how a picture desk operates? and to witness what happens to the pictures once they’ve been shot and filed to the desk.

Above: Masked demonstrators hold pyrotechnic rokects and petrol bombs during riots on the streets of San Sebastián,  July 27, 1997. Photograph by Pablo Sanchez.
 

Above: Spanish Civil Guard members carry an environmental activist after he was arrested during a demonstration against the demolition of the village of Itoiz in northern Spain late June 16, 2003. Photograph by Pablo Sanchez.

Above: Masked Ertzainas (Basque Police members) stand guard outside the home of a suspected ETA member after arresting him in the Basque Country town of Zaldibia August 22, 2001. Photograph by Pablo Sanchez

Henri Cartier-Bresson is credited with saying: “Actually, I’m not all that interested in the subject of photography. Once the picture is in the box, I’m not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren’t cooks. And I can’t imagine a better place to learn to “cook” than the Global Pictures Desk. Cartier-Bresson has a point. In all my years as a photographer, and I’m sure my colleagues out there will agree, hunting images can prove to be the most exhilarating experience - at times intense, at times a necessary task, many times exciting, but all in all a truly great pleasure. It’s almost impossible to describe the rush you feel when you put your credibility on the line and try your utmost to find the best possible angles to illustrate reality, frame by frame. You often feel part of history as it unfolds. While the hunt is not about a claim to fame, I won’t deny that it feels good when, on the day after shooting the photographs, you find you are the creator of that picture that adorns every front page. Absolute gratification.

Above: A runner leads a fighting bull into Pamplona’s arena during the seventh run of the San Fermin Festival on July 13, 2001. Photograph by Pablo Sanchez

 Above: People crowd a cave near the Basque country village of Zugarramurdi to attend an “Aquelarre” (witches’ sabbath) June 21, 1998. Photograph by Pablo Sanchez

Above: A dog plows through heavy snow near Alsasua in Spain’s Basque country February 28, 2004 after freezing weather and heavy snowfall in many areas of Spain. Photograph by Pablo Sanchez.

Anyways, back on track. I guess I have an inkling of what the hunt is about, but what would be the fate of all the hard-won photographs without a crew of committed editors working around the clock to ensure that the pictures are perfectly presented to our clients all over the world. I mean, who will eat raw hunt - print the untouched images? Who will ever consume the product of my stalking if no one contributes the proper spices, sauces, oils and condiments - print a picture without the right crop, good colour balance or toning, and correct captions? I wish I knew then what I know now - that the people on the pictures desk are my group of dedicated picture editors working within many limits of multiple international datelines which feels like hungry patrons waiting at the table. Our clients can expect to be served with the best possible array of pictures that have been professionally primed under our stringent code of photo shopping ethics and ensure the speedy delivery of our top quality pictures and captions.

As a pictures editor I am now a cook and i’ll continue fine tuning my personal “cooking” style. I know that taking photographs will always be my first love but being familiar with both worlds allows me a fuller appreciation of how it all works together. I do miss taking pictures a lot more than I expected but I know I am helping “cook” - I know how important my contribution as a picture editor is. This also has made the transition between the two sides of journalism relatively painless. I do believe working for Reuters is like working in a three-star Michelin restaurant.