London-based Swiss photographer Stefan Wermuth recalls his battle against the Irish rain….and a hill:

Before I left London to cover the three-day cycle race TOUR OF IRELAND I got some last minute advice from colleagues in the office - “It’s wet there!” they told me, “take wet weather gear.”  I thought it can’t be wetter than London can it?  -  but I was very wrong.

 After checking in to my hotel near Dublin I met up with some local photographers for dinner where I first heard the name of St. Patrick’s Hill in Cork. Stories were told of its 23% gradient, cyclists giving up with spinning tyres, and it being an unbelievably steep climb in the middle of Cork.

Although it’s a hill - I come from Switzerland where we have real mountains and very steep passes, what are they talking about?

After a two-day journey through the country I finally arrived in Cork for the last stage of the tour where I got to see St. Patrick’s Hill. I was very impressed. It is really steep!

 The photo position was located some distance below the top of the hill. Hundreds of fans lined the route and it was tightly packed. The riders had to climb the hill three times, so I was ready to try different shots.

Surprisingly the weather forecast was for rain!!  Ten minutes before the first riders arrived it the heavens opened

and rain crashed down. Despite wearing world famous rain gear I got soaked to the skin and a torrent of water flowed through my shoes. Having survived the first round of rain, one of my camera bodies made a strange sound, before dying a few seconds later.

I had only ever experienced such weather once during the Euro 2008 soccer game between Switzerland and Turkey in Basel.

 As the view from my position could not show the steepness of the hill, I decided to take pictures showing the emotions of the riders - all my lenses were covered with rain and I had nothing that was dry to clean them.  The rain was relentless and coming horizontally.

It was amazing how the riders reacted, some gave up, others fought on and it’s true about the spinning tyres, some wheels just span round and round.

 After the second round of riders passed I surrendered to the weather and made my way to the finish area. As soon as the first rider arrived the sun came out!

The result of my stay on the hill was one broken camera, one broken Blackberry, a lot of wet clothes and an unforgettable memory.

My conclusion: Yes Ireland can be wet and never underestimate a hill!

Last Wednesday Sydney experienced a dust storm, the likes of which have not been seen since before World War II.

Weird weather doesn’t always give much of a warning so to get the pictures you want you have to be prepared. Follow these 10 easy tips and you can’t go wrong.

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1). Have a nose for a good story. Well before sunrise, a haze of martian-like dust wafted into my bedroom and the olfactory assault it delivered got me out of bed well before my year-old-son does. The best shooting light lasted only half an hour. In the pictures business, the early bird does get the worm.

2). Make like a boy scout.  Be prepared. Have your kit always ready to go next to the front door.  Mine has all sorts of goodies for all occasions.  The most precious item on this assignment was the lens cleaning cloth. It must have come out of the bag a dozen times on Wednesday morning. There’s also charged batteries, wallet with spare cash, press ID, eye drops (useful in dust storms), wet weather gear in the trunk and so on.

3). The journey to your destination.  You have this great picture in mind and you jump on the bike, in the car, on the train but keep shooting.  There’s a bunch of pictures you can make that others don’t even notice. My first picture for the day was shot through the windshield while crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

4). People, perspective, proportion.  A renowned landmark emerging out of a vermeil sky is nice, but give it scale and context (both physical and social). Make some pictures that include humans, dogs, birds or whatever beast happens to be in front of your camera. If there’s none in front of your camera then wait… or move.

5). Stay connected.  There’s no use having a camera full of winners if that’s where they stay. Be mobile and connected. A netbook, card reader and 3G card are all part of my next-to-the-door kit.  After the first 20 minutes of shooting I filed half a dozen quick pictures to the wire, over an hour ahead of our nearest competition. (There’s always a deadline somewhere in the world).

6). Multi-task. After making an initial file of 6 pictures, my morning included shooting more in the continuing red gale. I shot more as commuters started pouring into the city by road and foot, capturing television footage for my RTN colleagues, filing more, ducking back across the harbour to take my sick wife to the doctor, texting colleagues so we were both on the same page, dressing my son, packing his lunch, taking him to a friend’s house, eating breakfast, filing video footage and getting more pictures on the wire as the dust began to thin.

7). Turn around. Don’t forget to look over your shoulder. You don’t want to miss the amazing picture behind you as everyone else gazes at the obvious in front of them.

8). Consider others. A few minutes spent capturing a little 5D Mark II video footage in the heart of the storm ended up as the opening sequence of Reuters TV’s package on the day. Kudos and free beer to follow.

9). Don’t stop. Think of other ways to add impact to your story telling. (or use your colleagues’ ideas like I do all the time). All this dust had cleared by midday but instead of a cup of tea with feet up, I headed back to earlier locations and shot pictures of what the town looked like now. A series of “during and after” combinations capped off a strong file.

10). Enjoy yourself.

At the beginning of January, staff at Reuters and I had a discussion about creating a multimedia piece on the Red Bull Crashed Ice race, an event where competitors have to skate down an urban ice course in the middle of Old Quebec. After some discussion, the idea of doing a multimedia piece on the introduction of the woman’s category at the event was suggested, which I thought was a great idea.

On race day, the temperature was slightly below -30 Celsius in Quebec City, which is not unusual for that time of the year. One of my colleagues had the grease in his lens’ zoom barrel freeze during the race, so I had to be careful and keep my cameras, voice recorder and video camera warm.

It was my first time shooting pictures, videos and collecting audio to do a multimedia piece. My plan of attack was to shoot my pictures first and then film the videos. It’s always a good thing to have a plan when you’re out of your comfort zone. When I felt confident I had good pictures for the wire, I decided to switch to my video camera to shoot short video clips. This event was well suited for pictures and videos since there was more than thirty heats of four competitors. As always, if you’re filming video and something important happens, you will not be able to get the still image that the other agencies might have. I think photographers have to be careful not to spend too much time shooting video and concentrate on their primary job — taking pictures. Fortunately for me, nothing happened while I was capturing my video clips.

Collecting the audio was probably the easiest part of my job. I managed to do my interviews the day before the race. I prepared my questions in advance and asked some friends and colleagues to have a look at them to be sure I was not off track. As for the ambient sound, that was even easier. The race was divided into heats and between them people were screaming. While I was waiting for the next one, I just had to push the record button to collect some sound.

Multimedia is the way of the future for our profession, so being versatile will give you an edge over the competition. But not every event allows you to do good multimedia. You have to think of your core clients first. Will be well served if you drop your camera for a couple of minutes to concentrate more on shooting video and audio? In the end, I like the result of the piece that our editors put together, but I think I still have a lot of room for improvement. Perhaps, the next time it will be easier. I’m sure I’ll find new techniques to do more than one thing at once.

So what do you do when the TV and radio news are all telling you not to travel, and then you receive a group SMS from your company saying stay at home?

Well it’s the worse snow storm to hit London in 18 years and all you want to do is get out there and shoot it.

I get to my car and as I am wiping the snow off it I look up at the window and see my kids looking at more snow than they have seen in their lives. I watch their little faces light up as it dawns on them that all this snow means only one thing — NO SCHOOL. Now let’s face it, that’s just about as good as it gets.

As I head into the office I start to call the guys. I know Darren Staples has a long journey to Cambridge and want to make sure he’s on his way. I call him at 6:30 a.m. and he’s already there, left his house before 4 a.m. to make sure he beat the weather. The same thing happens as I call the London team, they are dressed to impress in all-weather gear and in situ and already taking pictures.

So everyone’s juiced and riding the wave.

Not sure if it’s because I spent four years living and working in Rome but as I drive into town all I can think of is this beautiful golden statue of Saint Paul covered in snow. Luckily for me everyone else had better ideas. The pick of the crop is London staffer Toby Melville’s beautiful view showing Big Ben through snow covered trees.

Now I know its only snow but the Brits, pretty much like every nation I know, are obsessed with the weather. We like to see the funny side as we watch society crumble — no buses, no trains, no schools, no ambulances, no shops open, restaurants closing early, West End shows cancelled, etc..

Twelve hours later I’m heading home and I get a call from the office saying The Times is going to use Toby’s picture on the front page and that newspaper websites are all full of our material.

Looking at the newspapers on Tuesday morning it’s great to see them use our pictures to show their readers around the world what London looks like under a picturesque snow blanket.

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

The hardships that fervent supporters of political candidates go through to catch a glimpse of their man in public are sometimes amazing. In blustery rain, bordering on freezing sleet in the Pennsylvania college town of Chester, thousands gathered from the dawn hours to score a prime position in the front row of an outdoor rally with Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama at Widener University. The conditions were so poor that in a gesture of compassion, Obama brought the event forward by about an hour so that the poor soaked and freezing souls could shorten their waiting time to hear his stump speech.

To protect our cameras from the conditions, a couple of plastic hotel laundry bags and some duct tape were employed as makeshift rain covers for our gear. Even though I go into covering all the events as if they were my last, I remember that no picture is worth a drowned camera which no longer functions! Without working equipment,  a photographer is relegated to being just a spectator to history.

Likewise, the young supporters of Obama had brought along whatever coats and other protective gear they could find. They endured hours of miserable conditions in the muddy grass. Their close proximity to each other in the chilly wind reminded me of those of arctic penguins who huddle close together in a brave attempt to survive the worst that Mother Nature has to offer. Funny also to see a couple of protesters with global warming banners in the crowd (pictured) who picked the wrong day to rally others to their cause, considering the temperatures were just above freezing at the time.

In between the standard pictures of Barack Obama arriving at the rally and of those delivering his speech, I kept looking back to see the faces of those that seemed to have put their bone-chilling hours behind them and were now seeming to hang on every word of Obama’s typically impassioned speech.

In addition to those images, my favourite moment from the rally that goes some way to illustrating the appalling conditions was that of Obama’s reflection in pool of rain water that had accumulated on the stage as he spoke to the crowd.

August 29, 2008 was a strange day. As I covered commemorations for the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the tension in the air was palpable. Hurricane Gustav was coming and decisions had to be made. Do we stay or do we go? I was staying.

In 2005, Reuters assigned me to cover Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath. After seeing first hand the scope of the storm’s devastation, I decided to move back to New Orleans. I then began to focus my work completely on documenting the city’s recovery. In the months following Katrina, there was a pioneering spirit among the few living in the city, and I became personally involved in the story. Last year, I bought a home here.

As Gustav approached, I knew I couldn’t stand to be outside New Orleans as this new chapter was unfolding. By Saturday, officials were making dire predictions about the probable impact on the city, and I got a little worried. After shooting pictures of resident evacuating early Sunday, I spent the afternoon securing my house and belongings. Although I live in the Bywater, an area that did not flood in Katrina, I needed to take a few precautions. I put my desktop computer, external drives and other valuables on the highest shelves in my house. I planned to work completely out of my rental car, with a laptop, inverter and portable batteries. I placed my duplicate drives (which should have been shipped to a safe city) into an ice chest and brought them to the Chimes Bed and Breakfast in Uptown, where most of Reuters’ staff was housed. They have three stories and didn’t flood in Katrina either. I stayed for dinner, went home and slept easier after hearing Gustav’s punch was weakening. I was awoken by storm gusts and my power was out.

I live two blocks from Inner Harbor Navigational Canal. We call it the Industrial Canal and its role in the Katrina nightmare is notorious. My first stop was the east bank of the canal, where the breech in the Lower Ninth Ward occurred in Katrina. After climbing the floodwall, I became a bit concerned to see water already two to three feet from the top. I drove around the neighborhood, shooting a bit, and then headed over the Claiborne Bridge. I stopped at the top of the bridge for a wide view. That’s when I saw waves cresting over the top of the floodwall onto the east bank of the canal, my side. I photographed the scene, called correspondent Tim Gaynor, and went to a coffee house in my neighborhood with power to file the pictures.

When I returned to the bridge after filing, news crews were crowding it, probably tipped by their desks after seeing Reuters pictures of the situation on several news websites. I was glad they were. I wanted everyone to see the impending danger. Water was now accumulating at the foot of the bridge. Not a good sign. I photographed National Guardsmen arriving on the scene of the flooding, and went back to the top of the bridge. The waves had gotten stronger. It was amazing to watch the force of the water push against the concrete walls and try to imagine the incredible pressure on them. How could they possibly hold? Every thing I owned was just beyond those walls. They had to hold. They did, at Category 3. We need to build higher, stronger walls because other, stronger storms are sure to come.

In the days since Gustav, I have photographed the clean up and people returning to the city. I haven’t had to go far from my neighborhood to find pictures. My house is the only one on the street without electricity, so it is powered at night with a generator. But it’s there. So is my stuff. Things are feeling a little less dangerous, for now.