Another Idol is crowned
I was assigned to cover the 11th season finale of “American Idol” at the Nokia theatre in downtown Los Angeles. The show culminates after months of nationwide eliminations and crowns a new winner in a two-hour televised show.
The show features the last two finalists and generally an array of high profile music performances. Our shooting position was next to the teleprompter, so my setup was a Canon Mark IV with 400mm, 5D Mark II with a 70-200 and another Mark IV with either a 300mm or a 16-35.
Seasoned show host Ryan Seacrest got the finale off the ground, accompanied by a joyful and supportive crowd that quickly filled up the theater and cheered for an opening duet by the two finalists. The show definitely kicked into a higher gear with a laser-enhanced performance by Rihanna and an energetic performance by American Idol judge Jennifer Lopez.
The evening passed through performances by music icons like John Fogerty, Neil Diamond and Chaka Khan while the top male finalists honored the memory of Bee Gees founder Robin Gibb, who had just passed away.
Burning ring of fire
By Jim Urquhart
“Jim Urquhart; lowering expectations since 1977″
That is something that kept popping in my head as I drove home from southern Utah after covering the annual eclipse for Reuters the day before. That, and also regretting not purchasing a bumper sticker from a small gas station in the town of Beaver, Utah.
It wasn’t that my pics were bad – several had run in some the most respected online photo galleries of the event – but I knew I didn’t hit a home run.
I had spent weeks planning how to cover the unique annular eclipse that was last visible over the United States in 1994. I researched time tables, discussion boards on how to shoot the eclipse, talked with other photojournalists on how they planned to cover it to make certain I was in the right place for the eclipse. I spent hours working with neutral density and solar filter combinations. I even researched the meaning of Johnny Cash’s 1963 hit “Burning Ring of Fire.” Some say the song is about “transformative love.” After covering the eclipse I subscribe to the belief it has more to do with the transformation of one’s bowels after too many habaneros and tequila than it does with love.
Myself and our reporter ventured to the small town of Kanarraville, Utah. NASA scientists had deemed it the world’s “sweet spot” to view the eclipse. I heard many people (over and over again) say they expected 5,000 to 15,000 people to venture to the town of about 300 for the event. I was dead certain this was the right place to watch the eclipse and also make images of the crush of on-lookers.
Eel pursuit
By Joel Page
Using my tripod as a walking stick, I carefully worked my way down the dark and muddy slope of a Maine riverbed to the rocks below where the nets and plastic bucket marked carefully selected and secretive fishing spots. The elver fishermen had arrived hours earlier to stake out a good location on the shore. With the baby eels selling for $2,300 a pound, the extra time and effort is worth it. Once their space is secure, it’s time to “hurry up and wait,” as one fisherman explained.
Elvers are American eels harvested as they swim upstream from the ocean where they are born to rivers and lakes where they will live until they reach sexual maturity. They swim at night with the incoming tide, so the fishermen typically work in the dark.
With only around 400 permits issued by the state, reporter Jason McLure and I had some difficulty finding fishermen willing to be interviewed or photographed. Although we had a handful of names and phone numbers, they were all dead ends. There was always a veil of secrecy as we asked around trying to track fishermen down. With the amount of money involved, ensuring personal security and preventing poachers were common concerns. Reporters and photographers can be considered threats to these efforts.
Another ground zero
By Fredy Builes
It began as a normal summer day in cold Bogota, with bright sun lighting up the morning. I had just picked up one of my favorite lenses from a repair shop, and was carrying a camera and wide angle lens in a bag while heading for a local university which I have done photo assignments for. As I talked to Vicky, the head of the journalism school, all of a sudden a great explosion shook us. In her eyes I saw the same fear that I was feeling, as the deafening sound left us speechless. It was only instinct that carried me to the street.
I ran out of the university towards the place of the explosion like a bull being released into the ring. Ground zero was right on a nearby street in downtown Bogota, where attacks like this haven’t happened in a very long time. I walked through the strange atmosphere of shocked people, deafening noise and fear, to reach the epicenter. I was surrounded by terror, blood, screams, sobs, rumors of another bomb, and death exposed for all to see.
One woman tried to calm a man lying on the ground, as another appeared with blood on her face in a way that reminded me of Christ bleeding from the crown of thorns.
Obesity in America
By Rick Wilking
Almost 2 years ago I started work on a photo documentary simply titled “Obesity in America.” It’s a simple title but with complex subject matter.
Getting the access, the various permissions from individuals and institutions and working through the convoluted American HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) that protects patient privacy to extremes was quite a challenge. But trying to tell a story with this many layers and permutations was even tougher.
It was a hot topic back in 2010 when I started, with obesity-related stories moving frequently on the Reuters wire but with few images to go with them. I set out to change that and decided to work the project in multiple chapters.
Since I last blogged about the documentary, I have shot several more chapters and learned a lot more about how complicated this topic is.
A Case of Low Metabbylism:
http://www.efn.org/~hkrieger/vtabby.jpg
Guilty of tourism
By Desmond Boylan
Recently I was at the beach on a very hot and sunny day in the province of Matanzas, east of Havana, when a group of tourists arrived in a bus. As I watched, two of them sneaked behind a bush, stripped to their underwear, slipped their clothes to their companions, and had a quick dip in the sea. They were obviously nervous, watching out so that they wouldn’t be spotted by their minders. I realized that they were Americans, and that by taking a swim and committing an act of tourism, they were breaking the laws of the U.S embargo. They were breaking the law in their own country, and they knew it.
United States citizens are now allowed to fly in directly to visit Cuba under a cultural program bound by strict conditions, the main one being that they are not allowed to practice tourism. By following the rules they will not be breaking the 60-year trade embargo imposed on the island under U.S. law. At last U.S. citizens are allowed to visit this forbidden country, listed by the U.S. as a sponsor of terrorism along with Iran, Syria, Sudan, and North Korea, but they have to behave themselves.
The sneaky swimmers spoke in a nervous whisper, twisting their mouths as if someone could read their lips from the distance. As they glanced over their shoulders, it was like a massive crime was being committed with a long prison sentence as punishment for being caught. There were rumors among them that minders were infiltrating their groups and posing as one of them. If it were true, anyone could be a minder reporting back to the U.S. congress on illegal tourist activities engaged by American travelers with the aim of stopping these tours and tightening the embargo once again.
A known fact is that thousands of Americans have been breaking the embargo in increasing numbers by flying into Cuba via transit stops in the Bahamas, Mexico, and Europe. Cuban immigration authorities don’t touch their passports, but give them entry and exit stamps on a separate paper. In their passports they only have exit and entry stamps from the intermediate country, so technically they could have been on the moon, on mars, or floating in the ocean for the undocumented days.
From man into woman
By Adnan Abidi
Hardeep Singh, a father of two, leaves his home in west Delhi every day at around 2 p.m. Dressed in a pair of light trousers and a shirt, he reaches a local charity, where he undresses to reveal his female clothes underneath and transforms into Seema.
The 33 year old is a male-to-female transgender, or “hijra”, as they are known in India. Living with two identities, by day, he is a married family man and by night, a hijra sex worker.
With no legal recognition in India, transgenders like Seema have little choice but to turn to prostitution to earn a living, which is something she hides even from her family.
An Indian doing about his/her own business (as million others do in India) and I wonder if that’s a news to Abidi. Can’t buy it.
//In one of my favorite photos, I captured three elderly women giving Seema a look of disgust as she talked prices with a client.//
Can’t see the pic. Where is it?
Til death do us bark
By Allison Joyce
Last week my editor forwarded me an email containing a cute blue invitation to a bridal shower and asked if I was interested in covering it. I immediately wrote back “YES!” because this wasn’t just any wedding shower, it was for Lucky Diamond, a Maltese dog.
I arrived at the Muse Hotel in Midtown for the big event. One table was set with bright blue cupcakes, teacups and finger sandwiches. There was another table set with 10 different kinds of teas for dogs, mini milk bones, and doggie cupcakes. Absorbent pads were placed around the room for the special guests to do their business. As waiters were serving champagne, the bride-to-be, decked out in a pink tulle dress and bonnet made of pink lace, pranced around the room with her canine guests.
The female human guests were walking around in bright, colorful cocktail dresses and hats – almost, but not quite upstaged by their pampered pets. Imagine dogs of all breeds and sizes dressed to the nines in stylish dresses accented by tutus, feather boas and hats.
Inside Kabul’s theaters
By Danish Siddiqui
I believe that sometimes you learn about a city and its society from its local cinemas and the genre of films they choose to screen.
Coming from the heart of the Indian film industry in Mumbai, popularly known as Bollywood, I had no idea what to expect from the cinemas in Kabul. I had several questions on my mind. Did families go out to watch films or was it only a getaway for men? Is watching films at the cinema as popular as it is in other parts of the world? What kind of films entice the Afghan cinema-goer?
There are only half a dozen cinemas in the whole of Kabul. Most of the theaters like Cinema Park and Ariana Cinema were destroyed during the civil war and were later shut down by the Taliban who had banned, among other things, going to the movies. Now every theater has three films shown every day with the first one starting at 10a.m.
Bollywood films from India, Pashto films from Pakistan and occasionally dubbed Hollywood films are played in Kabul’s theaters, but the genre of film is always the same; Afghan movie fans love action films. At every cinema I shot and interviewed in, action films ruled the roost.
Saving the Canon 400mm f2.8
By Murad Sezer
All photographers make plans to deal with possible clashes. They are ready to protect themselves and their equipment when covering a potential riot (or a May Day demonstration as I did a few days earlier). But you don’t expect to be doing that before a soccer match, or any other sports events.
While covering the May Day protests I don’t carry a camera bag or a laptop. I head out with my two camera bodies, spare memory cards, a gas mask and a wireless lan transmitter attached to the camera body to file my pictures – that’s all.. It’s more comfortable and easy to cover if any riots break out. But to cover a soccer match is a different story. If it’s a cup final or a decisive match like last Saturday’s Fenerbahce – Galatasaray Turkish Super League Super Final, we bring along much more equipment. I pack a hardcase with a laptop, 3 camera bodies, four lenses including a 400 mm f2.8 super telephoto, remote control devices to set up a camera behind the goal, network cables, a mini tripod etc. And usually we don’t even think about the safety of ourselves or our equipment. Normally during half time or at the end of the game we set our cameras down and rush to file pictures from the field or in the photographers’ working room.
SLIDESHOW: SOCCER FANS GONE WILD
However, in the shadow of the season-long match-fixing scandal, tension was high before the Fenerbahce vs Galatasaray derby. Fenerbahce had to win, while a draw was enough for Galatasaray to lift the championship trophy. Remembering when fans rioted two years ago after Fenerbahce missed out on the league championships at home, all the photographers were worried about the end of this match. But I didn’t see any photographer friends take any precautionary measures. It looked like they had no plan B, but I had one. My plan B was a padlock! The game started. It was a rough-and-tumble season finale. The two teams did not score and in the five minutes of injury time I felt that the match would finish 0-0. That would mean Galatasaray would become the 2011-12 Turkish champions, which may trigger some violence by disappointed Fenerbahce fans both on and off the pitch.
I’d like to be there when or if the dimwit finds out that the lens he threw was worth more than he probaly makes in a year.
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