Photographers Blog

They’ve wrested food, free alcohol, and peanuts from you. They’ve made you pay for luggage and lavatories.

Just when you thought there was nothing left for the airlines to squeeze, comes Italian company Aviointeriors’ new aircraft ‘SkyRider’ standing seat.

Gone is all that unnecessary space between your stomach and the seat in front of you.

The SkyRider, which made its debut this week at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Long Beach, California, has 23 inches of legroom, instead of the current economy class average of 30 inches.

I’m 5 foot 6 inches and weigh 110 pounds, and the seat felt snug. It felt more like straddling a horse than standing. The saddle was comfy, but the seat back forced me to sit bolt upright. There was no room to open a laptop and I would imagine my ankles would swell in this position after a few hours in the air.

The Playboy mansion was hidden behind huge gates and a thick hedge on the hilly roads below Sunset Boulevard.

Two men ogled for a closer view outside and one pointed his camera towards the gate. I drove up the winding driveway and a voice from a speaker hidden in a rock asked what I wanted.

Hugh Hefner, of course. I was promised five minutes to photograph the playboy of all playboys. “Hef gets impatient when having his photo taken,” his publicist said. The fans stepped back as the gates parted.

I was walking in downtown Los Angeles when I saw the two brothers sitting there. They were drinking soda by a hot dog stand. The symmetry struck me – their identical outfits, the two-tone wall they leaned against and the two bottles.

It was after a couple of days photographing Japanese baseball superstar Hideki Matsui’s home opener with the Los Angeles Angels. There were so many Japanese photographers that I had to leave for the stadium six hours before the start of the game in order to reserve the best shooting position.

Matsui-stalking was fun, but no-one gets into photography because they enjoy fighting for shooting positions or carrying heavy camera equipment up flights of stairs.

Patooni Muhanna, who works at a women’s shelter in Kabul, speaks about women’s rights since the fall of the Taliban. Patooni says that despite some positive changes, domestic violence and self-immolation are still concerns.

Follow news from the Afghan election here.

Soviet helicopters, pick-up truck racing, Kalashnikov-carrying security guards, banquet lunches.  Photographing Afghan presidential candidates as they traverse the country before the election on August 20, is campaign travel at its quirkiest.

Flying with Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah to a campaign rally in Samangan province.  Photo: Tyler Hicks

In Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan one week before the vote, the traveling press piled into the back of pick-up trucks following Abdullah Abdullah, Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s main rival, from the airport to the Shrine of Hazrat Ali.

Lucy Nicholson presents a multimedia blog on Reuters’ coverage of the Beijing Olympics.

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds was my nickname yesterday.

My Olympic opening ceremony endurance test began with an 8am call to be on the roof of the Bird’s Nest stadium for a meeting of photographers.

I began my first of three climbs through the maze of steep, narrow catwalks with IOC pool photographers from AP, Getty, AFP and Xinhua. On either side of the path were sheets of glass through which the colored lights of the stadium are projected.

We were told to wear fireproof suits, helmets and climbing harnesses over our clothes.  The Chinese fireworks technicians on the roof had sensibly chosen to wear t-shirts and shorts.

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds was my nickname yesterday.

My Olympic opening ceremony endurance test began with an 8am call to be on the roof of the Bird's Nest stadium for a meeting of photographers. I began my first of three climbs through the maze of steep, narrow catwalks with IOC pool photographers from AP, Getty, AFP and Xinhua. On either side of the path were sheets of glass through which the colored lights of the stadium are projected.

We were told to wear fireproof suits, helmets and climbing harnesses over our clothes. The Chinese fireworks technicians on the roof had sensibly chosen to wear t-shirts and shorts.

It was 90-something degrees Fahrenheit and humid on the ground, but felt a lot hotter on the roof -- especially after lugging three camera bodies, five lenses, a bag of magic arms and 50 meters of remote cable up there.

 var myQTObject = new QTObject( ' http://int1.fp.sandpiper.net/reuters/editorial/images/20080220/LucyBlog.mov', 'vvq-10976-quicktime-1', '400', '300'); myQTObject.addParam( 'scale', 'aspect' ); myQTObject.addParam( 'autoplay', 'false' ); myQTObject.addParam( 'controller', 'true' ); myQTObject.write();

  http://int1.fp.sandpiper.net/reuters/editorial/images/20080220/LucyBlog.mov

Links:
http://www.nfl.com/
http://www.giants.com/
http://http://www.patriots.com/
Composer of ‘dub’ media day music: Pierre Gerwig Langer

Photo: Lucy Nicholson.

4.30am and traffic is actually moving at the busiest freeway junction in the U.S.  If only I could drive everywhere at this time.

Photographer Mike Blake has been up all night waiting to hear whether he will have to evacuate from his San Diego home with his wife and son.  Luckily the wind has changed direction and the expected firestorm didn’t make its way to the coast.

Californian homes burn fast.

Not like brick or stone houses.  A couple of hours after the first spark, all that remains is a pile of shredded paper.  The powdery landscape is broken up by satellite dishes, burnt-out car chassis, metal-framed garden furniture and the odd piece of pottery.  An acrid chemical smell lingers for days.