Quiet work amidst the reeds
By Herwig Prammer
The light is soft and warm, yet I am astonished at how cold it is. The thermometer says minus 15 degrees Celsius, but it feels far lower. In the car I did not recognize how strong the wind was blowing from the north.
Ernst Nekowitsch makes thatched roofs from reeds that grow along the shore of Lake Neusiedl, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of Vienna, Austria. He tells me to have a look around. I will find his workers out in the reeds, he says.
So I climb up on the roof of my Land Rover and try to position myself in reeds higher than my vehicle. When I see the harvesters with their machines on the expanse of frozen water, I wonder why I cannot hear them. It is so quiet here. There is just a swoosh of reeds swaying in the wind. I take my cameras and walk along the grooved lanes the harvesting machines cut through the reeds. It is more difficult than I expected. The ground I cover is a 15-centimeter-thick layer of ice as smooth as glass. Sometimes you can even see the lake bed.
A young woman stops her small tractor with balloon tires and welcomes me. Julia, the daughter of Ernst Nekowitsch, explains that she is actually a beautician, but in the winter she helps with the harvesting and in the summer she joins her father roofing. Her father has leased more than eight square kilometers (3.1 square miles) of reeds at the lake, and usually they harvest two to three square kilometers (1 square mile) each year – assuming it is cold enough and the ice on the lake is thick enough to bring on the harvesting machines. Nearly all of the reeds are exported, most of it to the Netherlands. Here on Neusiedlersee we have the largest reed belt in Europe besides the Danube delta – always enough work, she laughs, as she starts her tractor again.
From the Quake to the Cup
By Mariana Bazo
Nearly 300 Haitians are stuck in Inapari, a tiny Peruvian village on the border with Brazil. They are victims of the 2010 earthquake in their country and traveled weeks chasing their dream of simply getting a job. They believe that in Brazil the upcoming World Cup is creating great opportunities.
Some 3,000 kilometers after leaving home, they reached the Brazilian border only to find it shut to them, closed to stop the wave of their compatriots that began to arrive after the disaster.
They wait in the middle of the jungle and understand little. They’ve bet everything on this chance, selling or just abandoning all their belongings back home to make it this far. They now have nothing in Haiti and can’t reach their destination, nor can they return. They even asked me why they’re not allowed to cross the border, assuring that they are good workers and are willing to work hard to live better.
Inapari is a lowland village of immigrants from the Andean highlands. A few years back it was opened up to the world with the construction of the Interoceanic Highway uniting the Pacific with the Atlantic across Peru and Brazil. With that road came many things good and bad. First came illegal logging. Then came illegal mining and smuggling. But at the same time Brazil and Peru are now united, commerce is more fluid and Machu Picchu is now only 12 hours away by road.
It’s so sad and heartbreaking to see a human being in this condition… I understand that the level of employment in Brazil is growing, good news! Let’s have these mens get in, what could we do to accelerate the process of legalization?
Have you seen this Fukushima child?
By Kim Kyung-Hoon
Near midnight on March 12th, 2011, I was looking for Fukushima evacuees who had fled from towns near the nuclear power plant hit by a massive tsunami and earthquake the day before, and was now leaking radiation.
On hearing the warnings of meltdown and radiation leaks at the nuclear plant, my colleagues and I drove west from Fukushima airport where we landed by helicopter with two very simple goals: stay as far away as possible from the nuclear power plant, and find the evacuees.
However, there was no clear information where to find the evacuees and how far away we had to stay from the nuclear plant to ensure our safety in the panicky and chaotic situation.
After asking around for several hours in Koriyama city in Fukushima Prefecture, we found out that all the evacuees were getting radiation checks before they could be admitted to evacuation centers. When we got to the makeshift inspection station, which was set up at Koriyama Sports Complex, what we encountered was more like a scene from a sci-fi movie. Officials in protective suits from head to toe were scanning the refugees to check whether they were radioactive.
The evacuees were standing in a long line waiting for the radiation test. What I saw in their eyes was terror and anger at their government’s inefficiencies. Several people who had been tested for radioactivity had been separated from the group and they were sitting on the ground with despairing and puzzled looks as they waited for decontamination.
In the long line of evacuees, I spotted a little girl brought by her mother.
To the prior commenter: nuclear radiation is the thing that is not welcome in family life, and in many ways Fukushima changed the culture of Japan. The photographer has an ethical obligation to know who this family is, and a personal need to do so. Many assume that a photographer can be dropped into a global crisis, such as a war or a mass evacuation, and somehow not be touched by events. That is not how it works. A photographer is in the events at eye level, not thinking about them in terms of data, quotes and claims of officials, and abstract ideas about “safety.” Selecting and editing the photos the photographer makes contact with his or her subjects a second time, and the images can indeed be haunting. To me this is the image that sums up both Fukushima and the effects of the nuclear crisis — all in the girl’s expression. It is one of the most touching and indeed disturbing news photos I have ever seen.
Note that just because the photographer knows who this is does not mean that the information will be published. Were I this family I would certainly want to hear back.
Sincerely,
Eric Francis
Planet Waves
The cycle of life and death
By Adnan Abidi
“Ganges is Holy,” said my boatman as I pointed my camera to photograph devotees half submerged in the blackish brown waters of the sacred river, the second most polluted in India. It was my third day on a photography assignment on Bihar- a sprawling state on the Gangetic plains of eastern India. My brief was to cover the overall progress of Bihar, hence I planned to photograph a bridge under construction over this sacred river. After a couple of shots with my wide angle lens I shifted to telephoto and as I zoomed in I saw a crow, a crow savoring or maybe just sitting on a corpse.
The boatman wasn’t as shocked as I was. This was no extraordinary sight for him. He continued to praise the progress of the state, and its new efficient minister but said things will not change overnight. On seeing me still shocked about the corpse he revealed that as Hinduism describes Moksha as liberation from the cycle of life and death, freedom forever from earthly miseries and sufferings, the holy river Ganges is believed to be a pathway to attain Moksha. And Hindus believe that dying on the banks of this holy river enable a soul to attain Moksha. So at very short intervals, sometime just weeks, people here see corpses floating on the river, and its an accepted phenomenon. He said that’s the way of life here and still there was progress!
I smiled at his optimism. He was all praises about the current government and the development it had brought even though personally he still lived hand-to-mouth. Earning his daily bread was an extreme challenge, for he like many boatmen had no option but to stay in the boat (floating in water) as they could not afford land. Even though there is a lack of basic resources, catastrophic flooding every year, and the lingering impact of poor past governance, there was a ray of hope in Bihar. I wondered if all this progress could bridge the gap between prosperity and poverty- a mammoth task that lay ahead for the current Bihar government.
This part of country once held a first university ever on the face of earth and unbelievably its a most backward state holding on to remnants of superstitions!!!…..
California skateboard dreams
By Mike Blake
Recording how we as a society advance and decline amid a changing world is pretty much what being a journalist is all about. The changes are mostly man made, sometimes nature, but humanity rolls along and each new generation brings with it change. Put a camera in your hand and record the events with images and you have a better idea of my job for the past 26 years as a staff photographer for Reuters.
That may be a strange introduction to a piece about a kid from Canada who follows his dream to be a professional skateboarder in California, but not really.
Skateboarding got started in the 60’s with clay wheels and surfers looking out at a flat ocean. But nothing really happened with skateboarding until polymer technology advanced and created urethane. Then along comes a guy named Frank Nasworthy and the skateboard wheel clicks in his head. From that point on technology has advanced, and along with it, skateboarding. To the point where you have a little story about Jordan Hoffart, who follows his dream.
Behind the scenes: Zoo surgery
By Phil Noble
One of the best things about this job is the ability it gives you to photograph things you would never normally get to see in most walks of life. Whether that is pitch-side access to top sporting events, behind the scenes glimpses at royalty and presidents or getting close to wild animals, the opportunities are as varied as they are fascinating. Photographing a young Cheetah cub having a broken ankle repaired definitely falls into those categories.
Me and another news agency colleague had sat down with Chester Zoo’s marketing team a few years ago and discussed the possibility of doing different pictures at the zoo apart from the normal cute baby elephants and giraffes that regularly appear.
We had worked slowly with them to gain the trust of the keepers and zoo management by shooting a variety of behind the scenes jobs like the recent health checks on the tiger cubs.
I was really keen to photograph as many different things as possible at the zoo to give myself and therefore our clients an insight into what goes on. As with most things in life it’s the things that we seldom get to see that are often the most interesting.
“A Day in the Life of a Mobile Veterinarian”
http://www.efn.org/~hkrieger/vet.htm
The cavalry is moving out with a big bang
By Stefan Wermuth
When I got this assignment I was not sure what I could expect.
It was an early 6am start at the Barracks in St John’s Wood, home to The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery. I was looking forward to the breakfast as mentioned in the press release. First thing we were told was not to expect any breakfast because the kitchen was moved already.
It could become only better … and it did…
The unit has been stationed at St John’s Wood since their formation by King George VI in 1947 and they will take up residence in a new purpose built equestrian training facility and accommodation centre in Woolwich Garrison outside central London.
Celebrating in the cold
By Petr Josek
It is the first week of February and all of Europe is squeezed in a deep cold. Everybody is tired from freezing temperatures and the forecast for upcoming days is not good. The photo wire is full of suffering homeless people, steaming chimneys, frozen water and so on.
Thinking of how to illustrate this winter differently I remembered that the traditional Shrove festival was taking place around this time. That Shrove site I decided to take pictures of is known for its Shrovetide masks and cultural traditions listed in UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
I came to the Czech village of Vesely Kopec early morning as temperatures were lower then 23 degrees Centigrade. Revellers accompanied by music started to parade, dance and sing through the village dressed in light costumes with white gloves on their hands. Trumpeters had to often stop their music due to their frozen instruments. And everybody needed a warming up drink.
Vesely Kopec means Happy Hill, and it sure looks like it is!
Lucas
http://www.pictobank.com/
The fight of their lives
By Kai Pfaffenbach
Steve Marcus, our Boxing expert in Las Vegas, is maybe the one and only photographer within the company who has shot more World Championship title bouts than I have throughout the last couple of years.
I shot “Iron” Mike Tyson in Copenhagen, South Africa’s “White Buffalo” Francois Botha on several comebacks, I got my picture taken with Lennox Lewis after a fight I photographed and I followed the untouchable Klitschko brothers on their way to dominate the heavyweight class as only “The Greatest of All Times” (Muhammad Ali) did before!
But it was an IBF cruiserweight re-match which fascinated me the most. Steve “USS” Cunningham challenged Yoan-Pablo Hernandez from Cuba to get his title-belt back. Cruiserweight is as fast as middle-weight but the punch power is almost as much as heavyweight.
From the first second those two men delivered an absolutely top-level fight with clean technique, accurate, fast hits and the ability to take those punches. It was in the fourth round when a combination and a straight right hand sent Cunningham on the deck twice within a minute.
Catwalks for all sizes
By Nacho Doce
Three days after photographing the svelte models at the upscale Sao Paulo Fashion Week, I found myself in the crowded backstage of the Miss Brazil Plus-Size beauty pageant, a contrast in every aspect from body size to the organization’s budget and the cost of each dress.
Backstage the overweight models pushed their own dress-filled suitcases with no assistants to help them, very different from the Fashion Week models, each of whom had two or three people dressing, preening, and supervising them.
Television channels filming Miss Plus-Size were offering the stream to reality shows, while at Fashion Week the transmission was to a more serious audience, focusing on present and future stars in the fashion world.
Not once did any of the Plus-Size models react against being photographed, showing no shame for their big dresses. I found their self-esteem wonderful.
Although fascinated by the contrast of the two events, I was also impressed by one similarity. All the women, the slender ones and the overweight ones, paraded with the same nervousness and dignity past the spectators. The morning after the pageant, Miss Brazil Plus-Size was hospitalized for the stress of competing, the demanding rehearsals and lack of a proper diet, all of which sound very familiar in the fashion world.
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