Photographers Blog

Oberstdorf, Germany to Bischofshofen, Austria

By Kai Pfaffenbach

For a German sports photographer covering first division Bundesliga soccer, every week between December and the end of January is actually quite boring. While other major leagues (not only in soccer) continue their season, Bundesliga is “off” for four weeks. Although I would normally tend to miss “my“ weekly fix of soccer, I always look forward to the so-called “winter break”. It gives me time to cover one of the sports events I really love to photograph: the four hills ski jumping tournament.

As a young boy watching it on TV, I could never imagine standing on top of such a ski jump. But it was my 14th time this year traveling from Oberstdorf, Germany’s most southern city, where the opening jumping is traditionally held, to Garmisch-Partenkirchen for the “new-year-jumping” on January 1. After those two jumpings in Germany, the tournament convoy rides to Innsbruck in Austria and then the final “epiphany jumping” in Bischofshofen. Four different cities in nine days. Up to 30,000 spectators cheering their heroes when they soar down.

But it seems ski jumping is not very popular overseas. Besides the strong Japanese team, all the top athletes come from central Europe. The top leading nations this winter are Austria, Norway and Germany. No wonder this year’s tournament was a duel between Austria’s ski jumping super star Gregor Schlierenzauer and Norway’s Anders Jacobsen. As wind, snow and rain are new challenges to the athletes during each jumping, it is a great challenge for a photographer to find new angles and develop ideas for “new” pictures.

The officials of the International Ski Federation FIS are incredibly helpful and give me opportunities which I never get anywhere else. They let me mount a camera on a pole behind the jumper to capture the moment before they descend the starting beam. And they allow me to set up a camera directly at the end of the slide track at the so called “jumping table.” It gives you a unique view from “ski-level” and offers the panoramic view the jumper has.

The one and only problem is the speed of the jumpers. They reach almost 100kmh just before they take off and although our cameras have 1/8000 sec as the fastest shutter speed and can take up to 14 images per second you will only have one proper picture of the athlete “taking off.” Using a photoelectric barrier solved the “timing” problem.

WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT

Garsen, Tana Delta, Kenya

By Siegfried Modola

When I got into photography and started my career as a freelance documentary photojournalist at the age of 29, I had to decide to either move from Kenya, the country where I lived and grew up for most of my life, or to stay.

I believe the latter choice has made an important difference in the way I perceive, follow and conceptualize the stories that I work on. Kenya feels like home. I know the region and speak the language. I feel an intimate connection with the country that comes with having a history with the place, years of building relationships and having enough time to go in-depth in my work.

As one of the most important elections of the country’s history is approaching on March 4, 2013, with the outcome determining Kenya’s path for years to come, I decided to cover the inter-communal violence that seems to be intensifying in some regions.

By Alessandro Bianchi

Although I have often relished the tender melody of the violin, it wasn’t until I met Mathias Menanteau that I realized the endless passion and mastery necessary for its creation.

French luthier Menanteau was born on July 29, 1977 in Vendée, France. He moved to Newark, England and attended the international Newark Violin Making School to garner the skill of making and restoring musical instruments. After being awarded a certificate, Mathias set out for Berlin, where he began working in the Anton Pilar violin workshop. It was in this musically rich city that Mathias deepened and acquired new knowledge on restoration, serving him well for various apprenticeships in Paris and New York.

He left Germany after five years and moved to the cradle of violin making, a city in Lombardy, Italy called Cremona. Menanteau’s expertise in musical instruments was magnified while working in Eric Blot’s workshop, where Mathias not only began restoring instruments, but also acquired knowledge of the dynasties of great Italian masters of music, such as Amati, Stradivari and Guarneri. In February of 2010, Menanteau finally opened his own violin shop in Monti, a neighborhood in the historic center of Rome.

By Pichi Chuang

When I first saw Yan Ching-hong, I was amazed how he could surf the internet, interact with friends on Facebook and even play video games on a computer just like any other 32-year-old.

Yan is paralyzed from the neck down, seemingly ruling out any of the kind of activities most of us take for granted. When I walked in, he was updating his Facebook status to “Busy. You can never imagine who’s interviewing me now.”

Yan has been confined to his bed since damaging his spine jumping into a swimming pool 14 years ago. He spent three months in intensive care and needs the help of a tube to breathe for the rest of his life. In his depression, Yan once suggested ways for his mother to end his life.

By Jim Young

“ram nI’ tay”

Which in the Klingon language means “Festival of the long night”, because fictional alien cultures obviously don’t observe Christmas.

SLIDESHOW: A Klingon Christmas Carol

Having seen Christmas decorations up since before Thanksgiving Day and hearing the cringing sound of carols in shopping malls everywhere, I was looking for a different way to ring in the holiday cheer and what better way than to cover a take on the Charles Dickens classic “A Christmas Carol” as performed by Klingons.

Klingons, for those not fortunate enough to be raised on Star Trek as a child, are aliens from the television series and though the show has been off the air for over 40 years, it continued on through movies and devoted fans everywhere.

Sao Paulo, Brazil

By Paulo Whitaker

Soccer is the passion of Brazilians, whether they play it themselves or fervently root for a club in the national league’s annual tournament dubbed the Brasileirão, or big Brazilian championship. The 2014 World Cup will certainly cause a frenzy in the country, and if Brazil were to win then we can expect a week-long national holiday.

The World Cup’s opening match will take place in Sao Paulo’s brand new Arena Corinthians, still under construction but over 50% completed. Brazil is in a hurry to finish its stadiums, so in the case of Arena Corinthans there are 2,000 workers employed around the clock.

Those workers are being pressed to work hard and fast, so like any worker under pressure, they need a stress outlet.Some 500 of them have formed 40 teams to play their own soccer tournament in a small court-sized field next to the stadium, organized by the team of engineers.

Baghlan, Afghanistan

By Fabrizio Bensch

There are thousands of miles that separate the German soldiers in Afghanistan from home.  For up to one year, they may be stationed in Afghanistan, but for most of them no more than four to five months.

The lead up to Christmas in Germany has a very long tradition and the arriving season is dominated by beautifully decorated shop windows in department stores and the smell of gingerbread and cinnamon. Christmas trees are festively illuminated in the streets with Christmas decoration and Christmas markets and Santa Claus are in every city.

But for the German armed forces Bundeswehr soldiers far away, each of them tries to maintain a little bit of these traditions and so everywhere in the camps are signs of Christmas.

New Delhi, India

By Mansi Thapliyal

Music bands play an integral part to the big fat Indian wedding, especially in North India.

Weddings in North India are never complete until the family of the bride and groom dance to the tune of popular Bollywood songs. Brass bands are hired for the purpose of playing at the wedding procession in which the groom’s family dance all the way to the wedding venue where the bride’s family waits to receive them. A procession called “Barat” is usually accompanied by bright lights, fireworks, loud music and dance. The instruments played by these brass bands are a mix of Indian and western musical instruments.

The men who make up India’s brass bands are regularly seen marching through the cities and towns dressed in their flashy outfits and spicing up parties, though despite their loud presence, they usually go unnoticed.

Havana, Cuba

By Desmond Boylan

At first sight, Mayra is a typical Cuban housewife, carrying out her daily chores as so many others. But she has another job apart from those housekeeping tasks, and when she does that she looks like anything but a housewife.

In Cuba, after the last Communist Party Congress, the government published a list of 181 private jobs and commercial activities that Cubans are now able to engage in, and pay taxes on the income generated from them.

Mayra told me, “I went through the list of 181 jobs and I couldn’t find mine. I am a freelance witch, spiritualist and fortune teller, so for the moment I cannot apply for a license to legally do my job.”

Banda Aceh, Indonesia

By Damir Sagolj

A siren rips apart the silence at the tsunami memorial in Aceh. A short announcement follows, after a greeting in Arabic and blessing from God – everyone is to leave the site immediately. It is time for prayers and the memorial built around a huge ship stranded miles inland during the 2004 tsunami will soon close its gates. Visitors are leaving the site, expected to go to nearby mosque and pray.

I’ve been watching different groups silently walking through the gates – students, business-like people, families and tourists – few went praying. Others were more interested in small shops selling souvenirs and in their pictures being taken. Some stood behind the memorial’s fence, smoked a cigarette and then just boarded their buses.

Aside from some smaller districts in Indonesia that have sharia-inspired bylaws, Aceh is the only province in Indonesia, the country with the world’s largest Muslim population, where such laws are implemented. This is something that occurred for complicated reasons some of which go well beyond the religion itself and have more to do with Achenese tradition, the long struggle for the independence and conflict with outside forces, Jakarta included.