Photographers Blog

By Jorge Silva

We are just north of the Amazon Basin, riding a boat on the Ikabaru River. The passengers are people who buy gold and diamonds. They stop at each of the illegal mines that appear as craters on the river’s edge. They carry small weighing scales that seem very accurate, magnifying loupes, burners to melt the gold and separate the mercury, and some large spoons to collect it.

They are also carrying bags full of cash.

We are very close to the porous and at times imperceptible triple border between Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana. The area is remote and hard to access. Getting here takes a day of navigating along the river, or flying in one of the small planes that land on makeshift dirt landing strips. There are no roads.

To get here days before, we flew on a small Cessna over the area where the immense savanna and its table-top mountains meet the jungle.

The first landing was on a strip where a group of people were preparing a robust Antonov An-2 Soviet-era plane to carry supplies to the area of the mines.

There I spent a good portion of the morning talking to the pilot and waiting for the clouds to clear. He talked to me about the perils of having a plane with a carburetor, and the problems brought by constantly needing buckets of oil. His worries include the risks of landing in short, muddy landing strips carrying the 8+ tons weight of the plane when it is loaded with its cargo of gasoline barrels.

Bogota, Colombia

By Jose Miguel Gomez

When a television journalist called to her cameraman to come running, I thought it was just to get a better angle of some VIP arriving to celebrate the 121st anniversary of the National Police, and the new graduating class of the academy. I’m farsighted and didn’t have my glasses on, but I did have a 400mm lens on the camera.

A few more moments went by and I still didn’t catch what the fuss was about, and the only colleague near me was busy shooting. That was when I spotted the cadet on the ground, apparently fainted in the middle of the ceremony, and I instinctively began photographing. Help was so slow in arriving that I was able to shoot from different angles this curious scene of a policewoman lying unconscious, face down on the ground in her best uniform. It was at least five minutes before a couple of police officers finally carried her away.

In the meantime the ceremony continued with the presence of the presidents of Colombia, Costa Rica and Honduras, whom I assumed were asking themselves the same thing I was – why did it take so long amidst a formal ceremony to help this girl?

Karachi, Pakistan

By Akhtar Soomro

Arriving for my trip to Edhi Home, I met an elderly man working as a driver sitting outside the building. He assisted me in entering the building and introduced me to the lady in charge. She welcomed me and let me in by crossing an iron grill gate separating this place from the outer world.

As I walked through the huge corridor housing a row of rooms, each consisting of a bath, windows, square holes in the roofs for ventilation and an iron bar door. In these rooms resided elderly women, victims of mental illness, children missing from their families and victims of domestic violence.

Beams of sunlight fell on walls adorned with graffiti drawn by the patients – depictions of amulet charms, inspirational quotes, a drawing of three girls holding flowers in their hands, a peacock, even a short letter requesting the reader to inform someone of something.

Guangzhou, China

By Tyrone Siu

It was hard to imagine that Liu Qianpina was related to the word “model” when I first met him. To me, the 72-year-old former farmer looked no different from those typical types of grandfathers you see sitting in the park every day, usually playing chess with a group of friends or dozing off on a bench. Except that Liu has a very cool name, MaDiGaGa, and is now in the spotlight among the modeling world.

Gallery: Grandpa turned model

One hand on his hip, lower legs crossed, with his head looking up in the air – posing in front of the camera was no difficulty for Liu. He did not need any instructions from the photographer before he changed his pose to present his figure. It was not hard to notice that, when compared to other models who pose for a living, Lui did not appear natural and smooth. But for a model who started styling at the age of 72, he’s made a very good start that most would envy.

It all began when the grandfather decided to pick up some of his granddaughter LV Ting’s clothes, and wore them for fun. The clothes, meant to be sold in an online fashion store, were supposed to be worn by a model who suddenly cancelled. But the way Liu wore them created a fresh and funny image, so LV Ting decided to use her grandfather’s pictures for promotion instead. The odd styling took internet users by surprise and Liu soon became one of the hottest topics in the digital world, attracting a five-fold increase in visits to the fashion website.

Minturn, South Carolina

By Randall Hill

In a 60-acre field in rural Minturn, South Carolina, cotton farmer Roy Baxley, Jr. was on an important mission. His goal for this bright and sunny November morning was to get the last part of his 1,100 acres of cotton from the fields and to the ginning machines.

As he talked to his crew of 7 workers, the cotton pickers were adjusted and fine-tuned as the fluffy white plants hovered over the field like a large blanket. The morning light reflected low off the crops and gave them an even warmer hue.

Growing up in the South and living here most of my life, the lure of the fields in the fall and winter and the deep history the crop has on Southern culture, was too much for me to pass up. I had to find out more about the process and see it for myself.

Cairo, Egypt

By Amr Abdallah Dalsh

I was on assignment on the Turkish-Syrian border when I was asked to come back home to help the Cairo team as the situation in Egypt developed with protests and clashes.

I arrived in Cairo early yesterday morning and planned to go to Tahrir square later in the day. When I reached the scene of the clashes near the square, which has witnessed a lot of clashes in the last few days, I found some members of the riot police coming close to reaching protesters. The police and the protesters normally do a tit for tat (cat and mouse) sort of thing. Police sirens blared. Usually the protesters run away quickly when they hear that sound. It was obvious that there were about five or six riot police to the left of the vehicle and they wanted to hit back at protesters with stones the protesters were hitting them with. Those few riot police entered a building near the protesters.

The police vehicle started to go back, I guess without noticing that they’d left some of their officers behind. The protesters, noticing that those few police were far from their group, started to beat them very hard. I heard the protesters saying they’d got three of them, but I only saw two. The protesters threw everything they had at them – stones, glasses, logs – they were also slapping their faces. I could see blood coming out of policemen’s head. The protesters also started stripping them of their clothes and their vests and shields, helmets and shoes.

Superstorm Sandy slammed the U.S. East Coast on October 29, causing widespread destruction in coastal New York and New Jersey. One month later, Reuters photographers describe their working conditions during the storm and the aftermath they witnessed – including tragic stories and the resilience of people in their community.

Multimedia production by Jillian Kitchener

Sliema, Malta

By Darrin Zammit Lupi

With the body of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat being exhumed as part of an investigation into whether he was murdered eight years ago, it was pretty clear that we were going to need some reaction from his widow Suha, who has lived in Malta for the past few years. A journalist from The Times, the local paper I also work for, and I fixed an appointment to meet her at her apartment in the seaside town of Sliema, a short drive from the capital Valletta. Coincidentally it’s only some hundred or so meters away from the spot where Fathi Shaqaqi, the founder of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, was assassinated by Israeli Mossad agents in 1995.

Ms Arafat welcomed us into the bright and spacious seafront apartment. Sideboards and tables were full of framed photos of Yasser Arafat – some showing him with world leaders, others depicting him as a family man playing with his young daughter. She asked that I shoot the photos I needed before we started the interview, so my eyes immediately settled on a large painted portrait of her late husband, which I felt would make an ideal background.

Conversation was relaxed and friendly. I had the pictures I needed after shooting for a minute or two, so I sat down, enjoyed an exquisite cup of Arabian coffee prepared by her personal assistant, and listened in on the interview. The plan was to then get a brief comment from her on video afterwards.
She talked at some length about her memories of her husband and wanted to set the record straight that, contrary to what had been widely reported in the build-up to the exhumation, she had refused to allow an autopsy to take place in 2004, that she was never asked for permission and that his body was never in her possession, but that it was with the Palestinian Authority and was taken to Ramallah and buried there.

Heitwerwang, Austria

By Dominic Ebenbichler

Tourists or foreigners have to look twice when attending a Perchten festival in the western Austrian region of Tyrol. Some probably think there is something wrong with the countryfolk – dressing up like demons, wearing head to toe animal skins and wooden masks, behavior that could easily be associated with some kind of a devil’s cult. It just doesn’t seem to be normal.

The explanation goes back to the years about 500 AD. Back then farmers performed pagan rites to disperse the ghosts of winter to help bring a fruitful harvest. They thought it might work with terrifying masks which should scare even ghosts. And what is more scarier than the devil himself? Right, nothing! Even ghosts have to be scared by the devil.

In 2012 not much has changed. Of course we know that scaring ghosts is not going to work, but traditions are deep-rooted and somehow people still believe in the power of pagan rituals. And in the countryside there is nothing more important than a good harvest, so why not help a good harvest along by getting rid of some winter ghosts one way or another. Old habits die hard I guess.

Toronto, Canada

By Mark Blinch

Rob Ford is a very interesting man. He is definitely not your typical mayor. At Reuters, city politics is not usually something we cover. If we do, it’s usually because of a big city election or a major mayoral scandal. In Toronto, it looks like we may be on the brink of both.

Ford was legally removed from office on Monday after a judge found him guilty of violating conflict-of-interest laws.

The controversy began back in 2010. That’s when Ford raised eyebrows by soliciting donations for his private football foundation using official city letterhead. Ford’s actions were questioned again when he took part in a council debate and vote on the matter, voting to remove the sanctions that were ordered against him.