Photographers Blog

By Damir Sagolj

(WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT)

The bottom picture is of a dead man killed by who-knows-who and left alone in the desert. I shot this image almost ten years ago from atop a U.S. Marines tank speeding towards Baghdad.

It immediately got lost, the photo itself, amongst others illustrating what would be celebrated as the liberation of a country from a tyrant. Other images of fighting and those of U.S. soldiers doing this and that played well in the papers. Somewhere near Nassiriya, this man was left forgotten to rot under the desert sun — and on our hard drives.

Not long after, I realized that was probably my best shot from the short invasion from Kuwait to Baghdad. This was a simple but powerful picture of an unknown man killed by whomever and left alone among tank trails, surrounded by nothing but dust and the noise of war. Everyone was too busy with their personal wars at the moment, I suppose. People had to survive, to run away, while others had to win battles and justify their leader’s decisions. I had to take more pictures that seemed more important for the world of news that is always hungry for answers to those questions.

Yesterday I edited a strong set of pictures shot by a young, talented and brave Reuters photographer in Myanmar named Soe Zeya Tun. He covered another round of the terrible story of ethnic clashes between Muslim Rohingya people and the local Buddhist Rakhine population.

The first picture he sent that I picked up was something that made me look into my archive for that Iraqi man. It was Soe Zeya’s powerful picture of a single body (a woman? a Muslim?) floating in the sea not far from the village that was burnt in the latest escalation of bloody violence. People were escaping the violence in their rickety boats. This one didn’t make it.

Reuters photographer Brian Snyder spent a day behind the scenes with Mitt Romney, documenting his campaign.

By Brian Snyder

Photographing Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney as he campaigns across the United States is often about trying to find the candidate amongst all of the supporters and entourage around him. We see him at rallies surrounded by hundreds or thousands of enthusiastic supporters, at off the record stops in an uncontrolled swirl moving around a restaurant among unsuspecting diners, in a motorcade of a dozen vehicles, and on airport tarmacs while a parade of staff, security and press load onto the campaign plane. We are always in a crowd with more photographers, U.S. Secret Service agents and campaign staff all working in small spaces.

GALLERY: A day with Mitt Romney

But stepping one layer inside that, to document a “day in the life” of the candidate and the campaign, revealed an unexpected calm.  Governor Romney spent time talking to one or two advisors, joked in a room alone with his closest aide, and watched a video feed by himself as he was introduced to take the stage at a rally. There was space.

By Kevin Lamarque

“We’re pulling an all-nighter” — President Barack Obama’s refrain to crowds across the U.S.A. throughout his non-stop 40-hour campaign swing.

An all-nighter? Really? As in we sleep on the plane? On a domestic trip? Seriously? This was my initial reaction upon seeing the White House press schedule and failing to find a hotel mentioned anywhere. But sure enough, that was the deal.

I am pretty used to sleeping on Air Force One on the many long-haul international trips taken by presidents, and honestly, the seats are a lot more comfortable than on board your average cramped commercial airliner. But thankfully, to my knowledge, I have never had to call Air Force One my bed or hotel while traveling in my own country. This was about the change.

By Carlos Garcia Rawlins

I was standing on a raised television platform less than ten meters from “El Candidato,” when the scaffolding collapsed. It was nighttime in Barquisimeto, and with great difficulty I saw him appear, navigating through the dark mass of supporters. He was riding atop a pickup truck, waving to the crowd on the way to the stage. I could barely see anything in the darkness as the lighting system seemed to fail completely.

Just as I was about to take a picture, one of our platform supports gave way and we were on the verge of toppling onto the dark mass of people. It could have been a tragedy. It was the second collapse of the day, after another platform meant to hold journalists had collapsed earlier. In hindsight it was a perfect metaphor for what would happen four days later, when Henrique Capriles, a.k.a. El Candidato, lost the election to Hugo Chavez by more than a million and a half votes.

But for him and his team, losing wasn’t an option.

The rallies always had the same script, like a movie looped around to repeat itself. There were a few changes in light or in landscape, depending on the regions where they were held. It was a frantic campaign in which the opposition candidate toured all 24 states, four times. The state he visited least was Delta Amacuro, but he still stopped there twice.

By Jorge Silva

Before the recent election campaign in Venezuela, the last time that I had been close enough to Hugo Chavez to use a wide angle lens was last February when he left for Cuba to be treated for a recurrence of his cancer.  That farewell began as a solemn procession through the streets of Caracas, with Chavez dressed in black, riding in a dark van with open sunroof and an image of Christ on the windshield. His supporters showered him with flowers on the way to the airport, as he left his followers in suspended animation, and his future full of doubt.

This campaign was a re-encounter with him; one that many didn’t believe would happen again. His cancer disappeared from the agenda, and Chavez was back. For his followers it was the difference between night and day, or the idea of a Venezuela without him contrasted with his reappearance in power, where he had been for the last 14 years.

Whenever Chavez appeared the masses screamed wildly. If he were a boxer he would be an undefeated veteran, with many blows against him and without the same youthful agility, but with his own solid punch intact. To his faithful, Chavez remained the synonym of hope.

By Damir Sagolj

In front of me stood what must have been the most beautiful “god’s” body in the whole of Phuket. Her gentle pink robe swayed above bare feet as she made her way in a trance through the crowd of devotees at the Chinese Jui Tui shrine. And her pretty face was pierced with a long spike, a piece of fruit stuck on its end.

This woman was a “mah song”, roughly translated from the Thai language as “entranced horse” or “one whose body is used by gods as a vehicle”. She was the centre of attention for a good reason. For the day, she represented a god whose powers would help purify members of the community and wash away any bad karma.

GALLERY: Extreme vegetarian festival

“The god has to hurt itself, for cleaning us from our bad deeds”, the brother of a mah song told a confused journalist, who was practically from another universe.

By  Jim Urquhart

He stood there with a shotgun over his shoulder and asked me in no uncertain terms, “What do you think about oil drilling?” And in that moment, the seasoned oil man I had come across pheasant hunting with five of his friends in a field west of the oil boom town of Williston, North Dakota, had me stunned like a deer in headlights.

GALLERY: North Dakota’s oil boom

There was never a threat of danger, but there was definitely a bit of suspicion as to what my motives were. Being obviously out of place, having asked these guys where an oil drilling rig was and after telling them I was a member of the media, I had to pause for a moment.

Part of me was thinking, “Whatever you think of oil is what I think too.” But I just explained to him I had no dog in this fight and was there to document the oil boom. It was the truth and it was all I had.

By Larry Downing

The final Presidential debate between incumbent U.S. President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney is only a few short autumn days away and a great chance to somehow connect with and persuade undecided voters to punch their ticket on Election Day 2012.

Both men have so far scored high marks as fearless debaters eloquently pointing out the glaring weaknesses and flaws hiding inside the “other” party’s ideologue with precise, intellectual arguments measuring up to the price of their Harvard University degrees. It has also proved to be a stress test for each one to be seen as polite while on a national stage, yet, still aggressively arguing their own passions and at the same time remembering there is no more promise of campaigns tomorrow once the votes are tallied.

And both have proven themselves as equally impassioned candidates grinding through this endless campaign season leading up to November 6th. Two ambitious politicians consumed by their own determination to convince voters to let their families move upstairs at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for the next four years by singing party lyrics to anyone carrying a microphone. These two foes are politically polar-opposites linked together by their joint willingness to invite the sharp, concentrated lights of the national news media into their personal space to snoop around much like the late night reality shows.

By Yiorgos Karahalis

Mata Nikolarou, a jewellery shop owner in Athens, says she is not surprised that thousands of businesses in the capital have had to shut down.

“It was about time to happen. The market needed a clear off. Everyone in Greece had become a merchant, either by taking over their father’s shop or by taking out a cheap loan from the bank,” she said, explaining that most merchants had appeared out of the blue.

Almost a third of businesses and shops around the Greek capital have shut down over the last two years, as Greece’s crisis broke out and it agreed on a huge bailout package funded by the IMF and the European Union.

By Darrin Zammit Lupi

I attended a brief and very poignant ceremony; the funeral of four Nigerian would-be immigrants who drowned while attempting to reach a better life, crossing to Europe by sea, crossing the central Mediterranean that has become a graveyard.

Six immigrants died on that crossing last August. Four bodies were recovered, including that of a fourteen year old boy.

The burial took place months after the accident, because DNA tests were necessary to confirm the identities of the four who died.