Photographers Blog

By Desmond Boylan

The variety of options and price range for vacationing in Cuba, for either Cubans or foreigners, is vast. Let’s take the average Cuban family, with an income of roughly $20 (500 pesos) per month from the husband and around $10 from the wife. Summer comes and they need a break with their two children.

SLIDESHOW: BEACHSIDE CUBA

For the equivalent of $5 (120 pesos), this family can have a short, three-day break in a popular campismo, or rural cabin for four people in a natural park or near the sea, with round trip transportation included. Conditions are spartan and unsophisticated, but clean and agreeable. Obviously the Cuban state is not making a profit on this and subsidizes the cost to make it possible for average people to enjoy a holiday. Average still means the vast majority of Cubans, as in this communist economy there are still few incomes above or below the mean.

At one campismo I asked if foreigners were allowed to pay the same $5 for a stay, and the person in charge, Arelis, answered, “Of course everyone now is welcome. Before, only Cubans were allowed, but now anyone can enjoy these facilities.”

Five dollars is the cost of two coffees in any five-star hotel in Havana or in many hotels around the world. In Cuba it is also enough to pay for a three-day vacation for a family of four people in a tropical destination. At the same time, it is also possible to pay several hundred dollars for one night in some 5-star all inclusive beach resorts in Cuba’s premier resort, Varadero.

There are other mid-priced options, but the majority of Cubans opt to spend the day on the beach, traveling back and forth from home each day during their vacation. That’s the easiest and cheapest solution for them. Campismos are overbooked and other lodging is not affordable.

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

By Jorge Dan Lopez

I was listening to the alarmed voice of a radio commentator. Once I realized what he was talking about, I began to worry about how long it would take me to get to the location.

Within minutes, all local radio and TV stations were talking about the man who had killed two children inside a school in Tactic and who was lynched by exasperated and outraged villagers. It took me three hours from Guatemala City to get to Tactic. In those three hours, the climate changed several times and so did the language.

While driving I started to remember the stories that are told in this part of Guatemala, in Alta Verapaz and Quiche, where people are predominantly of Mayan descent. Where “the people rule” and Mayan law is applied.

In conversation with Corbis Images’ Ken Johnston

Courtesy of Corbis images

It’s 80 years since this iconic image was taken during the construction of New York’s Rockefeller Center at the height of the Great Depression.

Below, Historical Director of Photography at Corbis Images Ken Johnston answers questions about the photograph.

When/how did you come across the photo? What state was it in?

It comes from the Acme Newspictures archive which Corbis acquired in 1995 as part of the Bettmann Archive. The negative is glass and at some point long ago was broken into 5 pieces. These things are delicate and breaks happen.

By Lucas Jackson

It has been one year since a group of protesters began sleeping on the ground in Zuccotti Park to protest growing income inequality, corporate influence on politics, climate change, and a number of other issues.

SLIDESHOW: RETURN OF OCCUPY

One year ago no-one had heard of Occupy Wall St. and it was fascinating to watch the excitement and size of the protest grow over time. What began as a rag tag group of people who came together to make a semi-permanent presence near Wall St. to spread their message in the heart of the New York financial district quickly grew. For those of us who live and work in New York it was a refreshing change to have a news story grow organically in a city where everything is always polished and shined to dullness in order to present to the media.

For the first time since living here there was a story that allowed you in to cover not only the unplanned demonstrations and actions but also the participants as they sat in Zuccotti dreaming and planning the direction of this movement. Most of the time demonstrators have to pre-approve everything they did with the NYPD and the city but Occupy was refreshingly obstinate in not pre-approving anything and took advantage of their constitutional right to assemble and demonstrate their displeasure with the direction of the country.

By David Gray

Starting last Wednesday, I have been riding my bike to the Japanese embassy in Beijing to cover protests against the Japanese government purchasing disputed islands in the East China Sea. These protests started off with just a few people – perhaps a few dozen – as ‘Beijingers’ are not used to being allowed to voice their opinions loudly (and most importantly, in large numbers) on the streets about anything.

SLIDESHOW: CLASHES OVER DISPUTED ISLANDS

The day it was announced that Japan had bought the islands, small groups of protesters were ushered into position by officials outside the main entrance to the embassy, and allowed to yell slogans and hold banners for around 10 minutes at a time. Some occasionally threw a water bottle or small stone over the gate, but they were quickly led away by plainclothes police with what can only be described as a ‘friendly’ warning.

So, we turned up on Saturday, thinking it would be yet another day of monotonous chanting and yelling. We carried our ladders, which had become necessary because the area that officials had deemed ‘adequate for press requirements’ was of course ridiculously small and we needed them to see over the top of each other. At first, a few groups arrived, but not in substantial numbers. But the word must have got out that protests were being ‘allowed’, and quite unexpectedly, thousands of people appeared and began pushing the outnumbered riot police guarding the embassy’s main entrance.

By Nacho Doce

A photograph may be deaf and mute, but it speaks through the interpretation and feelings of each viewer. We might say that feelings are among the few things not yet globalized in the 21st Century.

SLIDESHOW: MUSIC OF SILENCE

For the second time I found myself doing a story on handicapped children in Brazil, but this time deaf musicians were very different from blind ballerinas. What I found truly gratifying about the ballerinas was what they achieved deserved fame. Well after finishing that story, they performed in the closing ceremony of the 2012 London Paralympics. This time we decided to do a story on a music school for deaf children, only to find out after that they are invited to play Brazil’s National Anthem on their drums in the opening ceremony of the upcoming 2014 World Cup.

As the ballerinas always had their eyes closed it made it easier to portray them as blind, but with the deaf musicians it was more difficult. The majority of them don’t use a hearing aid which would have served as an obvious reference, and my pictures don’t have sound. I discovered their peculiar reason for not wearing the aid, especially those over 14 years old; they were ashamed to wear them on the street for aesthetic reasons, something I realized was natural at that age.

By Jason Lee

Around noon on September 7 two shallow earthquakes struck the mountainous area of Yiliang county of Yunnan province, China. I received my assignment to travel to the area at around 6 p.m. when the death toll reached 60.

SLIDESHOW: QUAKE AFTERMATH

As you can imagine, it is never easy to get to an earthquake-hit area. I had only 20 minutes to pack and prepare before a 3-hour flight. After that, I traveled another 8 hours by car followed by a one hour ride on the back of a motorcycle before reaching my destination. Along the road I didn’t see many collapsed buildings, but there were lots of giant rocks that had probably rolled down from mountains as the quake hit, as a result, many cars were smashed into pieces.

My memory of covering the deadly 2008 Sichuan earthquake gradually came back — apart from the damage that had already been done, I needed to watch out for possible landslides and other dangers. Every aftershock brought with it more risk for the residents and rescuers in the worst-hit area, as they were at the foot of several huge rocky mountains.

By Joe Penney

When I went to Mali to do a story on how its economy is faring, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The landlocked West African country is currently facing the biggest challenges of its 52-year existence: Jihadist rebels, many of them foreign, occupy its northern two-thirds, while politicians associated with the former regime and ex-coup military leaders squabble over power in the south.

If you just read the headlines, you might think the world has turned upside down in Mali. And indeed in the north of the country, it has: nearly 450,000 people have fled the violence there and now eke out a precarious existence in the south as well as in refugee camps in neighboring Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Niger, according to UN figures. Yet despite the political turmoil, to my pleasant surprise I found out that economically speaking Mali’s lower third — where the vast majority of its 15 million people live — is actually doing quite well.

This situation in the north is a real humanitarian emergency and aid organizations are struggling to keep up. But the industries that form the backbone of Mali’s economy — gold and cotton, both of which are located in the southern third and still under government control — have weathered the storm quite well. Gold miners both large and small-scale are producing as much gold as ever, while good rains combined with high global cotton prices mean that the four million small cotton farmers expect to earn more for their crops at harvest this October than last year.

By Susana Vera

Rafael Guerrero and his wife Luisa Diaz have been playing the lottery every Saturday ever since they got together. Three euros each week, same numbers every time, but no wins in more than fifteen years. This summer, however, Lady Luck finally smiled on them in the most unexpected way, and most importantly, for free.

SLIDESHOW: UNEMPLOYED FAMILY WINS BIG

While watching TV one day this past August, the Guerreros came across news of a contest from the Merchants Association of los Alcazares, a coastal town by the Mar Menor sea in southeastern Spain. The association promised a free week-long vacation at four-star hotels to three Spanish families with under-aged children who could prove that both parents had been unemployed for more than a year. Sadly, or luckily this time, the Guerrero-Diaz family met those requirements.

Rafael, 37, has been unemployed since June 2011, when the pipe coating factory where he had been working for five years closed down. His wife Luisa, 38, a former housekeeper, has been jobless since November 2010. The couple live with their two sons, Adrian, 4, and Rafael, 2, in a two-story home they purchased right before the start of the Spanish housing bubble in Hellin, in the Spanish region of Castilla la Mancha. “Had we waited another year to buy the house we would be far worse these days trying to make the monthly mortgage payments,” says Guerrero as he further explains that as of this month the family will have to get by with only the 800 euros he gets in unemployment benefits because his wife’s ran out in August.

By Heinz-Peter Bader

It was a beautiful late summer day with blue sky and not a single cloud when I went to the village of Piber some 200 km (124 miles) west of Vienna to see the world famous Lipizzaner horses. Well, actually, the 40 young studs were not famous yet, but some of them would be selected to become famous some day – members of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna.

SLIDESHOW: DANCING HORSES OF VIENNA

The young Lipizzaners spend their summers in the mountains, and the return back to the stud is traditionally celebrated. They are decorated with flowers, receive blessings in front of the local church and are presented to the people before they arrive at their stable after a 16 km (10 mile) walk.

The biggest challenge for photographers was the speed that they walk at. There was no time for me to “walk” as I needed to look for nice picture backgrounds in advance, run to be ready in time, photograph the flock on their way down the trail, run again to be ready at the next spot and so on. I really enjoyed the eventual arrival at the church for a short rest, in bright sunshine during one of the hottest days in September.