Photographers Blog

By Swoan Parker

“I’m living in a bad place and didn’t want to get involved in any bad things”, is what 27-year-old Wilkens Sinar told me. His neighborhood, Cité Soleil, is one of the poorest and most dangerous slums in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and just 500 miles from the United States. This densely populated area located near the capital of Port-au-Prince houses families who mostly migrated from the countryside in search of work. Unable to afford the rents in most of the capital, they have no other choice but to settle here where powerful gangs operate rampantly.

As I walked through the endless maze of shanty homes built of pieces of concrete or junk metal latched together, the smell of raw sewage permeated the air. I found myself at the seacoast where small boats were docked and fishermen were either setting off or returning with their catch of mostly small crabs and fish.

I watched the activity for a while before striking up a conversation with Wilkens, and his friends and fellow fishermen Dieufait Louis-Pierre, 27, and Mackenson Dollus, 28. It was 6 am and the three were just returning from collecting their crab baskets that they had set out the night before.

For Mackenson and Dieufait, fishing was as natural an activity as breathing. They came from a family of fishermen and it is their only means of income. For Wilkens it was different. He told me that Mackenson introduced him to the idea just after the 2010 earthquake. Before the quake he used to sell little sacks of drinking water, but wasn’t making nearly enough money to live on.  He didn’t have any other job prospects and like Mackenson and Diefuait, had little formal education. Dieufait never attended school at all. His mother died when he was 3 months old, so his grandmother raised him. She could never afford the cost of tuition. All three of the men have children of their own whom they wish to provide for, none attend school either as there just isn’t enough money.

The men explained that earning a living as fishermen is a constant struggle. They often do not have enough money to buy even the crab baskets that they need. The baskets, which cost 75 gourdes ($1.79) each, need to be replaced every three months. There isn’t a fishing association in Cite Soleil where they can go for assistance like in other parts of the country. Unable to purchase a boat of their own, they must rent one for $25 per month.

By Kevin Lamarque

There may be no free lunch, but for those seeking to take in art and education, visiting Washington is a bargain. The Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest museum and research complex, includes 19 museums and galleries. All of which are free of charge. Add to that the National Gallery of Art, and the only toll you will pay is the fatigue on your legs as you wander from site to site in the nation’s capital.

I have upon occasion been lured into the National Gallery of Art, located next to the U.S. Capitol, before or after covering my news assignments on Capitol Hill. The National Gallery of Art provided me with a temporary escape from the world of politics that dominates this town. It also gave me some much needed visual stimulation. I would rarely come out without some interesting photo for Reuters. I enjoyed trying to capture the aesthetic relationship between the physical space of the gallery, the art and the visitor.

VIEW A LARGE FORMAT GALLERY: SMITHSONIAN STILLS

I wondered if the other galleries offered similar visual opportunities. Summer is high tourist season in Washington, a good time for me to join the masses and see what they come to see. My plan was to visit the National Gallery and all the Smithsonian museums and galleries located downtown in an attempt to make at least one nice photo at each locale. It’s a checklist I should have completed long ago. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit I’d only visited a few of these places in my 13 years of living here.

By Jessica Rinaldi

Imagine a mountain, the type of thing that you might go skiing on in the winter. Now picture yourself running up and down said mountain for nine miles and just for kicks why don’t you throw in some really sadistic obstacles? Things like fire and mud and just to make it more fun why not throw in some live wires? Yeah, live wires. You know just string them over that mud pit there so that you’ll get zapped as you’re trying to get across to the other side. We’ll call it the electric eel. What’s that you say? You’d like a dumpster full of ice cubes to jump into as well? Done. Congratulations you’ve just entered the world of the Tough Mudder, an event so intense that in order to compete you must sign a waiver releasing the planners from liability should you happen to die somewhere along the course.

SLIDESHOW: ONE TOUGH MUDDER

Let me be clear, this event is a sports photographer’s paradise. The mud alone would be enough to combat every extra inning baseball game you’ve ever shot (what’s that you say, 17 innings and not a single good picture?) but then throw in the ice cubes, the fire, the electrified wires, and a bunch of contestants so focused on getting through the thing that they have no idea you’re even there and well… you get the point.

You might assume that a photographer on her way to cover such an event would think to bring some sort of suitable covering for her equipment. I would love to tell you that I busted out the expensive rain covers for my cameras and wrapped them up lovingly, keeping a microfiber cleaning cloth in my pocket to quickly wipe away any debris that got on my lens. But that would be a lie. I carried three cameras with me and threw caution to the muddy, muddy wind.

By Umit Bektas

I have always wondered how athletes, who must exert incredible amounts of energy in whichever sports discipline they compete in, handle the issue of nutrition. As the London Olympics approached us, we Reuters photographers began to make our photo stories. I decided to create a photography project stemming from this curiosity of mine. I planned to interview some of the Turkish athletes preparing to compete in the Games and take pictures of what they ate. Sometimes you think a project that sounds good will also be easy to carry out and this is very exciting but when you actually become involved that euphoria is replaced by anxiety. This is exactly what happened to me.

SLIDESHOW: AN OLYMPIC DIET

The hardest part was to persuade the athletes to spare a few hours in the studio which meant taking a break from their exercise program. I wanted to take photos of six athletes but I was rejected by at least three times that number of other athletes. Some said they were training abroad, or in other cities. For others, their trainers rejected my request saying their charges would “lose their concentration”.

I had to get permission from the sports federation involved, then from the coaches or trainers of the athletes I wanted to photograph and finally from the athlete themselves.

By Enrique Marcarian

When Argentina invaded the Falklands in 1982, I tried to reach there on an Argentine Air Force plane from the continental mainland, but due to restrictions imposed by the military government I only reached a port on the Patagonian coast. I was stuck there for a week, but as I was there I managed to photograph what I still remember as one of the saddest moments in the story of that conflict – the return of the ARA Alferez Sobral, the Navy’s rescue tug that had been attacked by British helicopters. On board the boat were survivors with their uniforms torn and trembling in the South Atlantic cold, and eight dead crew members in coffins.

It was only 23 years later, in 2005, that I finally did manage to reach the islands in one of the weekly commercial flights leaving from Chile. That was to be my first coverage of life in the Islands. I was anxious to see how the locals would react to an Argentine photographer taking pictures of them.

My first stop was at a major dart tournament. I entered cautiously trying to be unnoticed, which worked at first while everyone was focused on the dartboards and beer drinking. Once I had a few beers and took a few pictures, a couple of schoolteachers took notice of my nationality. To my surprise, instead of throwing me out they asked me about my country, and complimented me on then-Foreign Minister Guido di Tella for having sent Christmas presents to Falklands children.

By Joseba Etxaburu

I’m a fireman and photo stringer for Reuters. I have been coming to the San Fermin festival for the past 12 years.

Every year I try to find new images and new ways to tell the stories we see. One of the events I usually cover is the release of wild cows into the bullring following the running of the bulls. A young cow chases revelers around knocking them down and occasionally tossing them.

SLIDESHOW: RUNNING OF THE BULLS

Looking for a different angle, for a while I have been going into the ring with a wide angle lens – getting as close to the action as possible while keeping an eye on the cow, which is very fast and often pretty bad tempered. On Thursday, I hadn’t really planned to go into the ring but Reuters photographer Susana Vera said she wanted to shoot the action with a long lens. I thought it wasn’t worth both of us doing the same type of pictures. So I went in.

By Thomas Peter

The Bundestag in Berlin, session 188. The plenum below the grand glass dome of the Reichstag building is buzzing with the voices of lawmakers who are to vote today on the ratification of Europe’s permanent bailout mechanism.

News photographers pluck the occasional picture from among the crowd with a timid click of their cameras. But everyone is waiting for Chancellor Angela Merkel.

A summit of EU leaders in Brussels has finished only hours earlier. A summit that Ms Merkel left as the defeated, after Spain and Italy cornered her into budging to their demand to use EU rescue fund money for the direct recapitalisation of banks, something that thus far had been a red rag for Germany.

By Cathal McNaughton

I’ve been covering the economic crisis in Ireland for over three years, chronicling the changes as the Celtic Tiger becomes a distant memory and the austerity measures grip the country.

But because I’m in Dublin so frequently I have probably become accustomed to the sight of unfinished buildings, “to let” signs and boarded up shops. I no longer properly notice the terrible decline that is gripping the country.

Recently I was on assignment in Oslo, Norway, covering the visit of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and it was while I was there that I took time to look around another major European city. The contrast was stark.

By Olivia Harris

London is a city full of trees, well-known for its public parks. But away from the bustle of Hyde Park and Regents Park are the gardens hidden in its residential squares, the quiet, shady spaces, ringed with iron railings and hedges that separate you from the rush of the city.

I have often spent sunny afternoons talking with friends in city squares. Parents bring their children and city workers share beers there after work.

These quiet corners of the city began to emerge, like much of London, in a haphazard fashion. In the 19th century, developers began to include private communal gardens for residents of the city’s squares. But Berkley Square exists because Lord Berkely insisted it shouldn’t be built on when the surrounding area was developed – to preserve the view from his London townhouse.

By Marcelo del Pozo

It’s five o’clock in the morning and I find myself in a place and situation that I’m sure I shouldn’t be in, much less taking pictures.

Jose Manuel Abel, his wife Olive and their two children, Claudia, 13, and Jose Manuel, 16, were crying and hugging one another as they didn’t know when would be the next time they would see each other.

SLIDESHOW: NEW COUNTRY, NEW LIFE

Abel, from southern Spain, is one of a growing number of Spaniards moving to Germany for work after failing to find a job at home. He has to leave his wife and children behind for the time being, but sees no other choice. Abel, who used to work as a salesman during Spain’s boom years, selling insurance, books, water filters and vending machines, has been unemployed for more than two years. With about one in four people jobless, he sees few prospects working at home and has taken a job in Munich working in the kitchen of a Spanish restaurant owned by a Spanish-German friend.