Photographers Blog

By Henry Romero

The security fence surrounding the hotel in the upscale neighborhood of Polanco, Mexico, where Justin Bieber was scheduled to give a news conference, was impressive. It was far away from the main entrance of the hotel – far enough away to make sure that the throngs of frenzied girls would not be able to trample their object of lust to death. Girls still dressed in their school uniform endured the sun for hours, screaming or singing his songs together, without knowing each other but bonding through their love for him.

When we, the photographers and journalists, were walking past to get into position for the news conference, the girls begged to come along with us “Sir, let me carry your equipment; don’t you need an assistant?; Pleeeease, I love him sooo much, please, take me with you…….” while they hugged the fence and held pictures of Justin pressed to their hearts.

One of them was holding onto a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Justin like it was the real thing; Justin – the cardboard lover.

Later, at Mexico City’s main square the Zocalo, the screaming was a thousand fold. The crowd was more diverse as it was a free concert. For many it was the only chance to see Justin Bieber without having to pay a small fortune.

Mothers and fathers accompanied their daughters as they waited 12 hours ahead of the concert. They camped on the streets near the square in order to be able to land a good spot in front of the stage.

By Suzanne Plunkett

Jellied eels. Toad in the hole. Bangers and mash. The Full English. An Eton mess. Trifle. Crumble. Yorkshire pudding. Scotch eggs. A menu of oddly named and sometimes oddly tasting traditional British dishes awaits adventurous diners visiting London for the Olympic Games this summer.

To an American like me, the names of English foods take some getting used to. Take the term “pudding”. In the States, a pudding is specifically a runny, milk-based desert. In England it refers to anything sweet served after the main course– unless it is from Yorkshire, and then it is savory, resembles a popover, and is served with roast beef. The closest thing the English have to American pudding is custard — a luminous yellow sweet sauce which they insist on drowning their deserts in. They consider it a comfort food but I find it revolting, even when my English husband tries to pass it off under the exotic French title of “crème anglais”.

I discovered my favorite English desert after I had been touring the country on a bus for four days. My taste buds had been numbed by a steady diet of egg salad sandwiches and salt and vinegar crisps (or chips, as we Americans call them) so the first time I tried an Eton mess, I swooned. The simple combination of crumbled meringue, vanilla ice cream, strawberries and whipped cream was heavenly. The name of the desert refers to Eton college, a posh school in Queen Elizabeth’s hometown. I imagine mess comes from the appearance of the dish. Recently I made one with my three-year-old daughter and she now shares my passion and nightly begs me to “make the mess again”. I admit, my taste buds might not be the most sophisticated.

By Yves Herman

Picture five photographers and one technician traveling together between the cities of Kharkiv and Donetsk in Ukraine, at an average of 38 degrees C (100 degrees Fahrenheit) with air humidity of more than 50%. Eastern Ukraine is definitely not a fresh or cool place to stay during this EURO 2012 soccer championships. Nevertheless, it is our job to be there and it is a pure pleasure to be sitting alongside the pitch and taking photos of Europe’s best soccer teams. On that journey a cooling rain would have been most appreciated.

Alessandro from Italy, Felix from Spain, Michael from Switzerland, Vasily from Belarus, our technician Rod from Washington DC and myself, based in Belgium, hit the road early on June 15 on our way to Donetsk. An eagerly anticipated match between Ukraine and France was to take place that day at the famous Donbass Arena in front of more than 40,000 fans.

After a more than five hour tough drive, we arrived at the venue at around 1500 and temperatures had crept up even further. We could feel how wet the atmosphere was, even if the sky was a deep blue and cloud free.

By Tony Gentile

It’s not the first time I have covered an international sport event and a soccer tournament. I was in Germany for the FIFA world cup in 2006, in Austria and Switzerland for Euro 2008 and now I’m covering Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine. Every time, I’ve followed Italy’s soccer team. It’s a interesting job but sometimes it can be repetitive. You spend about one month with the same people, your photo and text colleagues and the players. Everyday you cover a training session and news conference and travel around the country to cover the matches. C onstantly you have to try to find a different picture as well.
But sometimes something different turns up, in Poland we left soccer briefly and turned to history.

Like other national soccer teams, Italy also visited the Auschwitz former Nazi death camp in Oswiecim.

For me it was not the first time in Auschwitz, I had been there in 2000 to do a short movie with some students and I remember it as a shocking experience. Hundreds of people walking in the camp transform the area into a touristic place, but only when you concentrate your ear on what the guide says and see, for example, the shoes of thousands of babies killed by the SS a shiver runs down your spine, you start to feel part of the history, especially if the guide is a survivor of the Holocaust.

By Darren Staples

You off again?” people say. “Ukraine? The Euros? You’ve got the best job in the world haven’t you?”

So here I am, the man with ‘the best job in the world’, about to have a needle stuck in my backside by one half of the Mario brothers.

It wasn’t meant to be like this.

As a day, it started like many others; up at 5am to catch my fourth of eleven flights during this tournament, bleary-eyed and grey I helped fellow photographers Eddie Keogh, Alexander Demianchuk and technician Magnus Storm load the taxi to the roof with our equipment.

The accident happened in Shuangxi, Fujian province, when the steel bars accidentally broke
and popped out from a machine, piercing through the worker’s body at around 3pm on
June 11.

The worker was sent to a hospital in Hangzhou, where the picture was taken, as the operation
could not be done at a local hospital. The surgery started around nine hours after the
accident happened and was a success after more than five hours.

The photo was taken during the first phase of the operation, to shorten the steel bars, as the
firefighter advised on how to dissect them. The co-workers helped to hold the bars with pliers
and used a steel carving machine under supervision by the doctors.

By Lisi Niesner

The wooden gate was half open. I knocked on the door and entered. The room was sparsely lit. Everything in the unexpectedly small workshop was black or grey and the few things that had been colorful in past days were now soot-black. The smell of iron was dominant.

Blacksmith brothers Johann and Georg Schmidberger stood at their workplaces. They did not look up. Smith’s dirty hands rhythmically led down the hammer to a strike. The beats were powerful but with a gentle accuracy. This was a seriously cool scene.

The welcome was friendly but reserved and there was no introduction on how to behave in a blacksmith’s workshop where the iron is heated to 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 degrees Fahrenheit). There were no precautions at all. Carefully I stepped back and forth inside the workshop in order not to disturb. Hammers and tongs in all sizes were piled on each other next to plenty of pieces of metal in all conceivable shapes. Between all those tools and metal items, I absolutely could not even name, I felt like an intruder.

By Petr Josek

Yeah, yeah, yeah 4-1 loss for the Czechs against Russia in Wroclaw. The Russian fans left the city for Warsaw after that and ended up fighting Polish supporters. Wroclaw is calm and quiet. Here the fans like each other and the city center is calm and full of friendly faces. The spotlight moves on, but there is still work to be done.

After the next round the Czechs became a decisive opponent for Poland in advancing from Group A. Its a championship and the teams need to keep sharp, away from the headlines, and for photographers there are images to be made that tell the story. Eyes on the prize.

As in previous EURO competitions I’ve been assigned to cover the team, and shooting training is a hell of a lot of work, even when everyone else is looking elsewhere. Let’s see what they look like even when there is “No Coverage” in the picture planner.

By David Gray

Blind Chinese lawyer Chen Guangcheng grabbed the world’s attention in April when he refused to leave the U.S. embassy in Beijing after escaping from his village where he was under home detention. The end result was that he and his wife were put on a plane to New York. Over the next few weeks, the Chen family that still lived in the family home were subjected to beatings and house raids by local plainclothes security personnel. During one of these raids, Chen’s nephew tried to stop the invaders, and as a result is in detention for attempted murder – a crime that carries the death penalty in China.

Just three weeks ago I photographed Guangcheng’s elder brother, Chen Guangfu, who had managed to slip out of the same village as his brother in an attempt to obtain a good lawyer for his son’s case. As I was photographing Guangfu he recounted the beating he had suffered as retaliation for his brother’s escape. He said he no longer has any feeling in his left hand. When the interview finished I thought I would probably never see this brave man again but when we received word it might be possible to visit his village, we headed straight there.

Myself, Royston Chan of Reuters Television, and text correspondent Sui-Lee Wee, boarded planes and flew to Shinyi in Shandong Province, some 600 kilometers (372 miles) southwest of Beijing. A driver was waiting for us when we landed; a good contact as a result of Royston’s previous attempts to visit the village. We drove the 70 kilometers (43 miles) or so to Dongshigu village. As we approached the turn-off, we had our cameras ready and drove past to determine what we would do next.

By Kai Pfaffenbach

Being a Reuters photographer means you travel a lot. War zones, disasters or political visits are on your list. By far the most exiting events – for me – are still the big sports events. 2012 offers a nice variety and the Euro 2012 soccer tournament will be an excellent warm up for the Olympic games to follow shortly in London.

Although I’ve followed the German team in previous tournaments this time it’s a different approach for me to cover the tournament. With my colleagues Pascal Lauener from Switzerland, Austria’s chief photographer Leo Foeger and our technician Gilles de Queiros from France I’m covering the games in Warsaw and Gdansk. With the complicated history of Poland’s and Germany’s relationship in mind I started this trip with different expectations and was wondering if our Polish hosts had any prejudices against Germans. Let’s not forget the first shots of World War II were fired at Gdansk (then Danzig) in September, 1939.

After five days of work in both cities my first resume is very clear: it is a great pleasure to be here! Beside some serious security officers at the Gdansk stadium (they decided to trade their smile in for the uniform) all the people we met were incredibly nice, friendly and gave us a very warm welcome. Volunteers in the stadium, young soccer fans in and around the stadiums or the sales people at the local supermarket seem to like especially the German soccer team. Obviously it helps that two of Germany’s best players are born in Poland. Lukas Podolski and Miroslav “Mirek” Klose are as popular as Poland’s own soccer heroes Kuba Blasczikowski and Robert Lewandowski who play for German soccer champion Borussia Dortmund. It especially helps when they train in tops saying “I like it!” in Polish.