Photographers Blog

Royal media circus comes to Canada

The last few days have been frantic to say the least as part of the traveling media circus following William and Kate across Canada.

There are no media charter flights on this particular tour which means that in order to stay apace with the couple’s Canadian airforce jet we are constantly having to decide which events to shoot whilst leaving us enough time to dash to the airport to get our scheduled flights.

This is a nightmare, as you just never know where the picture will happen and you are making decisions based purely on pre-tour briefings and judgment. Fortunately, we are blessed with a hugely talented pool of local photographers in Canada who can still provide coverage at events whilst I race to the airport repacking my kit as I go.

The last few days have been more manic than usual with the couple hopping from the east of the country at Prince Edward Island all the way north to the arctic circle and Yellowknife.

The time zone changes and constant traveling are beginning to take its toll on the traveling pool, but thankfully this has been eased somewhat with two of the best days so far for pictures.

Embedded in Afghanistan

Everyone will tell you that Afghanistan is a great place to take pictures. No one will inform you it’s a very difficult place to take pictures in the peak of summer, both for cameras and photographers.

It’s my second time embedding in Afghanistan, my previous embed was in February 2010, a time of year when the air is still clear after winter and the light is soft like no other place on earth.

This time I’m embedded in Kandahar in midsummer, at the edge of the Reg desert that spreads all the way to Pakistan and heats up to 45 degrees Celsius. The sunrise is at 4:30 and by 7:00 it’s already impossible to take any pictures due to the brightness of the sun.

I’m here to cover the last days of the Canadian army’s combat role, as they prepare to depart after 10 years and 156 soldiers killed, leaving only a small non-combatant force of trainers in Kabul.

The Canadian army now has about 3000 troops on the ground and from 2006 has held the command of the Southern province of Kandahar.

My coverage started with a ceremony at FOB (forward operating base) Masan Ghar in the Panjwai district of Kandahar, to dismantle the unofficial remembrance monument for fallen Canadian soldiers who died in Afghanistan.

Behind the scenes: Winter Olympics

The 2010 Olympics in Vancouver presented some rarely seen challenges for Reuters photographers on assignment at the winter games.

Rain! Rain! And more rain!

Photographer Mark Blinch waits to shoot Olympic action. REUTERS/Andre Forget/QMI agency

Cypress Mountain, the home of snowboarding and freestyle skiing was quite possibly the worst Olympic venue of all time. Photographers were confronted with rain, fog and constantly shifting photo positions. As the snow melted positions became useless and had to be changed. Communications failed in the wet and the organizers moved snow from the finish area to other parts of the course to keep the events moving. Despite the trying conditions some wonderful pictures were made. Highlights included Alexandre Bilodeau, winning Canada’s first ever gold medal on home soil and the dazzling Shaun White in the halfpipe.

Shaun White of the U.S. celebrates in the finish area after his first run in the men’s halfpipe finals on Cypress Mountain at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, February 17, 2010. REUTERS/Mark Blinch

Men’s hockey was a special challenge for the Reuters photo team. The pressure on us to produce was immense as was the pressure on the Canadian team to rebound from a poor showing in Turin and take the hockey mad nation of Canada to nirvana.

We hung four cameras in the roof of the rink, two directly over the nets and two at center ice looking back into the nets. Special thanks to the arena crew who decided to test the giant air horn used when goals are scored while we were right next to it. Thirty stories above the ice — on a narrow catwalk. Luckily, none of the things we were holding left our hands as we jumped three feet in the air.

from Olympics Notebook: Vancouver 2010:

Winter Games: picture of the day

Kevin Fylan

Feb 17, 2010 11:40 EST

Paul Barker writes on Tuesday:

I spent much of the day editing the women's 500 metre speed skating race, looking at many very good pictures. Jerry Lampen's frame of Annette Gerritsen of the Netherlands crashing as Nao Kodaira of Japan speeds past was the image of the day from that event.

Close quarters with a cannibal

Corinne Perkins

Dec 9, 2009 16:44 EST

Iain Williams is a freelance Wildlife and Nature Photographer based out of Hobart, Australia.  His exclusive photos of a polar bear eating a cub were published as a slideshow on www.reuters.com. Below, Iain recounts how he came to take the photographs. The opinions expressed are his own.

Michael Perry, our chief correspondent in Australia, added a caption that referenced a vast global study in 2008. That study, published here, said that human-generated climate  change had  turned some polar bears into cannibals

A male polar bear carries the head of a polar bear cub it killed and cannibalized in an area about 300 km (186 miles) north of the Canadian town of Churchill November 20, 2009.

To photograph polar bears in the wild requires considerable pre-planning.  I engaged Frontiers North to assist with the logistics to approach polar bears at close quarters in sub-zero temperatures.  Before I departed, I knew what I wanted to achieve – images that would help to show the plight of the polar bear in relation to global climate change.

On the day I captured these images, I observed ravens engaged in what appeared to be antagonizing behavior towards a large male polar bear.  On closer inspection I realized that the ravens were pecking at bits of a carcass that the bear was consuming.  Circling the male bear was a smaller female polar bear that appeared to be exhibiting major signs of stress; her gait was unwieldy, her head was swaying from side to side and she was making continual low vocalizations.  It was only after some time that I realized the carcass was in fact a first year baby cub and the circling bear was the mother.

Human roadblock

I was relaxing Sunday evening killing zombies on the Xbox, when I got a news alert on my blackberry stating Tamil protesters were blocking two lanes of traffic on the Gardiner Expressway.  The Gardiner is a major freeway that goes through downtown Toronto. We don’t often see big protests or demonstrations, so my excitement begins to build.

The freeway snakes in between high rise condo buildings, and my first instinct was to figure out a way to get a vantage point up in the building to shoot the protest from a high angle.  I spotted a couple of guys enjoying a few beers on their 10th floor balcony  and shouted up. They were happy to come down and take me up to a spot overlooking the site of the protest. I took my pictures of the blockaded road, filed them, and got back down to street level to see if I could get in nice and close.

I ran up the onramp to the freeway, and spent a few minutes shooting the flags in the crowd, before making my way to the front lines. The demonstrators were peaceful, and the police seemed to be somewhat patient with the large crowd. Demonstration leaders kept the crowd calm with megaphones, telling them to keep the peace, but that didn’t keep a few aggressive situations from developing.

After I made my way to the front of the protest, some of the demonstrators and police began pushing and shoving, and a protester got hit in the back of the head with a baton by a police officer.  I’m still unsure why tempers escalated, but the man emerged from the scuffle with a bloody head. It was extremely dark and though the batteries in my flash were dying, I was able to shoot a frame every 3 seconds and managed to catch the police officer hitting the protester in the head.

The crowd began to yell “Sit down, let the media see what happened!”. People started to sit down as the man emerged from the crowd with a bloody face. I ran down to try to get in nice and close, where I was able to make some frames of him.

Reuters aces Canadian Photos of the Year competition

Corinne Perkins

Apr 28, 2009 18:26 EDT

Reuters News has aced four categories, as well as ranking in three other categories, in the annual News Photographers Association of Canada Photos of the Year competition. This year’s competition drew over 2,000 entries from 125 photographers. Thomas Szlukovenyi, Global Editor of Pictures, said “These awards pay tribute to the high quality of Reuters photography and further cement our reputation with clients as the leading source of photojournalism in Canada. Congratulations to all the winners.”

Reuters photographers were honored with the following 7 awards:

General News: 1st – Mark Blinch

Feature: 1st – Andy Clark

Honourable Mention – Mathieu Belanger

Snakes alive: Audio slideshow

In this arid river valley in southeastern Alberta, Adam Martinson is trying to find out why rattlesnakes cross the road.

Martinson, a University of Calgary student working on a Masters degree has come to Dinosaur Provincial Park, listed as a United Nations World Heritage site, to study why snakes slither onto — and too frequently die on — the asphalt blacktop of the region’s roads.

Photographer Todd Korol looks into the fate of rattlesnakes on Canadian roads.

Cricket, lovely cricket…

Andy Clark

Jul 4, 2008 06:23 EDT

Glancing up while sitting in the departure lounge of Grantley Adams Airport in Barbados my heart sank - oh crap! – joining me and a few other passengers in the waiting area was the Australian Cricket team.  Nothing personal, all good guys.   Some passengers, who were clearly supporters, reacted with muted excitement.  But it became painfully obvious to me, the team was joining us on our flight leaving shortly for St Vincent. I smiled an evil grin at the ignorant supporters in the lounge for they were unaware of the fact that the team’s presence on our plane meant only one thing and it wasn’t good… but I will come back to that.

I have been covering cricket in the West Indies for about 15 years now and consider myself a veteran of many a tour through the islands.  When I tell friends and colleagues that I am off to the Caribbean for cricket, I am constantly met comments of the, ”wow nice!!” or “man another tough assignment in paradise”, kind. I admit, it sounds pretty good to me too, but I know better… I have been there, got the T-shirt and worn it out. 

Most people when they travel down to the Windies for a holiday fly on a major airline, unpack, sit in the sun, drink too much, burn their skin the colour of a ripe tomato, pack their bags, get back on that big jet and go home… no fuss no muss. I and my photo colleagues also board that big jet but remain behind to move from island to island for the next four to eight weeks… well read on…

Now, before I give the impression I am about to regale you with nothing but tales of woe, let me say that covering cricket in the Windies is usually a lot of fun.  But I am biased as I love the sport and love covering it. West Indians love their cricket so much that some of the islands often declare a national holiday to allow fans to attend a One-Day International.

The atmosphere can be a carnival-like with loud Caribbean music between overs, especially the catchy favourites like the cricket tune “Rally Round the West Indies” and the various Bob Marley tunes.  The fans are emotional and not shy about shouting advice at the West Indies side encouraging them to “lash” the ball and erupting with joy as a well hit shot drives to the boundary or howls of mocking laughter if the opposing side appeals for LBW or their batsman ducks a bouncer.