Photographers Blog

Ramadan started in Asia on Sunday and Indonesia-based photographer Ahmed Yusef produced this beautiful image to mark the start of the most important period in the Muslim calendar. The viewer focuses on the young woman's eyes as the red scarf draws you to her through a sea of swirling white created by a slow exposure. Also in Indonesia, Dwi Oblo's picture draws you into the picture through  light and smoke to evoke a real feeling of people humbling themselves as they pay respects to their dead relatives as they also prepare for Ramadan.

Muslim woman attend mass prayer session "Tarawih", which marks the beginning of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, at Al Markaz Al Islami mosque in Makassar, South Sulawesi July 31, 2011. Muslims around the world abstain from eating, drinking and conducting sexual relations from sunrise to sunset during Ramadan, the holiest month in the Islamic calendar. REUTERS/Ahmad Yusuf 

 Indonesian Muslims pray at the graves of their relatives in Bantul in central Java, July 25, 2011, ahead of Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Indonesian Muslims traditionally visit the graves of their loved ones before and towards the end of the holy month. REUTERS/Dwi Oblo

Pakistan Chief photographer Adrees Latif, Karachi-based photographer Akhtar Soomro and Peshawar-based Fayaz Aziz marked the year since the Pakistan floods to return to the area that was devastated by the disaster which forced millions to move in search of shelter, drinking water and food.   Adrees tracked down the people and scenes he photographed a year ago and using the format of combination pictures produced a revealing set of pictures that just won't let you look away and prompts the question - how much better off are these people a year on? I was tempted to just to highlight the combination pictures but Akhtar's picture of the crying child cradled in his father's legs just too strong to leave out.

A combination photograph shows (L) marooned flood victims, including boy Mohammed Farhan, aged about 12, and Allah Dita, aged about 64, as they look to escape by grabbing onto the side bars of a hovering army helicopter which arrived to the village of Daya Chokha Gharbi to distribute cooked chick peas and rice to flood victims in Kot Adu located in southern Punjab's Muzaffargarh district on August 7, 2010; and (R) Farhan and Dita, nearly one year later, pose for a portrait with residents from the same village in the same location, July 29, 2011. "All I was thinking was to save my life. To get out, " said Dita, when asked what he was thinking while holding onto the side bars one year earlier. Dita, who had stayed behind to look after his house and livestock, managed to be pulled up into the helicopter and was reunited with his five children who had left the flooded village a few days earlier.  Last year's floods killed 2,000, left 11 million homeless and affected the lives of another 7 million. Pakistan is still struggling to recover from $10 billion in damages to infrastructure, irrigation systems, bridges, houses and roads.  REUTERS/Adrees Latif

China are hosting the 14th FINA World Championships in Shanghai. In my mind's eye, aquatics is a sport of power, grace, balance and beauty but our pictures seem to add the additional factors of concentration, determination or maybe sheer fear. Against my better judgement, I just have to mention that some of the expressions on the athletes' faces remind me of the age old tradition of gurning. What also made an impression are the angles, different points of focus and continually new shapes that compliment a file that could have been very repetitive.

Qin Kai of China perform during the preliminary round of the men's 3m springboard diving event at the 14th FINA World Championships in Shanghai July 21, 2011.        REUTERS/Bobby Yip

Italy's Linda Cerruti performs in the synchronised swimming solo free final at the 14th FINA World Championships in Shanghai July 20, 2011. REUTERS/David Gray

When news broke that Osama Bin Laden was dead, the Reuters Global Pictures Desk in Singapore could think of only one thing: We have to see the picture of the dead body. The world needed a genuine photo to confirm that the elusive Islamic militant leader was dead. We also knew that the first news agency to publish a picture of his dead body would lead the way on this historic story. Sending out a fake picture could be very embarrassing.

A few hours later a picture was circulating on the Internet. It appeared to be Osama Bin Laden’s bloodied face in a video transmitted by a TV station in Pakistan. But was it really Bin Laden?

Some media claimed that the source of the picture was the U.S. military, but editors on the Global Pictures Desk found inconsistencies in the image that made them suspicious. There was odd pixelation and blurring on his face, which was also darker in some areas. The picture also looked familiar. After a quick search of our pictures archive, we found that the bottom of Bin Laden’s face was similar to a picture of the al Qaeda leader speaking at a news conference in 1998. After overlaying the 1998 photo with the picture of the dead Bin Laden we had a perfect match. The mouth, ear and beard were identical. It was a fake and the desk did not transmit it.