Photographers Blog

Watching Libya from Malta

By Darrin Zammit Lupi

When the Arab Spring got underway late in 2010, few of us imagined it would spread to Libya with any tangible effect. To those of us of my generation here in Malta, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was the bogeyman – he’d always been there lurking not too far from our shores – Libya is less than 350 km to the south of the island, and Gaddafi was a frequent visitor and close friend of the Maltese government in the 70s, my childhood years.

A year later, when I look back on the events that kicked off on February 17, 2011, I’m amazed it all happened so fast. Who would have dreamed that Gaddafi would be overthrown within six months, and dead within eight?

The start of the uprising turned Malta, normally a rather quiet news backwater spot in Europe into the center of world attention, as countries from all over the world struggled to evacuate their nationals from Libya. As soon as we got the first indications that there may be evacuations, I immediately started looking into ways of how I could get as comprehensive a coverage as possible.

My plan was to try to fly into Tripoli on an evacuation flight and fly straight out again – the shots I was looking for were of Europeans boarding the aircraft. Evacuations seemed to be starting off slowly – my first point of contact was the Austrian Embassy in Malta, as they were the first to send a military plane to the island to be on standby to fly into Tripoli. The Reuters Vienna bureau got in touch with authorities there, but no luck. There was no way they would take a journalist with them, occupying a very precious seat on the plane on the return flight.

We next tried the Maltese national airline Air Malta, who were laying on extra flights to try get as many Maltese and other nationalities out of the country as it descended into chaos. Though I made it clear to the airline that I wouldn’t even need to walk away from the bottom of the aircraft stairs, they refused to take the risk of flying me in without a visa. And no visas were being issued by the Libyan embassy in Malta.

A country a day with Hillary Clinton

By Kevin Lamarque

Traveling with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, covering seven countries in seven days (Malta, Libya, Oman, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) was sure to present some challenges, but also offer some fresh perspectives. My usual beat, covering Obama at the White House and on his trips abroad, generally involves lots of pushing and shoving with other photographers behind velvet ropes or trying to get a clear photo through layers upon layers of secret service agents. I was welcoming a chance to be free of these constraints in the more low key State Department bubble.

I was the “pool” photographer on this trip, supplying my photos not only to Reuters but to AP and AFP as well. I was hoping that being the only wire photographer on the trip would give me better access and more spontaneous images.

The Secretary of State flies on a smaller plane than the President’s 747; hers being a Boeing  757. It’s similar to the plane we call “baby Air Force One” which the President uses for travels to smaller airfields. I was lucky in the seat lottery and secured a business class seat for the entire week, a huge plus on a trip involving so much flying time.

With the first stop (Malta) out of the way after the exchange of a few diplomatic pleasantries, we headed for Libya. It was certainly an exotic place for me to spend my 48th birthday! The only things I knew for sure about this stop was that it would be fast moving and there were no communications on the ground whatsoever. I had my satellite phone with me, but not a lot of confidence that I would be able to get my photos out on the fly. En-route to Libya, I was given a quick photo op of Clinton at work aboard the C-17 military transport.

Upon landing, things were instantly working in my favor when Clinton was met on the tarmac by TNC (Transitional National Council) fighters. I was given good access, with no security agents pushing me away. What a nice change this was. With photos in the camera so early into the trip, I could take a deep breath. I had images that media outlets around the world would seek to publish. Now I had to find the time to transmit them.

Nurse of the Mediterranean

Ever since the Libyan uprising began last February, the small Mediterranean island of Malta which I call home has been a vital cog in the vast humanitarian machine in operation. It started as an evacuation hub for thousands of people and then became a critical transit point for humanitarian aid. Several months later, Malta continues to play its part.

I got the call to head to Malta’s international airport VIP lounge around lunchtime, to photograph Shwejga Mullah arriving on the island for medical treatment. Shwejga Mullah is the Ethiopian nanny who was recently discovered weak and alone in the home abandoned by deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s son Hannibal. It’s been reported that Hannibal’s wife Aline threw boiling water over her, causing horrific scald burns and scars, when she did not stop his daughter from crying and refused to beat the child.

As she was being brought over in a private plane chartered by the Maltese government, there wasn’t going to be any need to shoot on a long lens from outside the airport perimeter fence. The government officials wanted to show the world that Malta was still playing a crucial humanitarian role in the Libya crisis. We would be allowed right up to the foot of the stairs of the aircraft, so just 2 camera bodies, one with a 70-200mm lens and the other with a wide angle would be necessary. This was what all the other photographers were doing.

But this was one of those instances in which a persistent voice in my head kept telling me I was going to need something longer. So, I decided to take my 6kg (13 pound) 400mm f/2.8 lens with me.

The arrival of the plane kept being pushed further back. What should have been a fifteen minute wait soon stretched into a three hour wait.

The rebel march to Tripoli

By Bob Strong

The Libyan rebel march to Tripoli – from the mountains to the coast

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In late July we pulled up to a Libyan rebel checkpoint outside the mountain town of Nalut and I got my first look at the fighting force. One rebel had his helmet on backwards, a few of them were armed with only knives, and random gunfire filled the air as men test fired their new weapons. It felt like the rebels couldn’t defeat a boy scout troop, much less Gaddafi’s well equipped army. As usual, I was dead wrong.

The rebels advance from the west began in the small towns at the base of the Nafusa Mountains in late July. The day we arrived, July 28, rebels had pushed Gaddafi forces out of a series of villages and set their sights on Tiji, a strategic garrison town on a main road leading to Tripoli.

With no electricity in the nearby towns, the Reuters team of reporter Michael Georgy, myself and a driver based ourselves in a hotel across the border in Tunisia. This meant getting up at 6am every day, crossing the Libyan border, and driving 3 hours to the front lines. We would usually get back to the hotel around 9 or 10 at night, eat and sleep.

Libya, Goran and the photo that went around the world

Goran Tomasevic

Mar 23, 2011 12:19 EDT

Chief Photographer Steve Crisp tells how this picture from Goran Tomasevic appeared Monday on front pages across the world.

“Goran, as ever, was up at first light and on the road heading south from Benghazi after the first night of western bombing. The Reuters multimedia team came upon a convoy of troops loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi who had been attacked. Goran carefully took up a position near the smoldering vehicles when munitions exploded and so was able to capture a wide selection of dramatic and iconic pictures. This coverage was the climax to Goran’s outstanding front line reporting from the rebel advance, retreat and western intervention.

His images scored an amazing number of online and newspaper front pages worldwide, with this defining moment published as widely as another historic Reuters war picture, a 2003 photograph of a U.S. soldier standing beside the toppled statue of Saddam Hussein – a picture also shot by Goran Tomasevic.”

For more information on Goran, here is a selection of his work with comments on Full Focus.

Waiting for Gaddafi

Frederic Neema

Feb 24, 2011 16:08 EST

It was 22 years ago and I was covering a meeting of the Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt at the border town of Marsa Matrouh.

Gaddafi was late. Really late. We were all waiting for him, including Mubarak. As a Reuters photographer based in Cairo at the time, I had covered a lot of official visits but this was the first time that I saw Mubarak waiting for someone. As usual, nobody bothered to tell us the reason for the delay, but it was so long that Mubarak started talking to us. The atmosphere was jovial. So jovial in fact, that my Egyptian colleague, Aladin Abdel Nabi, dared to ask Mubarak if he would have his picture taken with me. “Why?” was the cold answer and we left it at that. The mood returned to “official mode.”

A few moments later, we heard a convoy of cars arriving amidst a lot of dust, noise and the usual chaos. Gaddafi had finally crossed the border. Mubarak greeted him stiffly, visibly annoyed by the delay. They both walked towards the spot where both national anthems were to be played. It was at that moment that I took this picture. Gaddafi adjusted his robe in his usual royal fashion while starting to walk. I remember thinking how both men looked so powerful and untouchable at that time.

As usual, we, the photographers, were not placed where we should have been to get the best pictures. We had to scramble to get close and I think I was quite close. I must have used a 35 or 24mm lens. At that time, we were not using zooms, just fixed lenses and manual focus.

Gaddafi’s bodyguards caught my attention. Two or three were female with AK-47 rifles and one was pregnant. I found this interesting and definitely out of the ordinary, so I photographed her. This picture was widely used. A few years later, I was told a story in Cairo about a French photographer who disappeared after taking pictures of a female bodyguard who got pregnant by Gaddafi. Was it supposed to be me?

Libya’s Gaddafi takes center frame

Gary Hershorn

Sep 23, 2009 14:50 EDT

The first day of the UN General Assembly is one of those days every year that you both look forward to and dread. With so many world leaders coming to New York to give a speech you know there will be always be news associated with the GA. The problem is very little changes at the UN from year to year and the pictures, of which thousands are shot every day, all tend to look very much the same.

This year we were all looking forward to the first address to the GA by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and as expected he delivered a photo-rich speech for the photographers in attendance. It was one of those speeches that was hard not to get a good photo from no matter where in the hall you were shooting.

We placed three photographers in the assembly hall in our normal left-center-right positions. Everyone had photos of him waving his arms around, gesturing, holding up a book, throwing a book and waving his speech in the air.

However I am not sure anyone was prepared for a speech that lasted over one and a half hours. After looking through hundreds of frames of just Gaddafi, it wasn’t hard to stop and focus on a picture that instantly grabbed my attention of him drinking a glass of water while the President of the 64th session of the General Assembly, Dr. Ali Abdussalam Treki of Libya, rested his head in his hand.