Photographers Blog

By Michael Dalder

On October 3rd, a day where most of my colleagues were covering the festivities to celebrate German unification, I had the opportunity to be an eyewitness to a Bavarian traditional event. The event was the so-called “Almabtrieb” on the lake Koenigssee, in one of the most beautiful regions of Southern Germany.

At the end of the summer season, farmers move their herds down from the Alps to the valley into winter pastures. The mountain pastures are often in remote areas only accessible by foot – or like the Koenigssee trail – by boat.

We met our guide before dusk to board an electric-powered boat to get to the far end of the lake where the farmer with his heard was supposed to arrive. The lake is known for its clear water and is advertised as the cleanest lake in Germany. For this reason, only electric-powered passenger ships, rowing and pedal boats are permitted on the lake. On this foggy, chilly dark morning I was happy that we didn’t have to row. The hot tea from our captain kept everybody warm and awake.

After a 45 minute ride the sun came out and we were able to see the prettiness of the national park. Our captain stopped, brought out a trumpet and showed us the famous Koenigssee echo. Due to the lake’s position surrounded by steep and narrow rock walls, sound creates an echo which can be heard reflected up to seven times – very impressive.

After another 30 minutes cruising with the sound of waterfowl and the purr of our boat engine, we arrived at the spot where two farmers with their herds were supposed to arrive to load the animals on a float carried by two boats with a permission to use outboard motors to transport the flock.

By Edgard Garrido

What really happens when a man, or a woman, or even a child, abandons their home motivated by the idea of a better life? How do they imagine it? What do they wish for, what are they missing?

There is violence, overcrowded neighborhoods and gigantic infrastructure on the outskirts of Mexico City but there are also hundreds of thousands of people who walk day and night; different people every day and every night for weeks and months next to the train tracks, trying to jump on a train car filled with merchandise as the train passes. Fear is engraved in their faces and makes their feet heavy. Solitude, hunger, the cold and above all a painful uncertainty, are carried with them. They left behind their homes in a land without miracles and few joys, like the last of the deserts.

In Huehuetoca, 67 km (41 miles) from Mexico City:

Edgard: (photographer) “Hi, what’s your name? Where are you from?”
Carlos: (migrant) “Hi, I’m from Honduras, and you?”
Edgard: “From Chile”
Carlos: “From Chile! How are you Alexis (a reference to Chilean soccer player Alexis Sanchez), have you been to Honduras?”
Edgard: “Yes, I lived in Honduras for several years”
Carlos: “And you’re not afraid of migrants?”
Edgard: “No, why should I?”
Carlos: “Because people say we are thieves and gang members. That we rape girls and that we only do damage.”
Edgard: “But not all of them. From what part of Honduras are you?”
Carlos: “From Tegus… (the capital Tegucigalpa)”
Edgard: “What neighborhood?”
Carlos: “Did you get to know Little Hell?”
Edgard: “Behind the Basilica, going down the staircase. Are you a member of a gang?”
Carlos: “You’re definitely not afraid of migrants! You wanna have a beer?”
Edgard: “How far are you traveling?”
Carlos: “Well, up north, to Uncle Sam (laughs). I’ve been there and they have deported me nine times, but here I go again. I know the tracks like no one else. Come on, let’s have a beer.”

By Brian Snyder

Here’s something almost everyone who covers a U.S. Presidential campaign says or thinks, “That event yesterday/last week/last month seems like an eternity ago.” That’s certainly how Mitt Romney’s formal announcement of his candidacy at Scamman Farm in Stratham, New Hampshire June 2, 2011 seems.

SLIDESHOW: CHRONOLOGY OF ROMNEY’S CAMPAIGN

But that’s recent history. I was surprised when I looked into the Reuters archive and saw how far back my coverage of Romney extends:

From the early days of the current election cycle in New Hampshire in 2011:

Back to unsuccessfully chasing the Republican presidential nomination in 2008:

And further back to Governor Romney, signing into law the now contentious healthcare reform legislation that would attempt to provide health insurance for all of Massachusetts residents in 2006:

By Tyrone Siu

When the National Day fireworks ended in enthusiastic applause, most photographers – especially those who were functioning on an empty stomach like me – thought we could finally call it a night. After all, we had witnessed all the hustle and bustle since early in the day at the flag-raising ceremony. It was, we thought, perhaps enough sensation for a single day.

I was about to enjoy a nice hotpot dinner with other battered journalists after filing my fireworks pictures, when a reporter on site mentioned a brief report online that ruined the plan.

It said that two ferries had collided off Hong Kong’s Lamma Island but did not mention any injuries, but a hunch told me it could turn out to be a particularly nasty disaster. A minute later, I was carrying my clumsy tripod to evade the happy festival-goers and run past the police’s quarantine line to search for a taxi.

By Max Rossi

There’s a man in this world that kisses more babies than any mother over the course of her life: the Pope.

Following the Vatican for more than 15 years I can absolutely say that John Paul II and Benedict XVI have kissed more babies than any other public figure in the world. It’s a common scene for the faithful to literally throw their babies to the Pope as he walks by or is driven by in the Pope mobile during general audiences or a pastoral visit.

Having a child blessed and kissed by the Pope is an unbelievable goal for a mother or father. And for a photographer it’s almost always a good shot especially when the baby is not so “old”. A newborn is totally unaware of what is going on but when a one or two year-old child is given to the Pope something brilliant can happen.

By Jose Miguel Gomez

We plunged nearly 80 meters down a wood-lined tunnel while listening to Orlando Arias, the guide who brought us to Nemocon, an Andean village nestled between mountains and natural salt deposits just north of Bogota. His stories allowed us to focus our minds in the dark mine, and we could feel the dampness of that cold place.

Orlando caught my attention when he claimed to have seen elves there. I asked what they were like, and he answered, “They’re small with elongated ears, very mocking, the size of children, and very ugly.” He showed us a photo of them, and in a ghost-like image I could see seven small green creatures with big ears.

I doubted it all as we continued on our tour. He guided us around all the main sites in this mine that attracts some 80,000 tourists each year. That day we were only a few, so it was easier to take photos. Orlando told us how he likes photography, and he convinced us by pointing out the best points from which to photograph the mine and the reflections on the pools of water. He also showed great patience to wait for us to do our job.

By Erik de Castro

It was a few minutes before 6 a.m. when I arrived at the dwelling of Liza Cabiya-an, 39, and her 14 children. Liza was pouring coffee on a plate of rice as her five small children, including her youngest 11-month-old baby, huddled on the floor around her waiting to be served their breakfast. On a good day, Liza says breakfast would be pan de sal, or the classic Filipino salt bread, which they dip into hot instant coffee.

While the small children have their breakfast, Liza’s nine other children were still asleep, shoulder-to-shoulder, in a room of approximately 9-square meters.

The only appliances they have are the television and a DVD player. The glassless window provides natural ventilation to the space. Liza’s family lives on the third floor of a three-story tenement in a slum neighborhood in Paco, in the Philippines capital Manila. I had to go up a narrow wooden ladder to reach their dwelling. Residents of the tenement share the same toilet, which is on the second floor. Liza complains that there are nights when they have to endure the stink of the toilet, which is not regularly cleaned.

By Kim Kyung-hoon

There are several key descriptive phrases to keep in mind when talking about Japan; one obvious to everyone is “Rapidly Aging Society”.

The rise of the elderly population and falling birth rate are no longer surprising news. One in four people in Japan is now over 65 years.

If you have the chance to walk around Tokyo’s downtown area, you’ll probably nod your head in recognition of the truth of this phrase. When you stop at a crosswalk to cross the street, you will find yourself surrounded by people who have silver hair and are stooped with age. When you watch TV you will see commercials for adult diapers and denture washers, common during prime time. Because the elderly are a big consumer group in Japan, Japanese enterprises never forget to satisfy the elderly and they gladly provide elderly consumers with their state-of-the-art technologies such as a care robot or a walk-assist robot.

By Bobby Yip

With a well-dressed attractive woman waiting to pose for me, I asked her to sit on the darker side of a classic sofa, trying to depict the situation she is facing — waiting for people to accept her status as a lesbian, the first among Hong Kong’s upper class to have a same-sex marriage.

Gigi Chao is a comparatively low-profile person among celebrities here. As the daughter of a tycoon playboy father and a divorced actress mother, she was followed by local paparazzi occasionally. Curious entertainment journalists finally broke the news of her getting married in Paris in April – to a woman.

It was not front page news, not until her outspoken father Cecil Chao Sze-tsung made a statement days later, offering a $65 million “marriage bounty” to any man who was able to win her love. Headlines were splashed in nearly all Chinese media, printed and online worldwide, as far as I could find. Foreign media around the world were not far behind local media in their interest.

By Lee Jae-Won

Chuseok, or the Full-Moon Harvest Festival, also dubbed the Korean Thanksgiving is one of the country’s biggest traditional holidays. Nearly 30 million out of South Korea’s population of 50 million will visit their hometown during the three-day holiday which ended October 1.

The Imjingak pavilion, a well-known tourist destination, is located just south of the demilitarized zone which divides the Korean peninsula into the capitalist South and communist North. It is the closest point to the inter-Korean border, where visitors are allowed to observe the North’s territory from the South without any specific government approval. The northern tip of the Paju city which the Imjingak area belongs to is only 130 miles south of the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.

South Koreans who were born in North Korea before the fratricidal 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with a truce pact, not a peace treaty, come to the Imjingak pavilion to remember and pay tribute to their ancestors as they are banned from crossing the inter-Korean border freely to visit their hometowns in the North.