Tribute to Danilo Krstanovic
Last Friday our long time Sarajevo photographer Danilo Krstanovic passed away unexpectedly. He was buried on Monday in Sarajevo.Danilo began working for Reuters at the start of the siege of Sarajevo. His images were extraordinary and touching. There are many photographers who would brag about their war adventures, about what they did and how brave they were, but not Danilo. He would quietly go to take his pictures, endangering his life on a daily basis for four years. He always came back with amazing images, never complaining or boasting about any situation he was in.
Danilo is survived by his wife and daughter.
- Pawel Kopczynski
Danilo’s colleague Peter Andrews offers his thoughts below.
People say that it always hurts more when it is close to home and it is very true. Our group, who have spent almost 20 years in various dangerous places, is used to seeing death and dead bodies and somehow have become totally accustomed to that. We do not cry when we see destruction and mayhem and we work calmly. Perhaps each of us processes each situation in a different way inside but we all stay calm outside… unless we don’t.
Still, when it comes to the death of people who were dear to us, it always hurts and leaves a huge void in our souls. It is hard to even speak about that. Danilo was one of us, taking pictures in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War. That is where I met him and had the privilege of working with him for two years. The difference between Danilo and us (photographers who come from abroad) was that we, once in a while, were able to leave Sarajevo and rest in a normal place not touched by war and destruction filled with death, suffering, crying and funerals. Funerals that happen every day. Danilo did not have this kind of luxury as he was not allowed to leave Sarajevo for he was Bosnian. So what he did was walk the streets of Sarajevo every day – putting his life on the line to bring amazing news pictures showing the horrors of the siege. He never complained as he was probably the most modest and quiet man I have ever known and have worked with.
Aviation spirit
By David Mercado
After being lost for nearly an hour in the north of El Alto, a city at 3,800 meters (12,467 ft) above sea level and one of the poorest and fastest growing in Latin America, we arrived at the home of Jaime Cancari. Jaime and his sons Hugo and Franklin, who like most of this city are ethnic Aymaras, have decided to become Bolivia’s first helicopter builders. We were there to visit their factory.
In a country with no aviation industry, we were at least expecting to find a small factory with considerable technology, but were shocked to find no more than a primitive workshop. The Cancaris normally make the iron bumpers and roof racks that are an essential part of off-road vehicles in Bolivia, where paved roads are few. The frames that resembled the beginnings of a helicopter were sitting in the same dirt yard where the Cancaris live and work.
Jaime and his sons Franklin and Hugo appeared in impeccable blue uniforms with a computerized logo sewn on them that read, “Cancari, Helicopters for Bolivia.” We started by asking about the project and their technical credentials, but the answer was, in the least, astonishing. None of the Cancaris had finished high school, and the team leader Jaime expressed himself better in his native Aymara than in Spanish.
Low cost aircraft are badly needed in third world countries. The fall of the USSR helped some, but most of those aircraft are now worn out and need replacement.
I’d like to see these guys succeed but they have a difficult problem. Let’s hope no one gets hurt.
Helping the helpless
More than just a photograph, irrefutable proof.
It was three weeks ago when a woman named Carolina called me to denounce abuses inside the Pequeño Cottolengo shelter in the city of Quintero, near Valparaiso. The shelter is part of a chain of homes for mentally handicapped children and youths run by the Catholic Church. Carolina had been working there only three months.
I met with her and saw photos that she had taken with her cell phone during the different shifts she worked there. One of the images showed very clearly the bruises caused by the beating of a young girl, a girl too handicapped to defend herself. Others showed the obvious effects of malnutrition on one young boy.
I asked her if it was possible to take more images, and she answered that she was willing to face all the consequences, including losing her job, to be able to help the children.
I thought that this matter couldn’t wait and it must be made public through solid proof of the abuses. It wasn’t easy to get evidence from inside an isolated shelter where the children are closed in with almost no windows and just one door, as if in a bunker. My editor at Reuters saw the cell phone photos and we spoke of the way to move forward. With the involvement of minors, things get complicated when their faces are shown, and the range of legal issues that can arise.
Helping the helpless is a very good work. Whenever I get any opportunity to help someone, I love it. http://delhinursery.blogspot.com
Boxing their own worst enemy
On some of my first trips around Sao Paulo after moving here, I caught glimpses of life under the city’s many highway viaducts, whether it was of people storing recyclable waste or even living under the bridges. I refer to my roaming excursions in this city as “trips,” because this massive city of nearly 20 million inhabitants is a world in itself.
One day, as I gradually widened my geographic range and knowledge of my new city, I spotted people practicing sports under one bridge. It was a brief view but long enough to register in my mind. So when I read soon after about a boxing school under a viaduct and went to search it out, I realized immediately it was the same one I had spotted that day.
Under the bridge I met former pro boxer Nilson Garrido, the founder and owner of the school. Six years ago Garrido started a project in which he created several boxing academies under the viaducts of Sao Paulo. His goal was to take the sport to the poor and marginalized population. In the meantime the project attracted other people who started to contribute a small monthly fee for the use of the gym.
Simple people, proud actors
The inhabitants of a Caribbean fishing village with no cinema, have become movie stars.
When I was invited to attend the screening of the movie “The Kid Who Lies” (El Chico que Miente) in the same village on Venezuela’s Caribbean coast where it was filmed, I had no doubt it would be a fantastic experience.
I could just imagine the excitement of its inhabitants seeing themselves and their familiar places on the big screen. But when I reached Ocumare I discovered that this was a place that hadn’t seen a movie screening since its last theater closed 40 years ago, and that this one would be truly special.
Friday night was warm as some 1,000 noisy ocumareños gathered in the social club along Bolivar Square. They filled the club with the sound of drums and the smell of coffee, sitting on plastic chairs and on the floor. Many stood along the walls, and others even poked their heads through the open windows. Nobody wanted to miss it.
“I never went to the movies before, and the first time I get to see one I’m in it,” oyster seller Argenis proudly told me. His smile brightened his deeply-tanned face. “My children are happy to see their father in a movie, even if it’s just for five minutes.”
Adrees Latif wins ICP Infinity Award for Photojournalism
Pakistan chief photographer Adrees Latif has won the prestigious ICP Infinity Award in Photojournalism for his outstanding coverage of last year’s Pakistan floods. Working under the most difficult of conditions he led the Reuters pictures team to tell the story from every possible angle. His images were published daily across international front pages, bringing attention to the enormity of the catastrophe from its early stages. Latif’s work has received numerous industry accolades including the Pulitzer prize for Breaking News Photography in 2008.
Adrees recounts how he took the award-winning image of marooned flood victims grasping on to an army helicopter as they tried to escape.
Adrees, your pictures have inspired as an upcoming photographer. Keep up the spirit.
True or false?
If it is written in a newspaper, is it true or false?
One of the most interesting parts of our job as a photo-reporter is one of the basic principles of journalism – that is telling the TRUE and REAL STORY to newspaper readers and online viewers who were not there but want to know the real story behind the headlines.
But journalism is changing. Long gone are the days when people said “It must be true, the newspaper says so.” Especially in Italy, it looks like some reporters do not tell the whole truth. They do not look for the truth nor do they investigate to try to arrive at the truth. They look for little or wrong clues. They use it to prove their story; a biased truth. Do they do this to confuse the readers and to contribute to warped thoughts? Are the journalists simply not capable of good reporting?
I’m irritated when these types of journalists use our pictures to prove their false version of reality.
This happened with the story of recent violent clashes in Rome. Printed December 16, the Italian newspaper “La Stampa” edited this article using the picture below and writing the following caption.
The symbolic picture. A moment from the clashes; with the Guardia di Finanza officer (L) holding a gun and two protesters who stole his handcuffs and the transreceiver (bottom). It looks normal and true… many readers will believe it. But it is not reality.
Hard to be objective if you are not on the site. You have all the secuence to determinate so, I would like to know how was the original caption of that pic. Any way good job showing them on context.
from From Reuters.com:
Reuters scoops up awards at SABEW, Best of Photojournalism
The Reuters trophy case got a little more crowded on Tuesday, with a raft of awards from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, and the Best of Photojournalism Awards from the National Press Photographers Association.
And the winners are:
SABEW Award for real-time news organizations
David Baily, correspondent; Kevin Krolicki, Detroit bureau chief; Jui Chakravorty, correspondent; Poornima Gupta, correspondent; Kim Soyoung, correspondent; and Nick Carey, correspondent: "GM/Chrysler deal hopes rise, then shattered"
From the judges' comments:
This package on the potential for a GM/Chrysler deal broke significant new ground with exclusive details of the negotiations between the two auto companies and the federal government. The stories were comprehensively reported and smoothly written, impressive given the many twists and turns of the story. Besides landing scoops, the reporters were able to see all the angles, and put their exclusives in the larger context of the federal auto bailout and a troubled industry. Although the stories relied heavily on unattributed sources - and the judges would have like to have seen more precise descriptions of those sources - the stories’ accuracy speaks to the quality of the information those sources provided.
Tiffany Wu, Editor in charge of Technology, Media & Telecoms, Anupreeta Das and Michele Gershberg, correspondents: “Microhoo: how the blockbuster deal blew up”
Looking Back, Looking Forward
MEMORY OF THE PRESENT
I have just received the first copy of the new book Our World Now 2. The title page reads “Executive Picture Editor: Ayperi Karabuda Ecer”. But besides pleasing my parents (my teenage daughter does not care), what does that mean?
On the one hand, everyone at Reuters is an editor. News flows between photographers, regional chiefs, global editors, picture deskers, keyworders and specialist editors. All are absolutely vital to deliver a daily output of some 1,700 images for the international media. My efforts are only in addition to what has already been produced.
On the other hand, within such a rich, global production there is no such thing as one final edit. Working with Reuters imagery is, like the book’s title, opening a window to our world now – it is live and constantly changing.
One can have many perspectives on that vision. My view is that although our photographers work to shoot that one standalone impact image, the important factor is that the sum of this collection is a stunning testimony of our times.
The book presents 370 images by 188 photographers of 60 nationalities. To reach this point, my colleague Jassim Ahmad and I, together with Kate Slotover and Amanda Vinnicombe from our publisher Thames & Hudson would regularly ambush a meeting room at our London offices and plaster the walls with images and evolving layouts.
In a book like this, the pictures need to do more than just work together visually. They must go beyond familiarity to surprise, enlighten, question and draw different responses. Through this process some really good images are lost and others emerge.
“Some days you, as photographers, don’t feel appreciated enough. Well, remember you are documenting history every day through every frame.”This is something important to remember. And something I needed to be reminded of this week, when I’d been feeling a little unappreciated as a photographer – comments on my photo Blog had decreased to the point where I was questioning why I posted photos for so little feedback. Why not just keep them on my harddrive for my own viewing?You’ve managed to remind me why we bother to document the world around us, even with seemingly unremarkable, every day scenes.I’ve been lucky enough to live opposite the Stratford Olympic site for the last 6 months and have built up a collection of images of the stadium being built, often with beautiful sunsets in the background. When the stadium is finished and London welcomes the world for the Olympics in 2012, I’ll be able to look back and see my record of the 6 months in which I saw its creation. I wish I could document the whole building process, but I’m moving to a different part of London now.In effect, we’re chroniclers of history, when we consider the bigger picture. If people hadn’t taken photos of (at the time) “unremarkable” things, we’d never have photographs showing factory life in the 1900s, or trench photographs during WW1 and WW2. Images which at the time, were probably laughed at by those in the pictures. Yet now, are considered iconic. In 50 years time, will I look at my 6 month record of the Olympic stadium, and marvel at our building designs, compared to architecture in 2060?So thank you for the reminder of why I continue to not only photograph the world around me, but to share it with friends and strangers online.For the record, I think looking through the thousands of Reuters photos every day and compiling them into books would be among the best jobs going!
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Resident Photographers Blog Expert
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The Wall
Alert Angelina Jolie and Woody Harrelson, who have a vested interest in Sarajevo!