Photographers Blog

When I got the senior photographer job in Shanghai in late 2005, Reinhard Krause, who was China’s chief photographer, well advised me to drop any preconceptions I might have about the place.

Below is an audio slideshow based on my portfolio of work from China, where I discovered a land of contradictions.

Below is a selection of some of the portfolio images. Click here for a full slideshow.

Models display jewelery of Cartier High Jewellery during a private gala dinner in Shanghai January 26, 2007. REUTERS/Nir Elias

Li Renying (R), 70, and her husband Zhang Kunlin, 74, stand in front of a backdrop during a photography session in a studio that caters especially to the elderly, in Shanghai October 20, 2007. REUTERS/Nir Elias

Photographers moan: boy do they moan! Indeed a regular conversation between myself and colleagues whilst chewing the fat on another wet dark doorstep around Downing Street in London is what the most appropriate term for a collective of news/sports photographers should be. And a ‘moan’ or ‘grumble’ is often the most popular choice as a tongue-in-cheek metaphor for the ‘pack’.

We complain about our cameras, our laptops, our internet connections, our computer software, our hours of work, our assignments. We complain about our pay, politicians, press officers, security, traffic, our bosses, our colleagues, our allotted photo positions, and backgrounds in pictures. And we complain about the weather – the stereotype about Brits really is true! Too sunny, too wet, too bright, too dark, too windy, not windy enough…any excuse for a picture that was ALMOST there, but not quite…

However, whilst always somehow feeling relatively new to the job (not sure why, as I ‘officially’ started my career fifteen years ago at the not-so-tender age of 23 in regional newspapers in Bristol in southwest England, certain that I was following the right path after ‘dropping-out’ as a university undergraduate), rarely does a day pass when at some point do I think I am still in the best career in the world.