I have not been posting a lot in the past few weeks, mainly because I am not shooting as much as I would like to be. Going out under the sun drenched by sweat and bogged down by gear, chasing the next news picture sticks out in sharp contrast with my current job scope of a photo sub-editor. My days are primarily spent in an air-conditioned room and the only rays I see are that of gamma from computer screens.
While I like to reminisce about the immense ownership one feels when one creates an image, (more so if the iconic image sears itself into public conscious, like those of the 911 tower crashes) there is also a certain amount of pride toward the role performed by the deskers at the photo desk.
Every image sticks in the memory. Pictures passing through our hands, those we clean up, sub-edited for grammatical and ethical errors, or pair to match a slug before moving them onto the wire is invariably part of a bigger picture in a global newsroom. In that sense, every effort is a team effort. The image of the lonesome photojournalist traveling the globe, shining light to dispel darkness and bring truth where it matters, is highly romanticized. But we all fall for it anyhow.
That said, as much as I enjoy being behind a camera, it is always nice to revisit a news picture among the world’s major newspapers, websites and other media outlets. To see a familiar frame and the caption that you’ve worked on the night before is akin to having an endorsing stamp of a job well done to beat deadlines and break news with our text and TV counterparts.
REUTERS/Carlo Allegri (USA)
Here is one example of a series of images I’ve worked on some nights ago. It is a personal project shot by Reuters photographer Carlo Allegri on the Sony DSC-T77 while covering Fashion Week in New York. A more intimate camera as compared to a news photographer’s bread and butter DSLRs.
According to Carlo;
“Photographers have always looked around them at what is available to them to best do the job. Many photographers like Jim Young bring Holgas with them or a Leica or Contax G2. They use these tools to create a different kind of image, one that is different than their bread and butter cameras, their Canon Mark III or 5d Mark IIs with their L lenses.”
Reuters Photographer Blog > http://blogs.reuters.com/photo/2009/02/24/fashion-week-new-york/
Slide show on Reuters.com > http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/rpSlideshows?articleId=USRTXC1E1#a=1
The blog by Reuters photographers is highly informative and entertaining. If you are interested in how a top-notch professional work in a pressure cooker environment, be sure to bookmark the site for an engaging read.
* comments are entirely my own and does not reflect those of my employer and company.
