Photographers Blog

Two Candidates… Smiles Apart

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By Larry Downing

The final Presidential debate between incumbent U.S. President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney is only a few short autumn days away and a great chance to somehow connect with and persuade undecided voters to punch their ticket on Election Day 2012.

Both men have so far scored high marks as fearless debaters eloquently pointing out the glaring weaknesses and flaws hiding inside the “other” party’s ideologue with precise, intellectual arguments measuring up to the price of their Harvard University degrees. It has also proved to be a stress test for each one to be seen as polite while on a national stage, yet, still aggressively arguing their own passions and at the same time remembering there is no more promise of campaigns tomorrow once the votes are tallied.

And both have proven themselves as equally impassioned candidates grinding through this endless campaign season leading up to November 6th. Two ambitious politicians consumed by their own determination to convince voters to let their families move upstairs at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for the next four years by singing party lyrics to anyone carrying a microphone. These two foes are politically polar-opposites linked together by their joint willingness to invite the sharp, concentrated lights of the national news media into their personal space to snoop around much like the late night reality shows.

But one piece of the election puzzle remains open to discussion… my own interpretation of what I define as “it.”

The key to Greece’s economic crisis

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By Yiorgos Karahalis

Mata Nikolarou, a jewellery shop owner in Athens, says she is not surprised that thousands of businesses in the capital have had to shut down.

“It was about time to happen. The market needed a clear off. Everyone in Greece had become a merchant, either by taking over their father’s shop or by taking out a cheap loan from the bank,” she said, explaining that most merchants had appeared out of the blue.

A sense of closure

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By Darrin Zammit Lupi

I attended a brief and very poignant ceremony; the funeral of four Nigerian would-be immigrants who drowned while attempting to reach a better life, crossing to Europe by sea, crossing the central Mediterranean that has become a graveyard.

Cross-country protest

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By Thomas Peter

“It feels good to walk in nature after so many months of boredom in the Immigration Holding Centre,” said Sallisou as we walked along a poplar-lined alley in the sleepy hinterland of Potsdam-Mittelmark, a rural county just outside the German capital of Berlin. Two weeks earlier, the smiling man from Niger had joined a 600 km (372 miles) foot march of refugees. With every county border they crossed, they were breaking a state order that restricts their movement to a territory around their camp. At present, Sallisou was eagerly filming the procession of refugees with a small video camera.

Breaking the news to a Nobel prize winner

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By Jonathan Alcorn

The call came in around 5:30 am from Reuters senior picture editor Hyungwon Kang, awakening me from a deep sleep after a long weekend of convering Space Shuttle Endeavour’s trip through the streets of Los Angeles for Reuters.

Farewell old lady of Mumbai

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By Vivek Prakash

Many things are uncertain in Mumbai – the weather, the possibility of an appointment actually happening on time, the chance of getting through the city without hitting some obstacle or other…

But one thing is perfectly certain: you’re wanted at the traffic jam, they’re saving you a seat.

The moment Jeter fell

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By Mike Segar

Firstly, let me say I am most definitely NOT a New York Yankees fan. I grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and have been a devoted Boston Red Sox fan my entire life. The Yankees are our sworn enemies as Red Sox fans and that never changes.

However, in my job as a photographer for Reuters I have covered the Yankees in the MLB playoffs since 1996, when I covered my first New York Yankees World Series championship.

Love within boundaries

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By Mariana Bazo

The Lurigancho prison in Lima is one of the most overcrowded, violent and unruly jails in Latin America. More than 8,500 prisoners live within its walled perimeter with so much freedom that they have created their own city which reproduces the urban society on the outside, including its most unjust and grotesque aspects. The passageways and open areas are filled with vendors, food stands, soccer fields, industrial zones, rehabilitation centers, barber shops and even pet animals.

A river out of Syria

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By Osman Orsal

It was early on Wednesday morning when I arrived at Hacipasa, a village just across the border from Syria in Turkey’s southern Hatay province. Set among rolling hills lined with olive trees, the village sits right across from the Syrian town of Azmarin, where heavy clashes had been taking place between Syrian government forces and rebels. The army had been shelling Azmarin and I was taking pictures of the shells landing in and around the town which sent plumes of dust and smoke rising above the town.

Flashback to the Bali blasts of 2002

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By Beawiharta

A ceremony to remember the victims of a bomb blast that struck a busy street on a Saturday night in 2002, killing 202 people.