Photographers are dispatched, and with cameras crashing about on their backs ride hell for leather on small motorbikes to get to the blast scene before security cordons off the area. The coverage plan is usually the same. One photographer goes to the blast scene, another goes to the hospital. The desk in Islamabad can do nothing but wait and monitor the wires, amid a strange calm. All Reuters photographers are trained to deal with hazardous environments. They are issued with safety equipment. They know the risks. But they all feel lucky … and they all feel immortal.

Reuters reports…

18:27 05Feb10 -Blast in Pakistan commercial capital Karachi-police
KARACHI, Feb 5 (Reuters) – A blast went off in Pakistan’s commercial capital Karachi on Friday and police said casualties were feared.
A police official Aamir Farooqi said it took place on a main road. “We fear casualties,” he told Reuters.

Photographers are called, they are on the way, one to the bomb blast scene, one to the hospital. Be safe, be fast, be lucky.

18:50 05Feb10 -Bomb in Pakistan’s Karachi kills 12-hospital
KARACHI, Feb 5 (Reuters) – A bombing in Pakistan’s commercial capital Karachi which targeted Shi’ite Muslims on a crowded bus killed 12 people and wounded 40 on Friday, hospital officials said.
“We have received 12 bodies and 40 wounded. Most of them have head wounds,” Simi Jamali, a senior doctor at Karachi hospital, told a television station.

No pictures yet. Photographers are at the scene and at the hospital

20:01 05Feb10 -Blast at Pakistan hospital treating bomb victims
KARACHI, Feb 5 (Reuters) – A huge blast went off at the premises of a hospital in the Pakistani city of Karachi where victims of an earlier blast were being treated, a Reuters witness said.
“It was a huge blast. It was in the hospital premises,” Reuters reporter Augustine Anthony said.

It was a classic case of two bomb attacks designed to create terror. The first blast is designed to kill, maim, cause mayhem and draw in security forces The second bomb, often a slight distance from the first, is timed to kill as many security personal as possible. But mixed in with security are photographers.

This time it was different. The second bomb exploded at the hospital where the injured and the relatives of the injured were gathering. The targets were Shi’ite Muslims — not security forces, but just ordinary terrified people trying to find out about their injured relatives. Shi”ites and Sunnis have been killing each other for centuries in an ancient religious rivalry.

Our photographer was lucky. He had just left but went back immediately. Local photographer Anwar Abbas was even luckier. He was at the hospital but was not injured.

He then starts to take pictures, the dead, injured and people trying to help the injured. Relatives that had come to help the injured from the first blast had now become the victims themselves – a horrific attack producing horrific pictures.

Pictures are filed, the horror of the attack brought to the calm of the desk. How much horror should be sent to the wire? Should all be sent, if so to who? Should people be able to see this imagery on the internet? I think it should, others disagree.

A young woman, her clothes singed and torn by the blast, her face covered in blood, screams down at her dead mother. This tightly cropped picture brings humanity to the bomb blast scene – her face frozen in horror, it could be you, it could be your daughter screaming, it could be your dead mother.

A wide crop of the same scene, the screaming girl is seen next to her mother, the smoking motorbike nearly disguises the brutality of the scene as the eye is led away from the spilled intestines of the dead woman. A warning is given on the caption – you reading this are warned about the image – it’s horrific.

And finally the picture that forces into your face the full horror and brutality of the scene, the resulting carnage of an indiscriminate bomb blast at a hospital. Instead of the eye being led away from the dead woman, it’s drawn into her horrific injuries. Her screaming daughter secondary to the picture. Again the caption warns the reader of the content. All the humanity has been stripped away.

Morality and politics of this attack aside, the question is what responsibility do photographers have to record these pictures. Are they responsible for bringing the news in all its ugliness to every viewer who actually cares to click on an “allow content” button? Or should they step aside from the grim reality, choosing to concentrate on people helping those not so injured, and if so, does this perpetuate the Hollywood myth of injuries created by a bomb blast? Once the picture is taken what responsibility do the editors have in transmitting these images?

Should the world be exposed to the brutality of this type of image or should this visual horror be confined to those exposed to it first hand – the victims themselves, those passing by and the journalists and security forces who attend the scenes? And if your answer is no, what is the point in sending journalists to the scene in the first place? Should we hide this from the world? Do we as news gathers have the responsibility to show it as it is – in my mind yes, we do. Does the fact that this was an attack on a hospital make a difference on what level of brutality should be seen – I think so, yes. Maybe you disagree.

People expect the truth and as responsible journalists we should deliver the truth, no matter how ugly it may be. You have the right to choose not to click “allow content” but the victims and the photographers and editors already have these images burned in their minds.

The image of Fabianne sprawled on the ground, blood trailing over the paintings she'd grabbed, took me back to my own childhood in Nairobi and the sight of a 7- or 8-year-old-boy - probably the same age as me at the time - who was caught stealing sweets from a street vendor and was beaten and burnt with rubber tyres. They called it mob justice.

REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

To this day, I'll never understand why that poor boy had to die such a violent and senseless death for something so trivial. I feel the same way about Fabianne - she survived one of the most catastrophic events in living memory, only to be shot in the head for petty theft. And for stealing wall hangings where there are no walls.

REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

Fabianne’s childhood was brutally stolen from her and it got me thinking about how quickly so many young people in places like Africa, Asia and the Americas have to grow up, forced to fend for themselves through child labour or prostitution, denied an education and exposed to violence, disease and hunger at an age when they should be learning and playing.

Of the 2.2 billion children in the world, 1 billion live in poverty and experience violence annually, UNICEF figures show, meaning nearly half the children in the world don’t get to have childhoods. There are also an estimated 132 million orphans in the world, UNICEF says.

Children under 18 make up almost half of Haiti’s 9-million population and the country faces the highest rates of infant and child mortality in the Western hemisphere.

REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

Officials fear thousands of children have been separated from their parents, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation by child traffickers, being illegally adopted by other countries or forced into child labour in order to survive. Around 150 million children worldwide aged 5–14 are engaged in child labour.

ENDLESS CYCLE

In Haiti, child labourers are called "restaveks" in Creole, meaning "to stay with". Poor parents hand them over to wealthier families to work as domestic servants in exchange for shelter, food and education. But most often these children are treated as slaves, beaten, sexually abused and often denied access to education.

It’s no different in Kenya, where sexual exploitation of children continues unabated and if anything, is on the rise, as children are used in sex tourism or by locals who'd rather pay large amounts of money to sleep with them instead of older prostitutes.

Children caught up in violence or traumatic events face high risk of mental illness, suicidal tendencies and post-traumatic stress syndrome, researchers say. Robbed of their childhoods, many fall into a cycle of violence, crime, drugs, disease and unwanted pregnancy, and the spiral continues.

REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

I spoke to the Reuters photographer in Haiti, Carlos Garcia Rawlins, who took the pictures of Fabianne to find out who shot her and why. He had no answers. By the time he got there she was already dead. She could have been shot by the police or armed security guards hired to protect property, he said. Witnesses said they didn’t know if she was targeted or hit by a stray bullet when police fired into the air to disperse a hungry mob.

What Rawlins did say is that people around her continued looting and would only stop for a moment to look at her body. "I couldn’t believe the indifference of the people around her," he said.

On average, more than 24,000 children under five still die every day from largely preventable causes, UNICEF says. Haiti will inevitably add to that number.

REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

The other day, I was watching a CNN reporter in Haiti who movingly described a death that could have been prevented if the proper medical care was provided. "It doesn’t have to happen," he told viewers. "It’s really stupid. It’s infuriating. People died today who did not need to die."

He couldn’t have put it better - Fabianne and that little boy from Kenya both died stupid deaths.

Paris photographer Philippe Wojazer told me, “because it’s quiet, there isn’t any need for the two of us here, I’m going back to my place.” I remember seeing him take his motorbike helmet and then seeing a news flash that said, “Plane crash at Roissy.” The adrenaline was pumping in the office when a second news flash announced “It is a Concorde.”

Philippe told me to head to Roissy on a motorbike with a driver and he would stay at the office to receive my photos. On the way to Roissy, I could see a column of smoke in the distance. Immediately I realized the severity of the situation and the fact that it was a Concorde heightened the news value of the event. Quickly we arrived close to the crash site but it was already surrounded by police who had blocked access to the area and the surrounding two miles.

After a moment’s consideration I told the motorbike driver, “We are going to break the barrier.” And that is what we did, despite the reluctance of my driver. While passing them, two police officers tried to grab my shirt to stop us. Finally, we arrived at the field where the Concorde had crashed. There was a lot of smoke and until that moment I hadn’t realized that the Concorde had crashed into a hotel. After taking several general view pictures, I started to cross the field to get closer to the crash site. In the distance I could see police officers running towards me and I realized that I wouldn’t be able to continue to take pictures for long.

I saw the plane’s wheels and the firemen surrounding the plane. I turned around and saw the police were now practically on me. I had started to take pictures of the site. Quickly, I took out the disc from my camera and hid it before being detained by the police and escorted from the site.

I got my laptop back and immediately sent my photos to Philippe, who had stayed at the office. We were the first news organization to transmit pictures of the crash. I remember talking to my Swiss colleague, Ruben Sprich, who told me that we had made all the deadlines for the Swiss newspapers.

Moments later, Philippe called me and told me that he had found and bought a photograph of the crash taken by a plane spotter. It showed the Concorde with flames coming out of it shortly before the crash.

That photo appeared in newspapers around the world.

Asia’s Largest Solar Power Plant in Kaohsiung, Taiwan from Nicky Loh on Vimeo.

The first time lapse sequence was shot over a period of one hour at 1 frame every two seconds on a lens baby. I chose to use still photography to capture the time lapse over video as the movement of the panels was so small that a continuous one hour raw video file on the 5D MKII would have crashed my computer.

The second time lapse sequence featuring the overview of Kaohsiung City, used to illustrate a city gaining electricity, was shot over a 3 hour period, at 1 frame every 4 seconds, from inside a hotel with an overview of the city. Because the hotel room lights reflect on the glass panel of the hotel room window which I shot through, I had to sit in the dark for nearly two hours for the camera to finish snapping.

 A view shows a sinking cargo ship after it collided with a boat on Huangpu River in Shanghai February 1, 2010. Three sailors were  rescued from the accident, while further investigation is underway, according to local media. REUTERS/Aly Song

Why does this picture work so well when common sense tells me the worker in the foreground should block my view of the scene? Why don’t I feel that I want him to move so I can see the whole scene? Maybe it’s the way I am drawn into the picture by the strong sense of aerial perspective, the bold dark red of the helmet in the foreground, the point of focus, the harsh contrast of the diagonals thrown up by the stricken cargo ship and then through into the soft, misty and pale skyline of Shanghai.

 Or is it the classic grid like composition of the horizontal line of the waters edge and the vertical lines of the buildings that are both dissected by the triangular shapes of the cargo ship? What ever it is the eye suddenly snaps back to the subject, an overturned cargo ship slowly sinking in the murky waters of the Huangpu River.

I just have to know more. The caption tells me the cargo ship collided with a barge, three sailors were rescued and an investigation is underway.

 Have a look at the picture below without the worker – see what I mean?

Russell Boyce, Chief photographer Asia

 
My first sensation was of absolute powerlessness; the pain, chaos and destruction were so overwhelming it seemed impossible to register it all. It was hard to know where to start, to find the exact words to describe everything that was happening and continues to happen. To translate all that it into images is a huge challenge.

 
I had never been in a tragedy of this magnitude, or seen anything close. Every day that passed we realized the dimension of the destruction was even greater. Every time I explored what was behind a wall, in a garden or a plaza, inside a field hospital or in the ruins of a house, there would be more children who urgently needed food and medicine, more desperate men and women with no hope for the future.

 
The whole city is an immense refugee camp without basic services, water, electricity, or toilets, that disappears at night in the darkness of ruins. There is the impression of statelessness, of an absence of institutions to help or oversee.
 
The extreme poverty of Haiti compounds the problem. An earthquake here may be worse than practically anywhere on earth, because the houses were constructed with cheap materials, on dangerous slopes, without building codes. There were no emergency services capable of responding.

 
Many people ask if journalists help in disasters. I don’t think we help directly. Our job is to trigger the response from institutions that do. This is what motivates us to come to these places, to point the eyes of the world toward people who are suffering and clamoring for help. We have to sensitize people to the situation through our pictures.

 
I don’t know if the worst is over. All those who have died or are missing represent a deep loss. But the real sadness and concern now revolves around the challenges to come for the survivors who will have to fight to keep going in a destroyed country, where the help that is arriving seems like a drizzle in the desert.

Click here for a selection of some of the most striking images captured by our own Reuters’ photographers.

An injured child receives medical treatment in Port-au-Prince, January 13, 2010. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

Residents walk next to a dead body in Port-au-Prince, January 13, 2010. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

A looter holds a knife as he fights for products in Port-au-Prince, January 16, 2010. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

People take cover as U.S. soldiers from the 82nd Airborne land with Sea Hawk helicopters at the garden of the damaged Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince, January 19, 2010. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

A man prepares to dip in icy waters during an Orthodox Epiphany celebration, with the air temperature at about -26 degrees Celsius ( -14.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in Pereslavl-Zalessky, some 140 km (87 miles) northeast of Moscow January 19, 2010/Sergei Karpukhin

A man gets out of the water during an Orthodox Epiphany celebration, with air temperature at about -24 degrees Celsius (-11.2 degrees Fahrenheit) in Suzdal, some 200 km (124 miles) northeast of Moscow January 19, 2010/Denis Sinyakov

A man helps a woman out of the Bazaikha river during Orthodox Epiphany celebrations, with air temperature at about -28 degrees Celsius (-18.4 degrees Fahrenheit), in the suburbs of the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk January 19, 2010/Ilya Naymushin

A man dips in icy waters during an Orthodox Epiphany celebration, with air temperature at about -24 degrees Celsius (-11.2 degrees Fahrenheit) in Rostov, some 200 km (124 miles) northeast of Moscow January 19, 2010/Sergei Karpukhin

A man prepares to dip into the Ob River in Russia's Siberian city of Novosibirsk, with the air temperature at about minus 30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit), during an Orthodox Epiphany celebration, January 19, 2010/Alexei Yefimov

A woman warms up after a plunge in icy waters during an Orthodox Epiphany celebration, in the main Altai city of Barnaul, January 19, 2010/Andrei Kasprishin

A man braves the Moskva River in Moscow during an Orthodox Epiphany celebration, January 19, 2010/Alexander Natruskin

Men help a woman out of the Bazaikha river during Orthodox Epiphany celebrations, with air temperature at about -28 degrees Celsius (-18.4 degrees Fahrenheit), in the suburbs of the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk January 19, 2010/Ilya Naymushin

Here's the video:

Russian Orthodox pilgrims also took the Epiphany dip at the River Jordan, where the temperatures were much warmer. Our Jerusalem bureau chief Alastair Macdonald accompanied a group to the area said to be where Jesus was baptised. Pilgrims from the Jordanian side were allowed to wade into the river, but Israeli police made sure the faithful on their side had to content themselves with dips in basins marked "Jordan Water: Not Drinking."

An Orthodox pilgrim dunks himself in water from the Jordan River during a ceremony at the baptismal site known as Qasr el-Yahud on banks of the Jordan River near the West Bank city of Jericho January 18, 2010/Ronen Zvulun

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Let’s get one thing straight. We Brits go on about the weather like a stuck record, but when it comes to it, we can’t cope with it. That’s why we live in Britain.

We whinge when the mercury drops to -3 (26 degrees Fahrenheit). A colleague of mine in Canada will point out that’s not cold. Cold, proper cold, can’t feel your fingers, just walked into a fridge cold, is -25 (-13 degrees Fahrenheit).

So when the Met Office started predicting heavy snowfalls on the night of the Aston Villa v Liverpool game, I did my best boy scout impression, packed my shovel and set off four hours early, you know, in case of snowdrifts the size of elephants.

There weren’t any.

It was the sort of game where you could find yourself nodding off, a dull, tactical, stand-off between two Premiership sides fighting to finish in the top four to get a Champions League place.

Probably the only reason this match will ever be remembered – even by the most diehard fans – is the snow. Ninety minutes of sitting by the pitch feeling some sympathy with an ice lolly.

Aston Villa’s John Carew heads the ball clear during their English Premier League match against Liverpool at Villa Park in Birmingham, central England, December 29, 2009.   REUTERS/Darren Staples

But the weather – not the game – makes the picture. A slow shutter speed can make falling snow or rain look heavier than it is and a photograph even more dramatic. With a bit of good timing, or luck, you can capture a picture like this, with the water coming off the ball and the head of the player which makes it look like he’s got a halo.

Practically, focusing is difficult because your lens picks up on the falling flakes, not the players. You need to wear a glove that isn’t too thick – or thin – so you can still feel the controls on your camera. I wear a jacket that’s so padded, I look like I’m wearing a Sumo suit. And it’s not just me. Even the camera has a waterproof ‘jacket’ on as well. It’s made of fabric and protects my 400mm lens and the body (designed by an Australian snapper – do they get snow there then?).

Then there’s wiring. You have the picture, how do you send it to the desk when it’s wet and you don’t want your laptop to go bang? Simple. You get a roll of Reuters’ sticky tape  and the groundsheet of a tent and turn it into a homemade bag that you can fit both your computer and your head.

It’s not just the weather that you’re up against. It’s the other 45,000 at the game who want to get onto their mobile phones and tell their mates what’s happening. It clogs up the networks and means that photos go so slowly it would probably be quicker to walk to London – or in this case Singapore – and deliver them by hand.

Then you’re into three minutes of injury time, the game’s 0-0 and what happens? Liverpool’s Fernando Torres scores…at the opposite end to where I’m sitting. Oh the frustration.

Liverpool’s Fernando Torres (2nd L) celebrates his goal against Aston Villa during their English Premier League  match at Villa Park in Birmingham December 29, 2009.   REUTERS/Darren Staples

And the next morning, when I’m looking forward to throwing a few snowballs with the kids, what happens? The snow’s all gone. C’est la vie.

I was in Phuket the day before Christmas, dodging the bullet perhaps as my ground floor room would certainly have become my tomb. Back in Singapore the news broke and I flew to Sri Lanka, arriving at the center of the destruction 24 hours after the waves. My first stop was a hospital outside Galle. Hundreds of bodies lay on the damp concrete floor, children in fetal positions next to what rescuers assumed were their parents. Some of them had bandages and IV’s telling the story of the pathetic struggle to save them, others just looked like they were asleep, still in pajamas but slowly bloating.

Blood and bodily fluid and the stark stench of decomposition. I worked the scene like a vulture, the lenses my shield; my shock at the scene my helmet; technical adjustments on the cameras my distraction from the horror. I edited on the fly, transmitting a few images via satphone and moving onto more death. It is only that night as I look through my day’s take that the tears come, as the reality of what I saw hits me – there is no lens now. Only the hard truth in 2 megabyte files on a dusty laptop screen.

The destruction was complete – nothing within a few hundred yards of the beach was untouched. As we drove into Galle, a few miles out of town, life was normal. Schoolgirls walked to school, mothers hung laundry outside modest homes and markets were open. The sheer contrast from the normal Sri Lanka I love and the damage was instantaneous and merciless. We moved north, meeting a diving buddy who had lost his dive school and all his staff; some Swedish friends who had lost their hotel and thousands more bodies. The Sri Lankans were stoic, burying the dead methodically, guarding their emotions – numb with shock.

Further north we entered a community of Muslims that has been completely flattened. Muslims buried Hindus, Christians and Buddhists – praying for them, hoping their onward journey was complete wherever they go. A stern-faced army general arrived to assess the damage and the security situation. The bodies were extracted from huge piles of concrete by hand and the mass graves were in shallow beach sand. “They are all Muslims now” said one of the grave diggers.

In Batticaloa we hitched a ride on a Sri Lankan army helicopter – unsure of its destination. My seat had no seatbelt and the old Huey had no doors. I hung on for my life while trying to shoot. Below us the land was flooded by heavy rains, adding insult to injury and a new toll of casualties. We landed at Ampara Air Force base and spent the day going up in helicopters, yelling passport details to the ground controller before each flight in case we went down. We delivered body bags, water and rations to several small villages. The Indian Air Force arrived in big Hinds helicopters to help the relief effort. It all seemed futile.

Ten days and one shower later I was back in Colombo. Journalists flooded the five star hotels – an army of beige photo vests and cameras. I was tired, heading directly for my flight to Singapore. I stunk, I had a throat infection, my shoes were moist with blood and old rotten water. At the airport I saw one of my pictures on the front of the Financial Times and thought back to the old man in the picture who lost most of his family, his head cradled in his hands, an IV plug still in his hand. My problems were nothing. They were embarrassingly trivial, but I was not getting onto the crisply sanitized Singapore Airlines 777 with my bloody sneakers. In Singapore an immigration officer saw me bare footed and broken. “You have been in Sri Lanka? Welcome home.” I broke down briefly – all around me people were buying duty free booze and watches. It didn’t seem right.