Photographers' Blog

Jinhua, China

By William Hong

Even after I set out to visit his family, the story of Yang Hongnian and his seven children sounded unbelievable to me. As I stood in front of his makeshift house, which is just 20 meters square, I still wasn’t sure it could be true.

The children played around as I waited for Yang to finish work so that he could be interviewed. Eventually, he walked into the dimly lit space with a tired face and a lighted cigarette. The children rushed and surrounded him. Suddenly the already cramped house was completely full.

Yang and his wife Le Huimin have had six children together over the past ten years, in addition to a daughter of Le’s from a previous marriage.

China has eased its famous one-child policy, making it easier for many couples to have two children. However, having as many children as Yang and Le definitely breaks the country’s family planning policy.

That means that four of their kids have not been able to get ‘hukou’ residence permits. Without these documents it’s hard for children to be registered for a primary school and there may be more problems for them as they grow up.

Ferguson, Missouri
By Adrees Latif

I was on holiday and far away from Ferguson, Missouri, when 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot dead by a policeman in the town.

The killing of this unarmed black teenager on August 9 sparked huge protests, and by the time I arrived the demonstrations had been going for well over a week.

Before I got there, clashes between protesters and police had been intense, with tear gas being fired at demonstrators, some of whom let fly rocks, bottles and more. But when I got to Ferguson late evening on August 19, the unrest had started to calm down.

Fishkhabour, Iraq

By Youssef Boudlal

I remember the scene well. It was the day that I arrived at the Iraqi-Syrian border crossing of Fishkhabour.

With shocked, sunburnt faces, men, women and children in dirt-caked clothes were struggling in temperatures of over 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit), waiting patiently for local Kurdish aid.

At first, I focused my camera on a group of women sitting on the ground, but when I turned away I saw this little girl.

Colchester, Britain

By Luke MacGregor

How does one illustrate the centenary of a war that changed global history?

There is no way to truly relive or re-experience what people went through a whole century ago. The only thing I could think of was to try and draw a revealing comparison between people’s lives then and now.

I contacted a group of historical re-enactors who recreate the lives of soldiers in the Great War and attended some museum open days with them, watching as they publicly demonstrated various drills and period artifacts. But I wanted to go further than just seeing their uniforms. I wanted to show an interesting similarity between these men and the soldiers from 100 years before.

The men who served in World War One came from a vast variety of backgrounds; from bakers to bankers, salesmen to solicitors. Many of those who joined up were just school leavers. If they were fit enough and not too old, then they were sent to the front line.

Ferguson, Missouri
By Mario Anzuoni
 
At 6:30 a.m. on Monday, August 11 my phone rang.
 
I was told to pack my riot gear and head to Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis in Missouri, to cover unrest that had broken out there following the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a police officer.

The situation in Ferguson was fluid and extremely tense, especially around a convenience store that had been looted and burned over the weekend. Minutes away from where the shooting took place, this store had become the epicenter of the protest.

 
I understood the dynamics of the unrest quite quickly. During the day people would gather peacefully by the convenience store and everything looked and felt relatively under control.
 
There were families, young kids and even a man who, despite his 92 years, was holding signs in the middle of the street, joining in with the demonstration.

Kano, Nigeria

By Joe Penney

Last year Lamido Sanusi wore pin stripe suits and a colorful array of bow ties to work, and his job consisted mostly of managing interest rates and keeping inflation under control.

Today, he sports long flowing gowns and a white veil over his face, while his daily activities include reciting the Quran and blessing visitors who bow before his feathered slippers.

Sanusi was crowned Muhammadu Sanusi II, the 14th Emir of Kano in June, taking over from Ado Abdullahi Bayero after his death. Reuters visited his palace, an elaborately decorated place within the historic walled city, last month. He is surrounded at all times by their court and bodyguards, who wear brightly colored headwraps and babban riga, or big gowns.

Mosta, Malta

By Darrin Zammit Lupi

Having missed the opportunity to photograph the supermoon in July, I was determined not to do so again for the big celestial event on August 10. I spent a long time researching locations and angles to get a dramatic picture, and settled on the iconic cathedral in Mdina, Malta’s ancient capital city.

Using a newly-purchased iPhone app, I could work out precisely where and when the moon would appear between the church steeples and the best position to photograph the moment.  

As the appointed time drew nearer, I began to feel nervous – what if I hadn’t used the app properly and messed up the calculations?  I joked to a photographer friend, who had joined me for the evening, that if I got it wrong I might actually transform into a werewolf (part of my surname, Lupi, is the Italian word for wolves).

Beijing, China

By Jason Lee

Every night from 7pm until around midnight, anyone in Beijing who craves a bit of music can go and enjoy an “open-air concert” in the southeast of the city.

The singer, Zhang Mingyuan, isn’t part of a famous music label and his performances are just held on a street corner. But even so, the warm atmosphere that he creates in the chilly night air seldom disappoints.

Many of Zhang’s songs are about a happy family life, but his own childhood seems to have been far from content. Born in China’s northeast Heilongjiang province, Zhang said that his father had depression and his mother left him when Zhang was 11 years old. His father left later and Zhang said he was abandoned.

Boston, Massachusetts

By Dominick Reuter

I should probably lead by saying this was NOT my idea.

I was checking in with the Reuters picture desk in Toronto about some of my images when an editor asked if I would be interested in a meal “courtesy of the Baron” (our affectionate term for Reuters).

The non-profit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) had just announced the winners of their 2014 “Xtreme Eating” awards, in which they single out chain restaurant menu items with unbelievably high levels of calories, saturated fats, sugars and salts. The businesses named included the Cheesecake Factory and Red Robin.

Our plan was to photograph these specific dishes, try them, pay and go. More succinctly, I’d shoot, eat, and leave.

New York City, New York

By Mike Segar

On a hot and humid night in late July on New York City’s lower East side, I find Richard Reynolds and a small group of dog enthusiasts standing beneath the pale-yellow glow of the street lights. The sound of dogs barking emanates from inside cars parked near the apartment buildings.

This is the staging ground for a group of enthusiasts named The Ryders Alley Trencher-fed Society, or R.A.T.S. The name comes from a notoriously rat-infested street in Lower Manhattan, where this group and their dogs (mostly terriers) have one mission: to hunt down and kill rats, something I was told they have been doing for about 15 years.

A few more members of the group emerge from the shadows with their dogs. As they prepare for the hunt, Reynolds, a business consultant from New Jersey and the leader of the pack, tells me of his love for dogs. He owns at least seven, has bred terriers, judges dog shows, and is involved in just about all aspects of raising and training dogs for hunting.