And the correct answer is...

© Magnus Andersson

...UK prime minister Gordon Brown.

I put up a little quiz a few days ago, and the response was overwhelming, NOT! I got one reply, from a person that went to the same class as me. Cheating - I believe I mentioned it - will not be tolerated! That someone owes me a drink.


cutting from today's Guardian. © Magnus Andersson

Today has been a day of endless frustration though. I was supposed to have the morning off and not start until 12.30 but got a call at 10am from my editor. I was needed to photograph the parents of yet another teenage murder victim.

OK, I'll try and be there for 11.15. Turned up on time but couldn't find any parking for the next 20 minutes, saw our crime reporter knocking on the door as I went past trying alternative roads, found a spot and knocked on the door myself. Spoke to one of their relatives and apparently there had been a misunderstanding. They had NOT agreed to a photo in the end, so my morning of lie-in-turned-exclusive-photo-opportunity had become an early start on a day when I'm supposed to be working late.

I managed to get back to the office for a few minutes to download the jobs from the day before, but didn't have time to edit them in Photoshop. Had to go off to the remaining three jobs and after that got home to download, at 19.30.

Earlier in the week I'd ordered some new RAM for my computer at home and tried installing it when I got home. Bad mistake.

The computer broke. Damn machine! As soon as I turned it on again it started beeping every second and wouldn't go through the boot routine. It got stuck on a 'PCI Device Listing' screen and did nothing else. In the end I gave up and downloaded my jobs on my girlfriends laptop instead, which doesn't have the Nikon software that I use for captioning, and its damn slow, so it meant a lot more work.

While waiting for the download I googled my PC's condition and after much re-starting and fiddling, I managed to get it to work on one of the RAM sticks, but not both. So this post is brought to you on 50% RAM capacity, not 100%. I wasted 4 hours getting here, but hopefully I've only wasted a minute or so of your time.

Apologies.

The last pic is from today, of some kids whose life is a lot worse than for most of us. Yet they still achieve. More on this later perhaps. I'm not complaining anymore.


© Magnus Andersson

"it's about the cumulative damage done by suspicion"

Good film by Rajesh Thind on the issue of being confronted by officers who have very little understanding of the law when it comes to taking pictures and filming in public places.

I mentioned my ordeal in a previous post, and now security expert Bruce Schneier has weighed in with a good article in The Guardian.

The Times also had a piece on the subject from which the beautiful sentence to this post title was lifted.

Here's a download on what our rights are. I just wish they would show it to the officers, because I'm pretty sure we photographers know the score.

The commitment

Photojournalist John D McHugh grimaces in pain as a medic examines and dresses his gunshot wound at Kamu Outpost in Nuristan, in north-east Afghanistan, 14 May 2007. The photographer was shot through the stomach during a firefight between the US and Afghan National Army (ANA), who he was embedded with, and insurgents. 17 ANA died, one is still recorded as "missing in action", and 4 more were wounded. 7 US soldiers were also wounded in the fight. Photo: John D McHugh

I've talked a bit about war photography here before and when it comes to photojournalism it is seen as the ultimate assignment, mainly because you put your own life at risk simply to report on a story, so I always find it both alluring but also completely frightening - why work in a situation that can kill you at any moment? The money is more or less the same, the risks are extreme and you dont see your loved ones for long periods.

Irish photographer John D McHugh was on assignment in Afghanistan for AFP last year when he had his stomach blown out in a scary firefight with insurgents. I think that for most people, just surviving would have been enough to stay away from those kind of missions in the future.

Not so for our John. After surgery and rehabilitation he resigned from his agency and went back to Afghanistan as a freelancer - i.e. without any employer backing him - as soon as he could. Of the few war correspondents that I've met, they all seem to have this streak in them, to get back up in the saddle ASAP.

His commitment has finally brought him an employer willing to pay for his great desire to report from this extremely dangerous situation; check out his new regular page on The Guardian's website here, but most of all, read his extraordinary account of the day he got shot here. Makes you think twice before romanticizing war photography.