AP staffer Bob Bukaty looked on the ice and over the water for two photos  in the MSNBC weather slide show today.

His frame at dusk of an ice fisherman in his shack on a frozen lake has the perfect balance of cold and warm tones joined by matching exposures. The fisherman shown through the window contributes action to what could have been a very ordinary photo of an ice fishing hut on a frozen lake.

Bob added to his score for the day with a second frame of fog rising off warm waters in the minus-12 degree harbor in Rockland, Maine. There are two different frames on the Yahoo feed.

Earlier this month Bob photographed thick winter storm clouds arriving over Phippsburg.

There’s not better place to have a spot news assignment than New York City, assuming there is a good place for spot news. Yesterday’s plane crash into the Hudson River turned out great for passengers, crew, and staffers at The New York Times, Reuters, EPA, and  AP.

Gary Hershorn of Reuters leads the New York Times slide show of the spectacular rescue of passengers standing on the wings of the plane as it floats down the river. His coworker, Brendan Mcdermid, adds to the drama in the MSNBC slide show with a tight shot of passengers in rafts attached to the plane as rescue boats approach as did Bebeto Mathews of the AP.

Eds Note: The links for this story may be changed as photos are added to the slide shows.

Another Eds Note: Gary Hershorn of Reuters describes how he and his staff covered the crash from their New York headquarters

Ice fishing on a local lake took a greater magnitude for Minneapolis-St. Paul  Star Tribune staffers Richard Sennott and Richard Tsong-Taatarii when University of Minnesota biologists used the cold weather to gather up more than 3,00 unwanted, bottom feeding carp.

Sennot’s linear slide show highlights the process and success of gathering the gold-colored invasive species that had damaged the lakes natural ecosystem by eating the lake’s native fish species.and few native game fish.

Richard Tsong-Taatarii’s video jumps from the obvious linear approach with interviews and vignettes from the crew including a Florida fisherman recruited to assist and a Bahamian grad student admitting he’s happy in the cold environment.

Although the three pieces (including the  story) have some factual differences the combination creates a wonderful storytelling success. Especially Tsong-Taatarii’s video and sound.

The Los Angeles Times was called to task for publishing photos of young street surfers riding the latest in skateboard design, Hamboards. The boards are longer, built to resemble surfboards giving the riders a different surface and experience more like surfboards than the smaller skateboards.

Times staffer Allen J. Schaben is the guilty culprit who put together a Web slide show to go with the story of several of the street surfers enjoying themselves without safety helmet and protective pads.

A reader complained the paper ought to have better sense than to publish photos of someone so blatantly putting themselves at risk. The paper explained it was their job to observe and report, not directly correct the bad habits of their subjects.

In California it’s Hamboards. In the Midwest it’s kids jumping from railroad bridges into creeks. In Florida the complaints are more about kids and surf without a flotation device.

I have a friend who as a police officer often has to deal with the results of people making mistakes.  He once told me “Stupid people are my job security.” It’s the same for photographers

My favorite photo from Schaben is below. Name the album(s). 1 – 2 – 3

Dave McDermand, chief photographer at The Eagle in College Station, Texas, followed a Texas Army National Guard helicopter during training exercises today at Texas A&M and watched as it crashed.

The crash happened as one of two choppers were taking off from the campus field during a day of training by as many as five helicopters.

There’s little reason to talk to witnesses about what happened when you’ve got such good visual evidence from a newspaper photographer.

[ Story and More Photos ]

The Dallas Morning News pioneered video for newspapers. Staffer David Leeson became what is believed to be the first full-time newspaper staff photographer to dedicated all of his time to shooting video. His work demonstrated the possibility that video cameras might one day replace still cameras in every photojournalist’s camera bag.

The recent coverage of a police officer’s funeral by the DMN staff might just prove the theory wrong.

A combined video and still multimedia project covering the funeral makes the video look like nothing more than B-roll for the still images that are far more effective emotional moments of the slain officer’s memorial.

The videos have motion. They utilize actuality sound of speakers at the podium and bagpipes sorrowful moaning.

But the video fails to capture the emotion of the officer’s police family and his wife as they express their sorrow. Especially important are Lara Solt’s still images at the grave where officers place their hands on his casket and his crying wife looks up to the heavens with her hand on the cakset. [ Numbers 16 and 17 in the still slide show ]

This weeks flooding brought visual records of destruction, emotion, and beauty to the paper’s readers.

The PI’s Mike Kane offered a frame of a rainbow of color lying over a flooded farm field as part of the paper’s slideshow. Kane has several other aerials in the slideshow and coworker Scott Eklund also has a rainbow arc across the city.

Seattle Times staffer Steve Ringman stood on four feet of dried mud as the owner of a tavern emotional reacts to her damaged business. The photo s part of a slideshow of images from the paper’s staff.

National Public Radio photographer David Gilkey has been covering the Gaza conflict from Israel’s border town. He has had his equipment destroyed — and has suffered from tear gas exposure — while capturing protests and gunfire. Gilkey spoke with Corey Flintoff via telephone Tuesday, after returning from a reporting trip to Sderot.

Gilkey, above is biting on a towel  he’d been using to  get tear gas out of his face, eyes and mouth. “It burns your lips so you suck on a dry towel. It helps the stinging stop,” he told an NPR reporter.

Fighting tear gas is certainly less dangerous than his most recent coverage of kids throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers.

“So, I had just walked down there and I found a spot that seemed reasonably out of the way, and I heard “Boom! Boom! Boom!” on the metal wall that I was sort of up against, and then my camera flew out of my hand, and I looked down and — there’s a hole in it! [laughs] And that was the end of my day.” – Gilkey”So, I had just walked down there and I found a spot that seemed reasonably out of the way, and I heard “Boom! Boom! Boom!” on the metal wall that I was sort of up against, and then my camera flew out of my hand, and I looked down and — there’s a hole in it! [laughs] And that was the end of my day.” – Gilkey

He certainly met the Capa criteria.

David Proeber, a photo editor at the Pantagraph in Bloomington, Illinois, became an unwitting participant in a police chase and shootout as he searched for a suspected robber on the interstate highway.

Proeber stopped his car in the opposite lanes where police were chasing the suspect when as he approached Proeber’s car from the other direction he stopped, leaped the concrete median wall and carrying a gun began to run through traffic towards the photographer’s car.  Proeber continued to shoot until he realized he wasn’t sure what the suspect intended or he might become involved in the chase.

He sped away to a position about 150 away when he heard shots and turned to see police shooting at the suspect.

Proeber returned to the scene where he photographed the suspect being handcuffed lying in the middle of the interstate highway.

What Proeber thought he would get nothing more than a series of photos of speeding cars passing by on the other side of a concrete divider. The result is certainly more than what was anticipated.

Read Proeber’s story
Suspect’s story
Photo gallery

Yesterday’s post pointed out the sensitivity of covering spot news, especially for small newspaper photographers. It certainly is no easier for Andrea Bruce covering Iraq for The Washington Post.

Her most recent trip to Iraq where she earlier shot for the Post, gained her access to the rituals of female circumcision among Kurdish women. The Post slideshow opening screen warns the viewer they are about to see graphic images. The almost linear presentation moves through the circumcision of a seven-year-old girl

Most striking among the images is the one above at the moment of circumcision. Even the girl’s mother clamping her daughter’s legs wide, cringes at the cut and resulting screams of pain.

The moment of the girl’s loss of innocence is contrasted with the opening image of her in a mirror adorned with flowers as she sits quietly with three friends waiting for the party her mother has promised.

Gaining access to this rite of passage for some Muslim women,especially for a foreigner, lies at the strength of her photos. Bruce’s stark imagery details the trauma of the children forced to undergo the surgery, the family who will be affected, the elders, sight unseen, who ordered it and the woman whose income depends on it.

Bruce, whose sensitivities are probably more in keeping with her Western education and lifestyle, performed the tasks of a photojournalist with perfection. She told the story without complaint or interference respecting her subject’s different customs, mores and rituals

More about Bruce:

Single Images:
A portfolio of images from the past year, including photos from the D.C. area sniper shootings to a high school swimming champion.

Inch by Inch:
As captain of the Arlington County fire department, BJ Thomas was one of the first on the scene at the Pentagon on Sept. 11. Nearly one year after the terrorist attack, the retired Arlington County fire captain still suffers from post traumatic stress.

Gore’s Final Hurrah:
Former vice president Al Gore campaigned for fellow Democrats during the 2002 elections, a move many observers thought was a prelude to a presidential run in 2004. But soon after the mid-term elections, Gore surprised everyone by announcing that he would stay out of the running for the White House.

Andrea Bruce Woodall:
A video interview with the photographer and links to more of her work.