US and Russian presidents earing burgers

Picture author: Kevin Lamarque
Picture date: June 24, 2010.

Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama have burgers for lunch at Ray's Hell Burger restaurant in Arlington, Virginia. Traveling by motorcade, the two presidents ventured to Ray's Hell Burger in Arlington, Va., a popular hamburger joint just outside the nation's capital. During their meal, Obama and Medvedev sat at a table with their interpreters, sharing a conversation through them.

The picture shows heads of two superpower countries as normal, relaxed men having a meal in a regular fast-food restaurant. Picture lacks the glitter of official meetings between two presidents. It also shows that sometimes you can make key decisions in a spontaneous way. After eating the meal, presidents returned to their route.

A man holding a stick under water

Picture author: Damir Sagolj
Picture date: February 17, 2011

The picture depicts a man holding a stick. He installs a pump to extract mud at a primitive gold mine in Panompa near Phichin. A group of Thais use primitive tools and methods to extract gold from self-run mines near the country's biggest and most modern Chatree gold mine. A family working at the mine can get around one gram of gold per day which they sell at the site for about 1000 Thai bahts.

The author said about the photo:

This is a classic example of how still images can work better than video. The boy was installing a water pump at this primitive gold mine and he had to dive into muddy water to do it. He held onto a stick in the pond to offer a chance at a perfect composition. Just like in many other cases, the light of the late afternoon played a big part and I chose again a wide open 24 mm lens (maximum shutter speed on minimum ISO) to have the focus only on his hand and the stick making the borders a bit blurred. A second later he came out and the moment of mystery of "what is going on in the scene" was gone.

An aid worker films the rotting carcass of a cow

Picture author: Barry Malone
Picture date: July 23, 2011

An aid worker using an iPad captures an image of a dead cow’s decomposing carcass in Wajir near the Kenya-Somalia border on July 23. The Horn of Africa was plagued by drought, and especially since famine was declared in parts of Somalia, the international aid industry came to many refugee camps and remote hamlets in branded planes and snaking lines of white 4x4s.  Analysts say that humanitarian and diplomatic actions are necessary every time people go hungry in Africa. African and foreign governments rarely respond on time to coming catastrophes. Overgeneralised explanations of the causes of famine, and a growing band of aid critics say parts of Africa are doomed to a never-ending cycle of ignored early warnings, media appeals and emergency U.N. feeding - rather than a transition to lasting self-sufficiency.

African governments know that drought is coming, because it’s a cycle, and still they do not prepare. Foreign charities working there talk about long-term plans to help people become self-sufficient but they have been failing to achieve them for 20 years. It is as much about politics and war and poor economic policies as it is about no rain. The author told this about his feeling regarding to taking the picture:

Part of me felt bad for publishing the photo of the man with the iPad. Because he was a good person doing his job. And because we are the same.

He comes with an iPad, I come with a notebook.

Both of us steal dignity and neither of us belong.