For most press photographers standing in the rain is an occupational hazard; even so the equipment we use does not operate well when wet. Imagine then the challenges faced by news photographers when torrential rain floods a nations capital city, leaving more than 340,000 people displaced and knocking out transport and communications.

After 24 hours of continual downpour, Reuters Jakarta photographer Beawiharta was shooting pictures of happy children playing in flooded paddy fields. Two days later with the water still rising Chief Photographer Indonesia Enny Nuraheni was literally up to her neck in it, photographing the evacuation of beleaguered residents from lower lying areas of the city.

I was paddling through flood water on a borrowed air mattress which residents usually use to sleep on. Getting access to the areas of deeper water using my temporary raft I was able to shoot the pictures of rescuers putting the boy in a plastic container as they fled, neck deep in flooded streets. We had to continually take care and rely on local knowledge as we couldnt determine what was a flooded river and what was a tunnel which could sweep us under the flood waters.

A week later as the waters receded, with thousands still in cramped emergency shelters and the fear of disease gripping the city, Beawihartas image of buckets of mud in a Jakarta classroom, looks deceptively like a scene from Willy Wonkas chocolate factory and hints at the sheer scale of the task faced by residents before they can return to their homes.

And finally, two succinct black and white images from You Witness contributor Donal Husni show life in Pamalung, Indonesia returning to normal as the floods recede.

Soccer, again. Arsenal, again. Thierry Henry, again. Eddie Keogh, again. David Bentley of Blackburn Rovers looks amazed by Henrys balletic leap and the uncompromising Eddie has the moment, superbly composed, beautifully lit and tack sharp.

His grip on a team mates shirt seems to be the only thing preventing FC Zurichs Daniel Stucki from floating upwards in Siggi Buchers ambiguous image of a celebratory moment from the Swiss Super League.

Fruit flies

Looking like something from a riot at a baseball game Alessandro Bianchi freezes the orange juice in his action image from an annual fruit fight in north western Italy.

Happy New Year!

In this strange image of faces glimpsed among flames like a scene from Dantes Inferno Aly Song shows a group of Chinese offering incense to welcome the Lunar New Year in Lanzhou, western China. The year of the golden pig already looks particularly auspicious for Aly Song.

Traditionally news agency photography aims to capture an event in a single definitive image. At one end of the spectrum it can be a simple snapshot, at the other end it is a distilled blend of intelligence, dedication, experience, humanity, talent and the ability to apply a broad spectrum of visual references including cinema and TV.

We spend a great deal of time trying to capture the decisive moment by freezing moments in time but in this picture of the Royal Opera Company performing Swan Lake, Kieran Doherty slowed his shutter speed, stretching the moment to produce an image which captures the energy and sumptuous colour of the dance like a movie in a single frame.

Another way of introducing movement into a still image is by using zoom burst which draws the eye into or out of the frame. Using zoom burst Kim Kyung-Hoon makes a lovely picture of what is essentially just a rainy day in Tokyo.

While they are both entirely valid techniques, my view is that motion blur or zoom burst should be used only very, very sparingly and the results edited ruthlessly leaving only completely successful examples. If it doesnt work successfully first time, keep trying until it does and until it then, keep it to yourself.

Back again to down and dirty pictures shot under pressure on the pitches and pavements of the World. Dylan Martinezs image of British actor Nick Frost having his photo taken with a fan before the premier of his latest film uses the strong diagonal element running bottom left to top right to lead the viewers eye to the subject, face neatly framed by the reaching arms of fans.

Like looking down into the depths of a pool the eye travels back from the tip of gun to the figure of a U.N. peacekeeper standing guard on a street in Port-au-Prince, in this chillingly powerful abstract in muted tones by Eduardo Munoz.

You wait ages for an unusual red carpet picture and two come along at the same time. Luke MacGregors well executed image from the Baftas in London of ‘The Queen’ director Stephen Frearss baseball boot clad feet gives us an abstract view of the man. It draws on a long line of press pictures using footwear to offer insight into the personality of the owner.

Members of the band OK Go have made a great deal of effort with their outfits for the Grammys in Los Angeles but as Mario Anzuonis picture shows while they may have achieved individual anonymity, they still have to work on the invisibility thing.

Leaving the red carpet behind but back with footwear, Kieran Dohertys picture from a London park of a dog walker with two Dalmatians against a background of snow appears deceptively simple but hinges on the impact of the red Wellingtons.

Many thousands of still pictures flood into the world’s online and traditional media picture desks daily, mostly produced by professional photographers but now increasingly by dedicated amateur photographers and even members of the public.

This is a personal, second look at a few of these pictures starting with some images that have moved on the Reuters News Pictures Service in the past week or so. It is not intended to be definitive, nor does it necessarily contain subjects at the top of the news
or sports agenda.

As a photographer and now as an editor, my first love is strong, story-telling, down and dirty images that leave the viewer in no doubt about what is happening. Shot in the heat of the moment in competitive circumstances by photographers with little control over access or prevailing conditions, they may not make it as far as the “best of the year” edit, but are absolute belters on the day and the bread and butter of the news and sports pages. Eddie Keogh’s well-framed image is a good example, capturing the despair of Arsenal’s Thierry Henry after back heeling the ball to have it saved by Bolton Wanderers’ goalkeeper Jussi Jaaskelainen during their FA Cup fourth round soccer match.

The next image is from last Sunday’s Super Bowl. Not a sport action picture in the true sense but a well caught moment of Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy about to get the traditional dousing of the winning coach by his players. Hans Deryk captures the essence of the joke, the coach appears to have forgotten what happens every year and is completely focused elsewhere as a tongue of iced water licks inexorably towards him. Only the kid on the left, who looks like a mini version of Coach Dungy, has seen it coming.

However, down and dirty is not everything as the next image elegantly illustrates. It is an intriguing image of two pedestrians in a Tokyo street. Nicely observed and cleverly constructed, Toru Hanai manages to link the subjects by making it appear as though the woman is watching the speeding man while in reality they were both visible only to him and would have been oblivious to one another.

And last but not least, two almost static pictures of NASA Astronaut Lisa Nowak which alone are nice to have frames but juxtaposed against one another in this way offer a powerful and poignant insight into her story.

David Viggers is a long-serving photographer and picture editor with Reuters News Pictures currently running the UKI Pictures Reporting Operation based in London.

Welcome to the Reuters Photographers blog. We would like to make this a meeting place for people who love photography – a place where we can have a discussion about Reuters pictures, talk about your own images, encourage quality photography and exchange ideas.

The blog will be run by one of our most experienced photo editors, David Viggers (in the picture), with regular contributions by some of the best photographers and editors in the business.

Our You Witness site has been up and running for a couple of months now and we have received hundreds of excellent pictures. We will regularly talk about these images.

The best and most newsworthy pictures will be used on the Reuters wire and could end up on the front pages of newspapers around the world.

Tom Szlukovenyi is Reuters Global Pictures News Editor