DISPATCHES

Collected by Amy Bowers
for the Digital Journalist

"Sorry if the words are sloppy. I have not had much sleepy in the last week." This typo of Jud McCrehin, staff photographer for Army Times Publishing Company, seems a good way to introduce DISPATCHES from exhausted photojournalists covering the terrorism story.

JB Russell, a photojournalist based in Paris, elaborates: "Almost everyone is either shooting digital or shooting negative film, developing locally, scanning and transmitting images daily via the internet. This allows a constant flow of images to clients, but adds hours of work for the photographers. On big stories like this local internet service providers quickly get overwhelmed by the massive influx of the world's media. Getting connected to the internet and maintaining a line long enough to send large image files becomes a nightmare, especially on deadline days. At the end of a long day of shooting, I now come back to the hotel to edit and scan my stories. Then comes hours and hours of attempting to send them, often until 3, 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning, only to get up early and start all over again."

PF Bentley agrees: "Shooting digital, I'm editing all day in between shooting and then get back to the hotel to transmit and finishing the pictures by around 10pm. This goes on everyday. So has you see I have no life right now other than shoot, edit, transmit and sleep."

Somewhere between shooting and re-grouping, our friends still found time to send emails describing their experiences this month. On assignment in Washington, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and out to sea, we received these dispatches.

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