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- FROM THE PUBLISHER, Page 6
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- It may be summer in the high Himalayas, but photographer
- Robert Nickelsberg borrowed a heavy-duty arctic snowsuit to
- cover this week's story on war on the Siachen Glacier between
- India and Pakistan. Just as well: he was stranded by a blizzard
- at a military camp 17,400 ft. up. Later, during an artillery
- exchange, Nickelsberg tried to dash to a better position only
- to discover that the thin air made it "nearly impossible to
- run." The rigors behind him, Nickelsberg sent back the first
- combat pictures seen in the West of this little-known conflict.
-
- Such effort is frequently the norm for our photographers,
- as major picture essays appear in the magazine almost every
- week. Some assignments are long planned, then take on special
- urgency after they get under way. When TIME's White House
- photographer Diana Walker began shooting for her May 22 essay
- on a day in the life of the President, she had no idea that
- George Bush would be facing a foreign policy crisis over Panama.
- Busy as he was, the President still went out of his way to ask,
- "How can I help make your job easier today?" Chimed in White
- House photographer David Valdez: "Just pretend she isn't here."
-
- When Hong Kong photographer Robin Moyer went to Beijing in
- mid-May, it was for what he considered a "simple assignment":
- to cover the visit of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Very
- quickly, says Moyer, "it became obvious that the story was the
- cry for democracy in Tiananmen." His assignment stretched into
- weeks, until the fatal night of the military crackdown. "No
- picture is worth risking your life for," says Moyer, "but at
- night everyone just went out, snapping away, oblivious to the
- dangers."
-
- That kind of enterprise has brought TIME shooters a raft of
- awards this year, including top honors in photojournalism's
- three major competitions: the University of Missouri Magazine
- Photographer of the Year, the Overseas Press Club's Robert Capa
- Gold Medal and the World Press Photo's Oskar Barnack Award.
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