Jury 2010

Paul Sanders

PHOTO EDITOR, THE TIMES (U.K.)

A veteran of newspaper photography already, Paul Sanders has spent plenty of time on both sides of the picture desk. His career began in 1991 at The Daventry Express but he soon moved on to Newsteam in Birmingham, a large regional news agency that supplies images to all of the U.K.'s national magazines and newspapers.

In 1996 while still at Newsteam, Sanders was busy establishing a joint operation with the Manchester Evening News when he was tapped by the paper to become their new deputy picture editor. Two years later, Sanders joined Reuters as the U.K assignments editor and then moved onto the picture desk at the venerable London newspaper, The Times. He was only able to serve a short stint there before the road started calling his name again.

In 2003, he leaped from the photo desk back into the field, working as a freelance photographer for Reuters, Associated Press and The Times. Of course, the yo-yo life between being a photographer in the trenches and editing pictures for newspapers continued and Sanders soon found himself back at The Times where he has been the picture editor for the last six years.

What makes a great photo? "For me it is an image that takes you straight to the heart of a story and enables the reader to virtually feel the moment in which the image was created. Great photographs, when I see them, make the hairs on my neck stand up."

How has industry changed in the past five years? "There is a lot more of it. I see upwards of 15,000 pictures every day and to be honest 75 percent of it is unnecessary. Digital photography and the advances in mobile communication mean that photographers can send many more pictures at less cost. On the plus side, these changes in technology have also freed up the photographer to concentrate wholly on making great pictures."

www.timesonline.co.uk