Kevin Coombs

About

News photographer. Production Editor based in London. I promote innovation in the photo department. I deal with news pictures workflow and link into various technology groups to ensure our people have the tools they need to provide the best possible service to our customers. I introduced the first use of wireless lan (before the term WIFI existed) in 1997 linked to digital cameras for use in sports photo coverage. This killed the use of film completely in 1998. I came up with the idea for the first remote photo editing software and rolled it out globally in 2006. Introduced (with some server-side scripts) a method to send high-resolution pictures directly from a DSLR over Mifi/3G in 2009. It removes the need for a laptop on some news events and allows us to send a full resolution, checked, and captioned picture to customers as fast as a camera phone can post to Facebook. Two of those innovations have been widely adopted in the news photo industry. All three were firsts for Reuters. I introduced Reuters Media Express as an editorial tool to monitor the picture wire. One of the first web tools to use active X to 'push' a picture without the need to refresh your browser. We added the text news wire to it and turned it into a product for media clients. I recently led a project in association with Canon to embed trust into a photograph from its source by preserving a picture’s data provenance chain of integrity - the image’s metadata - from the point of capture to publication. We also successfully integrated Starling Lab’s authentication framework into our picture desk workflow. One of the first practical news-gathering applications of the technology Whilst I've always been based in London I have traveled extensively and covered some of the major news and sports events on six continents including, U.S presidential visits. the end of the Bosnia conflict, two new popes, two coronations in Europe, the funerals of Margaret Thatcher, The Queen and Nelson Mandela, Brexit, the Olympics in Rio, London, Beijing, Athens, Sydney, Tokyo and Paris. I work with some of the best photographers, editors, and technicians in the world.