KEY POINTS:
Finbarr O'Reilly, last year's World Press Photo of the Year Award winner, recounts a narrow escape during an attack by Taleban fighters:
The first Taleban shell struck just as Canadian and Afghan troops retreated across a dusty field in southern Afghanistan.
It exploded about 5m from four
Canadian soldiers who were training their Afghan National Army counterparts as part of Nato's mission here.
As a photographer embedded with the Canadians, I was caught in the blast and enveloped by a cloud of dust and smoke. We scrambled for cover behind a mud wall shielding us from Taleban positions.
The unit I was with had earlier abandoned a planned dawn ambush of Taleban fighters. It responded quickly to the attack.
I focused on taking pictures of an Afghan army soldier shooting a heavy mounted machine gun from a nearby ditch.
A shell from an 82mm recoil-less rifle exploded in front of him and he disappeared in the flash of light. Sand blasted me and the shockwave knocked me over.
I was sure he was dead, or at least wounded.
A moment later, he bounded out of the ditch and ran towards me through the smoke, the machine gun blazing from his hip, Rambo-style.
A third shell slammed into the solid mud wall where Canadian Sergeant-Major Paul Pilote was standing, sending the soldier sprawling backwards. Stunned, and with blood spilling from his nose and mouth, Pilote crawled away from the explosion on hands and knees.
Under fire, Canadian Master Corporal Frank Flibotte and Major Jean-Sebastien Fortin went to help Pilote.
The battle was typical of the conflict gripping the border region with Pakistan.
Fortin estimated there were between 10 and 15 Taleban attackers, most of them wearing just grubby robes and sandals. Three Taleban were killed, two wounded and three were captured.
Taking pictures during combat is almost a relief. The tension of waiting for "contact" to begin can seem unbearable, then there is mass confusion once things kick off. Working gives photographers an outlet to channel the fear and subdue the panic.
I have to think about where to be to get the correct angle and show facial expressions that tell the story - what's the light doing, what might happen next, but also, where can I position myself safely?
There's no sure answer to that last one.
I was reluctant to leave the cover of a ditch until I realised the Afghan troops had fled and the Canadians were busy with Pilote on the other side of an open dirt road in the line of fire.
Pilote's wounds were not serious and I photographed Flibotte and Fortin helping him to the RG-31 while others gave cover.
"It shows how all the military might in the world can't stand up to 10 ragtag fighters who believe God is on their side," a fellow journalist said afterwards.
* Reuters photographer Finbarr O'Reilly is embedded with Canadian troops in Afghanistan
