The 15th Annual Essence Music Festival, New Orleans, USA

Brian Usher is picture editor of The-Latest. A highly experienced editorial and commercial photographer whose work has been published throughout the world, appearing in many well known magazines and newspapers. He has featured in several books and been a writer for the Royal Photographic Society magazine.

Chris Gaynor is a freelance journalist and political writer with a passion for the blogosphere. He has written for local news websites and a student journalism publication in Romania. Chris is experienced in the use of Dreamweaver software and HTML. He is an avid blogger for The-Latest and also writes his own political blog Plenty2say.com.

Deborah Hobson is a freelance writer and Deputy Editor of The-Latest.com. She specialises in human interest, celebrity and lifestyle features. Deborah has written scoops for The-Latest, using the Freedom of Information Act to uncover official secrets the public have a right to know about. She looks after contributors and if you would like to become one contact her: contribsed@the-latest.com

Heidi Kingstone has spent time in Afghanistan reporting for a number of publications. Her work has appeared in the Financial Times, The Spectator, The Sunday Times and other international journals.  She has also reported from places like Iraq, Rwanda, Lebanon, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Kenya. Heidi is The-Latest's Editor at large.

Lara Platman is a journalist and photographer with a passion for all things eccentric, fast and theatrical. This includes dance, motor cars, country life and polo. Her work has featured in a variety of top publications. She is a regular columnist for The-Latest and has her own site photofeature.co.uk that showcases her creative output.

Matt Gardner is a journalist from Hartlepool, now based in Leeds. He currently writes for a news agency and likes to cover a range of topics as a writer including politics, social affairs and sport. He runs a blog and articles archive at www.gardners-world.co.uk, showcasing his work on a number of websites.

Ron Ross lives in the US and is a journalist, author, publisher and pastor. He has written numerous articles for a variety of periodicals and been a columnist for his county newspaper in Denver, Colorado. He wrote the book, Your Family Heritage, a Guide to Preserving Family History.  In 2008, Ron created the American based National Association of Citizen Journalists.

Sumantra Maitra is a freelance journalist from Kolkota, India, where he has completed an MA in Journalism and Mass Communications at the Sikkim Manipal University. He has written articles for news website Merinews.com and other regional newspapers and magazines. Sumantra provided exclusive eyewitness reports for The-Latest on the Mumbai bombings of 2008.

Thomas L. Blair is a sociologist and political blogger on the Chronicleworld 'for creative renewal in Black Britain and Afro-Europe'. His work is honoured in the British Library's archive of "social, historic and culturally significant web-based material from the UK domain". He won top prize in the blogging competition on The-Latest.