Olivier Laban-Mattei: Award Winner Paris Match

Photo © Olivier Laban-Mattei- All Rights Reserved

 Olivier Laban-Mattei was awarded the 2010 Grand Prix Paris Match for his recent coverage of Haiti. This prize was created in 1980 and all French professional photographers can compete. Every two years, the prize is decided by an international jury, with the winner receiving 8,000 euros.The prize recognizes photojournalists who cover current events.

Olivier Laban-Mattei is a photojournalist who worked with AFP for 10 years, and left it a few months ago to start a career as an independent photographer. For the past decade, Olivier criss-crossed the world reporting on the Iraq war, the Haitian earthquake or the Gaza Strip humanitarian disaster.

Olivier's Haiti gallery contains a number of graphic photographs that relay the horror of Haiti's earthquake. I have naturally not seen all of the coverage of the Haiti earthquake, but this is one of the most hard-hitting of those I did see.

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Posted in: Haiti,Photographers: Photojournalists,Photojournalism

Reuters Does Big: Full Focus

Photo © REUTERS/Carlos Barria -All Rights Reserved
Reuters has joined the other news media in featuring large photographs on a blog.

Full Focus, a large format showcase of Reuters award-winning photography, tells global stories. The agency seeks to use this imagery to foster a deeper understanding of current events and social issues, and Full Focus provides an opportunity for its readers/viewers to offer perspectives on the photographs and the topics they address.

The lovely photograph by Carlos Barria and is part of the Haiti Revisited photo essay, and is of expecting women waiting for tent distribution near the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince on February 19, 2010 during the aftermath of the earthquake.

I ought to add separate links (to the right of this page) for all the large-sized photo blogs of major news media...Boston Globe's The Big Picture, Sacbee's The Frame, WSJ Photo Journal, The LA Time's Framework, etc.

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Posted in: Haiti,Innovative Stuff,Photojournalism

Damon Winter: 2010 Visa d'Or News Award

Photo © Damon Winter/NYTimes -All Rights Reserved
Damon Winter won the Visa d’Or News award in Perpignan for his work for The News York Times on Haiti and the earthquake’s aftermath. The award is supported by Paris Match and was presented by the Visa Pour l’Image director Jean-François Leroy.

Damon is a New York based photographer who specializes in documentary, editorial, and travel photography. He received a Pulitzer Prize for feature photography in 2009 while with The New York Times.

Check his website on which his Haiti photographs appear...incredibly compelling and powerful.

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Posted in: Events,Haiti,Photojournalism

Tiana Markova-Gold: Haiti

Photo © Tiana Markova-Gold -All Rights Reserved
Here's another post on Haiti.

Tiana Markova-Gold is a documentary photographer based in Brooklyn, and graduated from the full-time Photojournalism Program at the ICP, where she was the recipient of a New York Times Scholarship. She traveled extensively in Latin America, Asia and Africa working on social documentary projects.

Her work was recognized by New York Photo Awards, PDN Photo Annual, American Photography and International Photography Awards. She also traveled throughout nine Asian countries on a photography fellowship from Johnson & Johnson, documenting various social issues.

Here, I feature Tiana's work on Haiti which depicts scenes from Souvenance and Saut d'Eau. In Souvenance, Holy Week is marked by colorful parades and traditional music played on bamboo trumpets, maracas, drums, and even coffee cans. Voodoo believers make this annual pilgrimage to Souvenance, carrying offerings to the spirits.

Saut-d'Eau is the home of Haiti's most celebrated patron saint, Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Vierge Miracle) whose anniversary is celebrated on July 16th. Saut-d'Eau is said to be the most important pilgrimage site in Haiti, with thousands of pilgrims participating in the festivities. Its waterfall is said to have healing powers, and song and music are part of the bathing ritual where pilgrims wash themselves covering their bodies with aromatic basil, dandelions, and perfumed soaps.

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Posted in: Haiti,Photographers: Photojournalists

Beken: Haiti's Troubadour

Photo © Todd Heisler/The New York Times -All Rights Reserved
Here's a touching piece of multimedia that has Todd Heisler's fingerprints all over it. Heisler is the photographer of the "One in 8 Million" New York Times series that profiled 54 New Yorkers in weekly episodes from January 2009-January 2010.

Profiled in the same fashion is Beken, born Jean-Prosper Deauphin, who sings songs about despair and redemption that resonate deeply with Haitians, especially in its recent times of tragedy. Beken, who lost his right leg at a young age in a car accident, sings in Haiti’s troubadour tradition, and plays a guitar, connecting with his audience in songs of lament, humor and sometimes politics.

Singing The Suffering of Haiti is the title of the multimedia piece, and is narrated quite well by the author of the newspaper article, Simon Romero. Since I would have preferred a little less narration and more song, I would have used Beken's voice-over in Haitian, with the voice of a translator here and there. Notwithstanding, a well paced multimedia piece.

Haitian Singer and His Guitar Fight Urge to Weep is the article by Romero.

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Posted in: Haiti,Multimedia,Photojournalism

Ron Haviv: Haiti

Let's move away from the insignificance of photojournalists conducting photo tours to Haiti (and wherever else there is human misery), and contemplate the work of Ron Haviv of VII Agency who, less than 24 hours after the earthquake hit the island on January 12, 2010, arrived in Haiti without fanfare to chronicle the ensuing devastation and human suffering.

Ron Haviv's photographs will be showing at an exhibition and fundraiser on March 4, 2010 at VII Photo Agency in Brooklyn, New York. VII is also releasing a book on the Haitian disaster. All the proceeds will go to Partners in Health.

This multimedia presentation was produced by telegraph21 and the VII Photo Agency.

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Posted in: Haiti,Multimedia,Photojournalism

Peter Turnley: Haiti

Photo © Peter Turnley-All Rights Reserved
Much as been said and written about the horrific earthquake which befell Haiti and its aftermath, ranging from the compassionate to the cynical, with disparate opinions as to whether Zoriah Miller and Andy Levin are right to conduct photo workshops on the island at this time or not, including thoughtful entreaties from photojournalists like Asim Rafiqui not to consider Haiti a zoo.

Ignoring this debate for the time being, I choose to showcase Peter Turnley's powerful 50 picture photo essay on Haiti which was made three weeks after the event, when the Haitian people are restarting their lives as best they can.

Haiti: Between Life & Death is exclusively shown on The Online Photographer.

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Posted in: Haiti,Photographers: Photojournalists

Haiti's Tragedy: f/8 And Be There

Photo © Tequila Minsky /NYTimes-All Rights Reserved
The old adage (sometimes attributed to Arthur Fellig aka Weegee) of "f/8 and be there", meaning that being on the scene is more important than anything else, was borne out with the story in The New York Times that Tequila Minsky, a freelance New York City photographer, was in her hotel in Port-au-Prince when the horrific earthquake hit this capital city of Haiti.

Ms. Minsky transmitted some of the first photographs of the earthquake in Haiti, pictures that instantly conveyed the awful human toll.

The LENS blog of The New York Times bring us that story, along with its harrowing images, including Ms Minsy's own voice describing the scenes.

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Posted in: Haiti,Photojournalism

Haiti

Ruxandra Guidi is a freelance radio and print news correspondent. During a five-week IRP Fellowship, Guidi traveled to Haiti to examine the effects of foreign aid on human rights, violence and povety. This Soundslides gallery, with photos by Roberto "Bear" Guerra and music by Luis Guerra, depicts the harsh living conditions in Haiti, a country gravitating from one humanitarian crisis to another.

The International Reporting Project (IRP) provides opportunities to U.S. journalists to go overseas to do international reporting on critical issues that are under covered in the U.S. news media.

(posted by TTP's robotic assistant)

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Posted in: Haiti,Photojournalism,Soundslides

David Zentz: Haiti's Saut D'Eau

Photo ©David Zentz-All Rights Reserved
David Zentz is a photojournalist based in Los Angeles, California. Following his master’s in mass communications at the University of Florida in 2005, David completed internships at a number of newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and the St. Petersburg Times, before a full-time position at the Journal Star. In 2008 he left newspapers and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a freelance career. He has completed numerous projects, both domestically and abroad, on subjects ranging from mental health issues to the hip-hop culture in Haiti. His work has been recognized by CPOY, the Southern Short Course and the NPPA.

Haiti's Saut D'Eau is located in its central plateau The town is named after its waterfall, and the area has many streams and sources which make it very fertile. It is also the home of Haiti’s most celebrated patron saint, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, whose anniversary is celebrated annually on July 16th. Thousands of Pilgrims from Haiti and other parts of the world travel to the waterfall to participate in the festivities.

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Posted in: Haiti,Photographers: Travel

Alice Smeets: UNICEF Photo of the Year

Image © Alice Smeets-All Rights Reserved
It' always a pleasure to hear of young emerging photographers gaining awards and wide recognition for their work, and here's one who just did that.

The young Belgian photographer Alice Smeets won the international photo competition "UNICEF-Photo of the Year". Her winning picture is of a girl in the largest slum in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. Although this girl lives amidst mud, litter and refuse, she still wears a clean white dress with ribbons in her hair.

Alice is a freelance photographer based in Belgium, who says she seeks to document "the cruelties the human race has to deal with. I want to touch people’s feelings without shocking them to provoke a reaction as a result."

She won the Canon Profifoto Förderpreis 01/08, was finalist for the Inge Morath Award 08 and selected for the Eddie Adams Workshop XXI. Her images has been exhibited at the Photokina 08 in Cologne and projected at “Visa pour L’image” 08 in Perpignan.

Alice Smeets' website is HERE. Check her black & white work on Haiti's Saut D'eau.

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Posted in: Haiti,Photographers: Photojournalists

David Levene: Haiti's Saut D'Eau

Photograph © David Levene/The Guardian -All Rights Reserved
Every year, thousands of Haitian pilgrims converge into the basin of Saut D'Eau's sacred waterfall to pray. They throw their clothes into the cascading waterfall where the faithful believe the Virgin Mary (known as Erzulie in Haitian Voodoo), appeared in the 1800s.

Haitian Voodoo was created by African slaves merged their ancestral religious traditions with Roman Catholic practices, allowing them to continue observing their ancient beliefs under the scrutiny of the French colonialists. Today, many move freely between the two beliefs.

Being in London, I gleefully peruse all the British newspapers (which stand head and shoulders above ours in terms of candid and more substantial coverage...I know, I just can't help myself), and I was glad to have seen the Spiritual cleansing in Haiti feature, a SoundSlides with photographs by David Levene on The Guardian newspaper's website.

I'm surprised that it has no intro frames with titles and no credits, but the image sequencing and the accompanying ambient audio manage to pull it together. It certainly needs some "tarting up" as they say here, but otherwise it's an interesting feature.

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Posted in: Haiti,Multimedia,Photojournalism,Soundslides

Anthony Karen: Voodoo

Photograph © Anthony Karen-All Rights Reserved
I came across Anthony Karen's work through NPR's website, on which he's described as having made a career out of breaking into secret circles from Voodoo rituals in Haiti to white-robed Ku Klux Klan initiations in the South of the US.

Indeed the work on his website centers around what he calls "intimate images of taboo people doing taboo things". His images are of swastika-clad families at the annual Nordic Fest gathering of white nationalists, Haitian Voodoo priests beheading goats and, even "Brother Number 3," a former official in the brutal Khmer Rouge regime hiding out in Cambodia before his 2007 arrest.

There are two links for Anthony Karen that are recommended: his website, and his interview with NPR which includes audio.

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Posted in: Haiti,Photographers,Photojournalism

Haiti: Bon Bagay (Cite Soleil)

Image Copyright © Marcello Casal Jr.-All Rights Reserved
Bon Bagay is one of the first expressions that foreigners arriving in Haiti understand...it means "nice people" in Creole. It has become the symbol of friendship between Haitians and foreigners.

This is a multimedia feature produced by RadioBras (Agencia Brasil), and there's a version in English. The photography is by Marcello Casal Jr., and is produced by Aloisio Milani.

A combination of still photography and video, it's about Cite Soleil...the slum where over 250,000 Haitians live in abject poverty. It includes interviews with residents of the slum.

Bon Bagay is perhaps predictable but it is still solid photojournalism.

Bon Bagay

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Posted in: Haiti,Multimedia,Photojournalism

Les Stone: Haiti's Voodoo

Image Copyright © Les Stone-All Rights Reserved
This month's Digital Journalist brings us the gripping work on voodoo in Haiti by photographer Les Stone.

Les Stone is an acclaimed photographer who chronicled the human cost of conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Kosovo, Liberia, Cambodia and Haiti, among other troubled spots. He won several World Press Photo Awards and Picture of the Year Awards, and has covered stories often ignored by the mainstream media, including the deadly legacy of Agent Orange in Vietnam, the plight of Iraqi Kurds fleeing the first Gulf War, and the deployment of child-soldiers in Africa. His photographs have been published in National Geographic, Time, Life, Paris Match, Stern and Fortune, as well as on the pages many books.

Voodoo is a name attributed to a traditionally West African spiritual system of faith and ritual practices which are espoused in Haiti (among other places). Haitian Vodouisants believe, in accordance with widespread African tradition, that there is one God who is the creator of all, referred to as "Bondyè" (from the French "Bon Dieu" or "Good God"). Bondyè is often considered the same God of other religions, such as Christianity and Islam. It is the spirits that the Vodouisant turns to for help, as well as to the ancestors. The Vodouisant worships God, and serves the spirits, who are treated with honor and respect as elder members of a household might be.

Les Stone's Voodoo on Digital Journalist.

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Posted in: Haiti,Photographers: Photojournalists

Daniel Pepper: Haiti

Image Copyright © Daniel Pepper-All Rights Reserved
Daniel Pepper studied philosophy and Middle East studies at the University of Chicago. After graduation, he worked as writer and photojournalist focusing on human rights and justice issues. His work appeared in Time, Newsweek, Fortune, NYT magazine, Sunday Telegraph and MSNBC.com among others. He currently resides in New Delhi.

I chose Daniel's work on voodoo in Hati for his powerful images, and dynamic colors. The photograph above is one of my favorites for its saturated colors and the sense of motion that I'm so partial to.

Voodoo is the name attributed to a traditionally West African spiritual system of faith and ritual practices, and its intent is to explain the forces of the universe, influence those forces, and influence human behavior. Voodoo's oral tradition of faith stories carries genealogy, history and fables to succeeding generations. Adherents honor deities and venerate ancient and recent ancestors.

Daniel Pepper

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Posted in: Haiti,Photographers: Photojournalists