Voices Of Haiti

Jeremy Cowart is a professional photographer from Nashville, Tennessee and wrote the following intro to his Haiti photo gallery:

"After the 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti on January 12th of this year, I was deeply moved as most of you were. For days I watched as the television flashed images of gloom and doom... dead bodies, crumbled buildings... It just felt like a heartless display of numbers and statistics. "How were the people feeling?" I wondered. I was tired of hearing endless reports from strangers that just arrived to this devastated nation. So I decided to go to Port-Au-Prince myself and ask them directly. My question was simply "What do you have to say about all this?" 

Jeremy's photo essay reveals the many answers to that question.

Haiti: Through Our Own Eyes

In the year following the devastating Haitian Earthquake child rights organisation Plan International commissioned a photojournalist to train and work with 22 Haitian teenagers. Over the course of two weeks these young people documented the world through their own eyes.

Haiti Earthquake Aftermath Montage

A week after the devastating earthquake hit Haiti, Khalid Mohtaseb was hired to shoot ENG footage for two international networks. This is a montage of personal footage he shot of the aftermath during his spare time, in and around Port au Prince.  A couple of days before the anniversary of The Big One, these images serve as a reminder of how devastating the initial event was.

Photographing Cholera’s Awful Toll In Haiti

If you thought that Emilio Morenatti would have had enough of the world’s hot spots after he lost his left foot in a roadside bomb attack in Afghanistan 15 months ago, then you’re not thinking like a photojournalist.

Mr Morenatti has returned to the worst of it, covering the cholera epidemic in Haiti, which had killed more than 900 people by Sunday. His work is presented here along with pictures by Ramon Espinosa of The Associated Press, Andres Martinez Casares of the European Pressphoto Agency andDamon Winter of The New York Times.

Haiti Revisited

Haiti continues to struggle to recover from the devastating January 12 earthquake that killed up to 300,000 people, left millions homeless and shattered the capital city.  In the image below by Carlos Barria, pregnant women wait in line for tent distribution near the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince.

View the rest of the images in the series by Reuters here.

Damon Winter Haiti Images

Damon Winter is a staff photographer at the New York Times specializing in documentary, editorial and portrait photography.  He recently won the Visa d’Or News award in Perpignan at the International Festival of Photojournalism for his compelling images of the Haiti earthquake and its aftermath.

Haiti: 12 January 2010

13 January 2010. As darkness envelops Haiti’s people, a community’s songs filter through the air. Moving though the capital city, a photographer comes upon a small medical clinic tucked within the shadows. The bodies of the dead are piled outside the health care center. A number of people are trying to sleep in the building’s congested courtyard despite their evident pain—they lack medicine, food, and supplies. Drawing closer, amidst the dirt and debris, a Haitian woman wrapped in a blue bed sheet extends an outstretched hand in a desperate plea for help. Her pain touches the photographer, who immortalizes the scene.

“Great photography demands questioning,” says Sherman Teichman, Director of the Institute of Global Leadership (IGL) at Tufts University.

From the small inquiries—who is this woman? What has she suffered? —to the larger, more thought provoking questions—where are the medical supplies? What can I do to help her? How can I lift her up and onto her feet once again?

This philosophy, one that pushes people to question the causes behind images, guided collaborators from the IGL and de.Mo Design Company as they compiled photographs and words for Haiti: 12 January 2010, a striking sixteen page folio publication. More than six months after the Haitian earthquake, as media attention slowly shifts to new stories, it becomes easier for people to forget about Haiti’s suffering. This folio provides a needed reminder; it compels people to continue to think about Haiti.

Because all proceeds from folio sales are donated to Partners In Health (PIH), people who purchase the work are not only continuing to think about Haiti, they’re committing to action. Get the folio of Haiti: 12 January 2010.

Photographer Ron Haviv, a co-founder of VII Photo Agency humanizes Haiti’s tragedy through images like the woman in blue reaching out for help. “They allow you to absorb the overwhelming aspect of the disaster as well as relate on a one-on-one level,” says Haviv. “Images are potent because they are immediate and urgent, but they also require context,” Teichman adds. Simon Winchester’s introduction, “Catastrophe, Nature, God and Understanding” provides context, shaping the folio’s powerful narrative.

Tim Freccia's Haiti Images

Another moving portfolio of Haiti images can be accessed here.  The photographer is Tim Freccia who spent the first part of 2010 documenting Haiti’s 7.0 earthquake.

Tim has produced still photography and motion pictures for a number of  NGOs and organizations including the UN, CARE, Human Rights Watch, World Vision and the German umbrella fund raising organization Aktion Deutschland Hilft, in Europe, Asia and Africa.

Photo Essay By Antonio Bolfo

Click here to view a Haiti photo essay by Antonio Bolfo, a freelancer from New York City and  a featured photographer for Reportage by Getty Images.

Haiti Earthquake Montage

A week after the devastating earthquake hit Haiti, Khalid Mohtaseb of Next Level Pictures was hired to shoot footage for two international networks. This is a montage of personal footage he shot of the aftermath during his spare time, in and around Port au Prince. He was in Haiti for a total of 6 days in which 2 of those days were spent traveling to and from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Due to the situation on the ground, all the footage was shot in 2 days, under direct sunlight and a great deal of pressure. As demanding as it was, it taught him how to pick shots on the fly, and in "not so perfect" lighting or shooting conditions.  

For the techies in the audience, the video was entirely shot with a Canon digital SLR camera.

Photos From Southwest Medical Group Plastic Surgery Team

Matt Schoolfield, from the Behind The Lens blog, has posted new photos from their current visit to Hopital Adventiste that you can view here.  

The team was also interviewed by an Oregon TV station that you can view here.

The Photographer's Storm

In 2009, Patrick Farrell's haunting images from a brutal hurricane season in Haiti won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography.  Farrell was recognized for what the Pulitzer Committee called the "provocative, impeccably composed" photos of the fragile country's humanitarian disaster.  His photographs from Haiti also have been recognized with first place prizes from Pictures of the Year International and the Overseas Press Club among other awards.

The 2008 hurricane season was devastating for Haiti, where over 800 people were killed by four consecutive tropical cyclones (Fay, Gustav, Hanna, and Ike), especially Hanna, in August and September.  I traveled to Cap Haitien in northern Haiti in February of last year and the devastation was incredible and in many respects not significantly greater than the Big Quake that occured in Port au Prince earlier this year.

Click here to view a slideshow of images from his award winning hurricane portfolio.  You can also view here a collection of images Patrick took after the Janaury 12 earthquake this year.

Red Cross Red Crescent Day

Each year, on 8 May, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement marks World Red Cross Red Crescent Day by highlighting the role of its staff and volunteers in saving lives and assisting vulnerable communities around the world.  The following video highlights their efforts in Haiti after the Big Quake.

Explorers Sans Frontieres

Explorers Sans Frontieres is a Philadelphia-based humanitarian organization whose stated mission is “to build cultural connections, one person and one community at a time, impacting our local and global communities.”

A team from ESF volunteered at Hopital Adventiste in early March and you can read their trip report here and view images from their trip here.  One of the team members, Michael Fielder authored a Primer for Volunteers at Hopital Adventiste that was previously reported. 

They Are The Faces Of Hope

Alex Coutsoumpos is a senior student at Loma Linda University School of Medicine and has served at Hopital Adventiste d'Haiti on more than one occasion.  Upon graduating this coming weekend, he will be entering a General Surgery residency at Loma Linda University.  Our team had the opportunity to work closely with Alex at Hopital Adventiste d'Haiti and were impressed with his ability to function in a resident-level capacity as he at times single-handedly ran the General Surgery service.  Alex has expressed an interest in mission service upon completion of his training and we wish him all the best.

Alex submitted several photos along with the following introduction:

Haiti has left me with many mental images and experiences that I will never be able to shake.  Being a man of few words doesn’t help my efforts of trying to communicate what I experienced.  Photographs, on the other hand may assist my feeble efforts.  The enormity of the disaster that occurred is still strongly felt even 3 months after the initial quake.  However there is an overwhelming sense of resilience that permeates through the people.  This sentiment is noted as people strive to move forward, help others and reclaim their future.  These people through their powerful examples motivated me to keep working everyday.  They are the faces of hope.

"My Trip To Haiti" By Peter Garriott

A Drive Through Port Au Prince

A short video produced by Matt Schoolfield from the Behind The Lens blog which gives you an idea what it's like to drive through the streets of Port au Prince four months after the big Quake.  The music is by Haitian artist Bélo.

Haiti One Voice

Haiti One Voice is dedicated to providing basic essentials and educational materials for Haitian children, specifically those who do not have living parents or who are not able to live with and/or be cared for by their families.  They are a small grass-roots organization founded in February 2010 and based in Northern California.  They came into being following the Big Quake in Haiti and have committed to ongoing efforts to help children who are affected not only by this one disaster but by the long-established state of poverty and disempowerment throughout the country.  To learn more about their specific work, please visit  their  Projects page.

Happy Mother's Day!

In honor of mothers everywhere, haitibones.org pulled together a photo essay celebrating mothers and their contributions in Haiti and other sites around the world.  You can enjoy the show here.

Life In Haiti

Photo montage about the poverty and hardships faced by the Haitian people and how they endure the tragedy that is their lives with resilience and strength.