Redlights and Redeyes

Generally, I try to keep the blog self-serving.  I might have 2, perhaps 3, readers (thanks mom, dad, and refresh browser).  I’m sitting here at 6:00am in my boxers with my daughters watching “Yo Gabba Gabba” on a flatscreen television.  I can go to the fridge and choose between bottled water, the filtered water out of the dispenser, or tap water (which I don’t drink).  I have plenty of clothes to wear.  After spending the morning clicking through the latest photos from Haiti, I can’t seems to get my thoughts off of what is going on there.  The images coming back spew a long list contradictory adjectives.  Beautiful.  Ugly.  Revealing.  Tragic.  Hopeful.  Insightful.  Disgusting.  Amazing.  Every click of the mouse is another rectangle that holds more human suffering within the four walls of its shape that I don’t want to ever see again, and can’t get enough of.

I’m getting ready to head to an undisclosed location for travel piece for The New York Times.  Not Haiti.  Meanwhile, the wonderful reporter I work with in Florida a lot from the NYT, Damien Cave, is in Haiti sending dispatches and one of my favorite photographers, Damon Winter, is producing perhaps some of the most compelling, gut-wrenching, and visually stunning work I’ve seen in a long time.  It’s hard not to get jealous – Scott Strazzante has a great blog post about that feeling which I share.  In part.

On the other hand, someone has to cover the other stuff.

Soon, headlines will start creeping back to normal type and smaller fonts.  Photos will run smaller.  Media agencies will pull out of the country.  One thing I haven’t felt in a while, though, is a renewed sense of the importance of photojournalism and what we do.  I had that thought this morning when I realized I never wanted to watch a television news broadcast again.  It’s so watered down, so filtered, so crafted and manufactured it makes me sick.  I seek refuge in the glowing screen of my computer and photo galleries, newspapers, magazines and blogs which are putting these photos everywhere.  The photos are what people are sharing.  Twitter posts about journalists’ posts from the ground.  Facebook postings with links to photo galleries.  Photos.  Not video.  Not multimedia.  Not a talking head in front of rubble waxing poetic about what a producer saw earlier in the day.  Not showing up to the airport, setting up a live shot, saying you’re there covering the story and leaving.  Photos.  Photos that need no text.  Just space to breathe and be seen.

I don’t know, but there is something to this.  The weeks following 9/11, the Tsunami, and Katrina were the same way.  The photos made these events are closer to home, more accessible.  Touchable.  Smellable.

Here are the photos and the photogs behind them.  I’m sure there’s a Pulitzer in here somewhere.

By the way, if you’re not there now, and don’t have a publication behind you, what in the hell are you doing there?  Making work to enter a contest in a situation like this is unimaginable.  I understand the need and the want to be there, but if you’re planning the trip, make sure you’re ready and you’re going for the right reasons.  You are on your own, don’t put this on Haiti or the relief agencies there.  They have enough to deal with.

Things like this:

The New York Times:  Running Daily Gallery

Damon Winter/The New York Times:  Interview and Gallery

Carloyn Cole/Rick Loomis/Los Angeles Times:  Running Photo Blog

Carol Guzy/Washington Post:  Gallery

Patrick Farrell/Miami Herald:  Gallery

Dominic Nahr/Wall Street Journal:  Blog

Gerald Herbert/AP:  Feed

Ron Haviv/VII:  Feed (Soon to Updated)

(Oh, and it is really annoying to have to sit through a Ford ad to see photos, but it is probably paying for a newspaper’s ability to do said story.  Doesn’t mean I’m going to buy a Ford F-150, but I’ll deal with it.  I’d probably let them sponsor this blog.)

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 17th, 2010 at 6:55 am and is filed under photojournalism industry, photos, shout outs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.