IPE Exclusive Feature

Where are the images of Haiti, by Haitians?
by Jim Hubbard

Girl Getting Water, Photo by: Unknown, Flckr Post

There is no better time than now, nor place than Haiti, to provide citizens with cameras to tell their own story.

Last month, media professionals dropped in on Haiti following the devastating 7.0 earthquake. Major print media, competing for viewers, dispatched star photographers to the scene. The Washington Post sent Carol Guzy, winner of several Pulitzer Prizes. Her images, posted to the Internet, are shot in stark black and white, making them even more dramatic. The Los Angeles Times sent Carolyn Cole, and the New York Times sent Damon Winter, also Pulitzer winners. Even legendary war photographer James Nawtchwey was there a few days after the quake. They, along with scores of other photographers from around the world, captured devastating images of death, despair, and destruction that were relayed to those outside Haiti via the Internet and 24/7 news outlets.

The volume of such images in the U.S. press, particularly of dead and dying people, eclipses the number of similar images from any other natural or unnatural calamity in recent memory. In fact, this may be the first time that mainstream media in the United States has saturated the public with death imagery, upsetting many viewers but also inducing sympathy prompting significant philanthropy. Read the story »

Monthly Updates

From Rural Community to City: Chiapas, Mexico

Side by Side Gallery has just posted an online photography exhibit of work by photographer Refugia Guzµán Pérez, a Ch’ol photographer from Chiapas, Mexico who is affiliated with the Chiapas Photography Project (CCP) and Archivio Fotográfico Indígena (AFI). Read the story »

Events

FOTOKIDS Guatemala Benefit in Los Angeles

Photo: David Ixbalán/Fotokids 2008 (c)

FOTOKIDS, a participant-photography organization based in Guatemala, uses photography, graphic arts, and scholarships to give children an opportunity to get ahead. Join founder Nancy McGirr on Thursday, February 18th from 6:30–9pm at a special reception being hosted by Altered Space Gallery, located at 1221 Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice. For more information call: 310-452-8121.