PART ONE OF A SERIES OF POSTS DISCUSSING PHOTOGRAPHERS’ ACTIONS AND RESPONSES TO THE KILLING OF FABIENNE CHERISMA IN PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI ON THE 19TH JANUARY 2010.
“The question is not whether Fabienne will be remembered as a victim of the earthquake but whether, outside her family, she will be remembered at all.”
Rory Carroll, The Guardian, January 26th, 2010

15-year-old Fabienne Cherisma lies dead after being shot in the head in Port-au-Prince. Photograph: Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters.
Fifteen year-old Fabienne Cherisma was shot dead by police at approximately 4pm, January 19th, 2010.
On the 26th of January, the Guardian published an account of Fabienne’s life – her schooling, her sales acumen and her aspirations to be a nurse. The piece is not long, but it needn’t be. It is a modest effort – hopefully the first of a few – to remind us that Fabienne was a daughter, a sister, a source of love and pride for her family and, in the end, an innocent victim.
THE IMAGE THAT REMAINS, THE SYMBOL THAT EMERGES
There is a chance that Fabienne Cherisma could become a symbol of the Haitian earthquake and the problematic aftermath; that she become a tragic silhouette extending meaning far beyond the facts of her abrupt and unjust death.
This notion can be at once offensive and inevitable. If the visual rhetoric is going to play out as such, then if it is not Fabienne, it will be another victim.
What purpose could the emergence of a such a symbol serve?
Thus far Fabienne’s death is a story that has caught wide attention. It came without warning, it was unexpected. Her death – resulting not from nature’s violence but from human action – stands out from other deaths as a particular injustice; Fabienne’s killing is salt in the wounds. While tens of thousands lay obscured beneath rubble, she lay limp and exposed on a bare roof-top. The image itself is an affront.
If one believes that images fuel public awareness, thus securing donations and aid, and thus helping Haiti’s immediate future, then certain images and stories will carry that awareness and emotion.
All the accusations of media exploitation in Haiti do not discredit the positive effects a single image can – without any manipulation – have in the minds of millions. I wouldn’t call this the magic or the power of photography, I’d call it the mysterious perversion of photography. I don’t, and can’t, explain it. I merely observe it.
THE RESPONSIBLE USES OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Fears amongst those who care about media and its conduct hope that the focus can remain on Haiti and its long-term recovery. If the media deserts Haiti after a few short weeks then all accusations of disaster pornography will be upheld.
Photo-editors are now searching for the images that will maintain the humanitarian momentum on Hispanola. These images will be from committed photojournalists who stick around once press photographers have left.
It would be worthwhile to see and hear journalists’ reporting that follows up on the experiences of victims who may or may not have already appeared in coverage. I actually expect journos will follow up on the stories of the child born amid the rubble, the elderly woman rescued after 10 days and the man rescued after search and rescue was called off.
The Haitian recovery must be reported more than the initial chaos.
In the scenario of mass reproduction and circulation, the image of Fabienne’s dead body needn’t be one of mere exploitation. Nothing is so one-dimensional. Of course, this is very sensitive territory and above all the wishes of her family should prevail … in an ideal world.
That said, the history of photojournalism is replete with globally-recognised subjects whose visage was appropriated without their knowledge and/or consent. There’s no model release form in war and disaster.
Fabienne may become a symbol for the innocent victims of this disaster as Kim Phúc did for those in Vietnam. The politics of the two crises are a planet apart, but our modes of consumption are not.
Images are highly manipulable; Errol Morris asserts a caption will turn can turn the reading of a photograph 180 degrees.
The inconvenience of captions often results in the creation of symbol.
I don’t think it will be long before a symbol, a brand for Haitian plight, will rest upon a single image. Western thought demands a visual book-end to the visual dialogue.
Pureevilbunny has already documented a graphic (in both senses of the word) stencil rendering of of Fabiennie’s corpse (artist not stated). The incongruous pink clothing, argyle sweater, flowers and blood are elements that shock.
THE PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCES AVAILABLE
I do not want to prescribe a means of viewing images of Fabienne’s death. I am interested in informing the public about the photographers who witnessed and recorded the event.
The most widely circulated image is that atop this article by Carlos Garcia Rawlins and distributed by Reuters. It was used in the Daily Mail among others and in the Guardian’s original reporting of the killing:
Jan Grarup of Noor images was also present. Grarup’s dispatch for the 19th and 20th January contains 136 images, nine of which include Fabienne.

© Jan Grarup / Noor Images

© Jan Grarup / Noor Images

© Jan Grarup / Noor Images

© Jan Grarup / Noor Images
Fabienne’s body is in a distinctly different position between the photographs of Garcia-Rawlins and Grarup:

© Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters.

© Jan Grarup / Noor Images
Grarup was present at the scene before Garcia-Rawlins. Between their photographings, the framed pictures slid, Fabienne’s hips turned and her body rolled.
How much time was there between Fabienne’s slaying and the two photographers at the side of her body? How much time was there between the two of them photographing Fabienne? Were Grarup and Garcia-Rawlins on the roof at the same time? Did they see each other work?
Both photographers were obviously present before Osam, Fabienne’s father, carried her body away.
In the immediate aftermath, Grarup documented with a few frames a distraught Osam and family.
Olivier Laban Mattei continued documenting events. Laban Mattei’s dispatch of 28 images, is in fact only five images repeated.

Osam Cherisma carries the body of his daughter Fabienne killed by a policeman during lootings in the Marthely Seiee street January 19, 2010 in Port-au-Prince. © Olivier Laban Mattei/AFP/Getty Images.

Armante Cherisma cries in front of the body of her daughter, Fabienne, 15 years old, killed by a policeman during lootings in the Marthely Seiee street January 19, 2010 in Port-au-Prince. © Olivier Laban Mattei/AFP/Getty Images.
Despite the amateurish piecing together of evidences, presented here is a basic timeline to Fabienne’s death. These images placed in sequence describe more fully her tragic death and take Fabienne’s memory beyond that (Garcia-Rawlins’) single image.
Fabienne was an innocent. Whether misdirected warning shots or deliberate targeting, her shooting was needless.
If Fabienne’s death does come to symbolise something larger, I hope it does so to benefit the survivors in Haiti; that the injustice brought upon her will only distill our resolve to avoid injustices to others.
If the shocking form of her body, face down in the broken frame, becomes symbolic it cannot be for reductive consumption, disaster cliche or political gain.
AFTER THE PHOTOGRAPHS
‘With morgues overflowing, and earthquake fatalities being bulldozed into mass graves, the Cherismas took their daughter’s body out of the city. With a borrowed $70 they rented a private bus, and drove for four hours to relatives in Zorange. They buried her in a Catholic ceremony and placed a white cross over the grave.’ (Source)
– – –
ALSO IN THE ‘PHOTOGRAPHING FABIENNE’ SERIES
Part Two: More on Fabienne Cherisma (Carlos Garcia Rawlins)
Part Three: Furthermore on Fabienne Cherisma (Michael Mullady)
Part Four: Yet more on Fabienne Cherisma (Linsmier, Nathan Weber)
Part Five: Interview with Edward Linsmier
Part Six: Interview with Jan Grarup
Part Seven: Interview with Paul Hansen
Part Eight: Interview with Michael Winiarski
Part Nine: Interview with Nathan Weber
Part Ten: Interview with James Oatway
Part Eleven: Interview with Nick Kozak
Part Twelve: Two Months On (Winiarski/Hansen)
Reporter Rory Carroll Clarifies Some Details
Part Fourteen: Interview with Alon Skuy
Part Fifteen: Conclusions
36 comments
Comments feed for this article
January 27, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Jan Grarup
I will never forget her!
Yours truly, Jan
January 27, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Fabienne Cherisma « Prison Photography | The Click
[…] Link: Fabienne Cherisma « Prison Photography […]
January 28, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Tom White
As usual, a careful and fascinating analysis. This kind of human induced tragedy is always hard to bear. That Fabienne should survive a natural disaster only to be killed by a bullet is disgusting. I remember reading from the article that her pockets had been rifled through and chairs she had gone out to buy had been stolen from her. Salt in the wounds indeed.
January 28, 2010 at 3:43 pm
petebrook
Tom. Great to have you stop by (today, I enjoyed your piece about ‘Why Information Should Stay Free’). Yes, Fabienne’s father made allegations that someone went through her pockets as she lay dead. This could explain the change in Fabienne’s body position. Or her pockets could’ve been pillaged either shortly before or in a brief window after both photographers were present.
January 30, 2010 at 11:21 pm
Miscellany « Jamblichus's Weblog
[…] at Prison Photography puts together a harshly poignant post on a single death in Haiti, that of Fabienne Cherisma, shot by police while holding two paintings, one of a vase of […]
March 8, 2010 at 10:57 am
duckrabbit
Devastating. I wished I hadn’t found this article. Its floored me and I need some space to think.
March 8, 2010 at 11:17 am
Tonight I’m absolutely floored | duckrabbit - we produce beautifully crafted multimedia
[…] floored duckrabbit posted this on March 8th, 2010 by a series of posts I’ve just read on Prison Photography about the death of the young woman Fabienne Cherisma in Haiti and the photographers who witnessed […]
March 23, 2010 at 7:10 am
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March 25, 2010 at 9:25 pm
Tim Matsui
Pete,
Thanks for taking the time to put this all together. I think you did a great job of pulling the pieces together to provide us with a solid look into one moment from the earthquake in Haiti. You gave the photographers a fair platform to speak from and provided greater depth to what could have been–and probably for many–is but single moment passed over in the turn of a page or the click of the mouse.
Your effort, and that of all the photographers, is important and should be valued. Fabienne’s death was an avoidable and senseless one, making not only the earthquake but the world’s prior neglect of Haiti ever more tragic.
Thanks again for taking the time. I’m glad to see, a couple years after our coffee at Fresh Flours, that you’re still running the blog.
Tim
March 26, 2010 at 7:48 pm
Tim Matsui Photography : Storytelling Multimedia from Seattle-Based Documentary, Photojournalism, Corporate, NGO, and Multimedia Photographer
[…] Part One: Fabienne Cherisma Part Two: More on Fabienne Cherisma (Carlos Garcia Rawlins) Part Three: Furthermore on Fabienne Cherisma (Michael Mullady) Part Four: Yet more on Fabienne Cherisma (Linsmier, Nathan Weber) Part Five: Interview with Edward Linsmier Part Six: Interview with Jan Grarup Part Seven: Interview with Paul Hansen Part Eight: Interview with Michael Winiarski Part Nine: Interview with Nathan Weber Part Ten: Interview with James Oatway Part Eleven: Interview with Nick Kozak […]
April 10, 2010 at 1:46 am
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[…] © Lucas Oleniuk/Toronto Star It came without warning, it was unexpected. Her death – resulting not from nature’s violence but from human action – stands out from other deaths as a particular injustice; Fabienne’s killing is salt in the wounds. While tens of thousands lay obscured beneath rubble, she lay limp and exposed on a bare roof-top. The image itself is an affront. -Pete Brook […]
April 15, 2010 at 1:45 am
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[…] Prison Photography, Pete Brook: Fabienne Cherisma [via A Photo […]
June 4, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Bill of Wasilla
It revolts me to see so many pictures from so many angles posted of this girl – yet, this should be the point – to cause revolt toward those who inflicted this needless death.
May they yet be brought to justice.
Somehow, I do not think Fabienne will soon be forgotten. I would now like to see someone round up all possible pictures taken of her in life, so that we can know more about who she was.
August 27, 2010 at 4:43 pm
Fabienne Cherisma « JENNIFER CHILDS
[…] Fabienne Cherisma March 24, 2010 by jenniferchilds A redirect from the blog of Pete Brook “All the accusations of media exploitation in Haiti do not discredit the positive effects a single image can – without any manipulation – have in the minds of millions. I wouldn’t call this the magic or the power of photography, I’d call it the mysterious perversion of photography. I don’t, and can’t, explain it. I merely observe it.” – Pete Brook https://prisonphotography.wordpress.com/2010/01/27/fabienne-cherisma/ […]
November 22, 2010 at 8:52 pm
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[…] Match for his coverage of Haiti. He was one of the many photographers who documented the death of Fabienne Cherisma. (Found via The Travel […]
March 24, 2011 at 7:51 am
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[…] and winner of International News Image at the Swedish Picture of the Year awards, for an image of Fabienne Cherisma, Pete Brook looks again at the ‘Brouhaha’ surrounding the image/s…..you REALLY […]
March 30, 2011 at 4:30 am
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April 13, 2011 at 10:20 am
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April 24, 2011 at 4:21 pm
carlos mena
a la negrita la empelotaron , una lastima su muerte se veia muy rica
May 15, 2011 at 10:21 pm
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May 19, 2011 at 11:25 am
Julie L. Taggart
We are not all created equal. Nor did we ask to be born into this world or into the particular circumstances or environment in which we find ourselves.
We are, however, as human beings/doings equally deserving of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as defined by the bestowal of BASIC necessities–just like our pets and animals in the zoo!
As long as there are the haves, have-nots and have-not-enuffs we shall always be exposed to the horrors of the “Fabiennes”.
When will we realize that poverty and inequality are the worst “Disasters” ever perpetrated against human kind, and the true cause of Terrorism!
June 22, 2011 at 1:39 am
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March 16, 2012 at 12:41 pm
khan adnan
is this the ethics which civilized world of whites claim . miserable to see these ugly photographers
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