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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)
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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
Marco Baroncini‘s photographs of a Guatemalan prison, Persons No More, are close and disorientating*.
Baroncini explains,
“Sololà, little town on the west side of Guatemala, not far from Atitlan Lake, is not a proper prison; It is an anomalous preventive detention cell: many prisoners, in fact, will never be transferred to a bigger and more equipped jail, but they will remain in the same cell to undergo all the terms of punishment.
“Those condemned for murder may remain for 50 years. The murderer, the drugdealer, the little robber are all crowded together in the same cell of 70 square meters. There is no difference between the crimes committed: they are heaped up together sharing the same situation which doesn’t give any chance to get better or improve.
“They live as they were rats behind the bars, with an only one toilet and shower for all of them, which don’t work properly either, with broken drain pipes. Living in these conditions, it is very easy to became infected, especially on summer time thanks to shoddy food they eat too.
“Beds are not enough for all of them: they often sleep in two or more in the same bed, or some others put the beds together to sleep in four or five, or on the floor. There is not space enough for all of them, inside and in outside the prison, even a tiny space to spend their air time to which everyone should be entitled.
“It is difficult to speak about human rights with regard to Solalà. It is the example of total negation of every sort of right. This inhuman situation of living drove some of the prisoners to write a letter addressed to “Cooperaitalia” “Human Rights” and “Derechos Humanos” reporting the cruel condition of life they are obliged to live in.”
[My bolding]
Baroncini is based in Rome and boasts an impressive portfolio.
*American-English uses disorienting, English-English uses disorientating. How we differ.
I am late on this one, but I thought it so important that it worth a quick post.
Last month, Amy Stein posted Bedlam Exposed. Amy put up some disturbing images by Charlie Lord. He was one of several conscientious objectors who worked at Philadelphia State Hospital, Byberry, PA in lieu of military service.
Listen to Charlie Lord talk about his experience at the Philadelphia State Hospital.
Prison Photography has long determined that there is little difference between prisons and asylums. Asylums have been referred to as sanitariums and as hospitals, but it is necessary to take a quick leap past the label and view the level of care (and security) as well as the agency of those committed.
In photographic evidences we can look to the work of Jenn Ackerman (a prison functioning as a mental health unit) and Eugene Richards (a mental health unit functioning as a prison). These thoughts are just to sow the seeds and the [in]distinctions between prisons and mental health facilities will be something I’ll return to over the coming year.
Ackerman’s Trapped:
http://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/05/jenn-ackerman-trapped-epf-finalist/
http://indepth.jennackerman.com/trapped/feature.html
http://bop.nppa.org/2009/still_photography/winners/?cat=NTP&place=1st
https://prisonphotography.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/jenn-ackerman-trapped-mental-illness-in-americas-prisons/
Richards’ Procession of Them:
http://motherjones.com/environment/2009/03/out-mind-out-sight
http://motherjones.com/photoessays/2009/03/out-mind
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/photography/events/procession_20060201
Alyse Emdur has begun a brilliant project Photograph a Recruiter that asks high school students to submit their own photos of military recruitment drives in schools.
In a modest way the project aims to offer students an alternative national stage to the one the which involves guns and death.
It is, perhaps, a more playful means to combat predatory army and navy recruitment practices … certainly more so than the raucous and confrontational pickets in Berkeley, California last year.
(Found via iheartphotograph)
It one thing having foolish and clumsy media commentary of flash-in-the-pan (US) regional stories. It is another when CNN and Anderson Cooper use that same approach covering a humanitarian disaster.
As folk interested in media we should speak out when we see offensive framing and “reporting”.
Anderson Cooper’s bravado is only slightly more insulting than other major networks, but if we picket Cooper and his CNN editors maybe we’ll make a dent large enough that other major networks will also take note.
Michael Shaw just emailed this to concerned social media types. I am behind his sentiment:
I’m writing because I’ve just done a post at BAGnewsNotes that I think is extremely important.
It’s an appeal to readers to contact CNN, or tweet them (@andersoncooper @CNN – PLEASE STOP visually exploiting the Haitians! http://bit.ly/8R1DGc) about the way Anderson Cooper/CNN is visually exploiting the Haitians.
What Cooper has been doing is a complete affront, and it’s time we pushed back in a more systematic way. Haiti is going through a completely sub-human experience as it is, and the humanitarian effort, and dignity for its people, should absolutely extend to the media sphere.
Thanks so much for putting your eyes on this, and being part of the response.
Here’s hoping.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., jailed in Birmingham, Alabama for protesting injustice.
Because I just read this, I wince a little as I repost thoughts via the indubitable Jim, but time is of a premium today. Please excuse me.
Martin vs. Barack
Why is it some American’s “mythologize and sanitize” MLK – a man that called for a national guaranteed income – but as quickly abase and demonize Obama who, by the way, is a pithy moderate by comparison?
In other words, why is the socialist agenda of one leader ignored and – worse still – why is a socialist agenda fabricated and super-imposed on another?
Oh, and also, actual functioning democratic socialism (even in its sputtering form under New Labour) is a pretty good ticket.
2Double (day dooblay), a 21 year old rap kreyol artist, records a track in the Koze Kreyol studio in Port au Prince, Haiti, on July 18th, 2008. The rapper has had some recent success and local recognition but continues to live in the notorious Cite Soliel slum with his mother and 3 year old son. He says he hopes to use his music to get his family to a better environment. © David Zentz/Aurora Photos
Just two weeks ago 100Eyes launched a new issue Gade, Haiti. Who at that time would have knwon that the world’s attention would sear down upon that previously abused, cliched far away nation?
Today Andy Levin put out the following call:
“Shoot for 100Eyes: Gade, Haiti!
The situation in Haiti has brought a tremendous many talented photographers to Haiti, with many more on the way. We would like to find a way to broaden the picture of Haiti that is currently in the news, by combining work with the disaster area with work from the rest of the nation.
If you are going to Haiti and will be there in February, I am asking photographers to spread out around the country and to spend day or two photographing something other than the earthquake ravaged area, to be included in a special issue of 100Eyes on Haiti.
I am hopeful that photographers can use the same resourcefulness in getting around Haiti as they have in getting to the disaster area … and I know that there are many stories to be told beyond what we are currently seeing, many struggles that happen on a daily basis. There is beauty, there is laughter as well.
We believe that the effort made by photographers in doing this would more than make up for the relative small resources going into the project, by helping to create a broader picture of Haitian life, and to put the horrific, and important, images that are currently being taken in Port au Prince in context.
As part of the project we will be having Haitian children and students take pictures to show the events through their own eyes, an effort that was planned before the tragedy. In addition we ask that each photographer try and bring a compact digital camera and find a Haitian child to work with in whatever area of the country that you are working in.
Depending on the amount of work received we may have needs for volunteer editors and coordinators as well. For those more interested in a structured environment I am going be extending the 100Eyes Workshop in Haiti through the end of the month and possibly beyond.
For details on this please contact me through our workshop page for Haiti, here.”
If I was a photographer I’d be anxiously looking for an avenue to broaden the media coverage away from only disaster consumption. This seems like the best opportunity; Structured, purposeful and community based.
We have seen the terrifying images, now let’s get past them to action. If you’ve got money give it, if you’ve got a camera get involved.
DAVID ZENTZ
I picked the image above out from the selection at 100 Eyes. David Zentz has done two series on Haiti, Saut D’eau and 2Double.
David’s work at Verve, 100Eyes and Aurora Photos. David also has a blog, Your Moment of Zentz.
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UPDATED: SARAH SHOURD WAS RELEASED FROM EVIN PRISON ON 14TH SEPTEMBER, 2010. SHANE BAUER WAS RELEASED ON SEPTEMBER 21ST, 2011
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Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal are imprisoned in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison. They are not spies; they are principled activists, valued journalists and now political pawns.
I’d like to summarise their situation and then focus on Bauer’s ongoing work in Sudan.
HIKING, CROSSING, LANGUISHING
Earlier this week I met Shon Meckfessel, one-time Cake band-member, occasional anarchist, and long-time writer for literary, political periodicals.
Shon has been known most recently as the fourth member of the hiking party on the Iraqi Kurdistan/Iran border. Shon is not in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison because he – due to illness – delayed the start of his hike by 24 hours.
The day after his three friends Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal had set out, Shon got on a bus headed to the same trail-head with the intention of catching up. While on the bus, he received a call from Shane telling him that the three of them had just been detained by Iranian border patrol. That was on the 31st July, 2009.
Most US mainstream media coverage has been neutral presentation of the known facts, sometimes peppered with confusion and incredulity. It has focused on the absurdity of the situation instead of the integrity of the writing, teaching and activism of the three members of the party.
Outside of the media, there has been organised support. There has also been the minority view – the predictably offensive right-wing nut-jobs.
To answer briefly the questions of how and why a party of Americans were hiking near the Iranian border, Iraqi Kurdistan has been peaceful for nearly twenty years since the close of the first Gulf war.
Shane, Sarah and Joshua were all seasoned travellers and they had been advised that the mountains and waterfalls of Ahmad Awah in the North East were well worth a visit. Shon and his friends travelled to As Sulaymaniyah together. When they took the two hour bus ride from the city they thought it headed northwest, not eastward. No locals they spoke to mentioned the proximity of the Iranian border.
Shon, Shane, Sarah and Joshua stayed in As Sulaymaniyah (bottom left) for a night. The bus ride they thought went north west in fact headed east to Ahmad Awah (top right).
As Sulaymaniyah and Ahmad Awah are in Kurdistan, North Eastern Iraq. The areas marked Kordestan and Kermanshah are in Iran.
Iraq and Iran border and territories.
For a long time – aside of an early factual statement (August 6th) – Shon stayed out of the media spotlight and let the Department of State run its diplomatic channels. However, his friends remain imprisoned. Recently, media coverage of the story has declined (Diane Sawyer’s direct questions to a prevaricating Ahmadinejad the exception). On November 2nd, Shon wrote an open letter to Iranian President Ahmadinejad:
I had hoped that the misunderstanding would be resolved quickly. Three months have now passed, and I cannot imagine what more the Iranian authorities might have to learn about my friends or what they were doing in the area. … Mr. President, by continuing to deprive Shane, Sarah, and Josh of their liberty, Iran is working against some of the very causes it supports. Each of these three has a long and public record of contesting injustice in the world and addressing some of the inequities between rich and poor which you have spoken about through their humanitarian work in their own country and overseas.
Shon goes on to describe their various work and causes. Read the letter in full. Also on November 2nd, Shon appeared on Democracy Now! to reassert his position that the Iranian authorities can have no illusions as to their characters.
On November 9th, the three were charged with espionage.
Of the three, Shane Bauer has written and published the most. Most recently his article, Sheikh Down (Mother Jones) described how the ‘Pentagon bought stability in Iraq by funneling billions of taxpayer dollars to the country’s next generation of strongmen’.
Shon notes, “As a fluent speaker of Arabic, Shane has focused on injustices in the Arab world, in Iraq and Palestine in particular. The Christian Science Monitor published Shane’s January 7th interview with Musa Abu Marzook, the only English-language interview with a Hamas leader during Israel’s attack on Gaza.”
SHANE BAUER’S DARFUR PHOTOGRAPHY
I could have as easily featured the publicly available works of Josh or Sarah; each of the three illustrate their non-spy credentials through their past writings and journalism. That said, neither Josh or Sarah are involved in photojournalism or multimedia journalism as Shane is.
As Shane’s AP editor said in the clip atop this post, there are not many twenty somethings in Darfur freelancing and living with Sudanese rebels.
I have picked out five images from Shane’s Darfur series, but he also has produced two multimedia pieces One Day with the S.L.A. and Darfur: Rebellion from the Margins. In both stills and video he is trying to offer a context for the rebels bearing arms. The equation is simple: without a fight they would have “been run into the desert, where there is no water and left to die”.
Rebels from the SLA-Unity faction sit stranded in the countryside. North Darfur, 2007. © Shane Bauer
In the heat of the summer, SLA rebels swim near their base after a long night of rain. Deisa, North Darfur, Sudan, 2007. © Shane Bauer
A UN helicopter takes off after delivering medical supplies to a small clinic that was looted by the Janjaweed. Many Darfuris are demanding a UN peacekeeping force to replace the beleagured African Union mission, but for now the UN is limited short stopovers to deliver small boxes of supplies to villagers. Bir Maza, 2007. © Shane Bauer
Village elders meet in North Darfur. Many civilians remain in the countryside, either because they cannot afford to travel to a refugee camp or because they refuse to leave their homes, 2007. © Shane Bauer
Women collect water in goatskins at a well in Farawia, North Darfur. With no water facilities and many wells poisoned or destroyed by the Sudanese government and its janjaweed militias, people have to travel long distances to find water. 2006. © Shane Bauer
The stills and video are a privileged view of existence for the Sudanese Liberation Army and the civilians they protect, but it is also a view that has dated. Shane continues to work on a feature length film about these same civilians, the S.L.A. and their continued struggle. Time ticks on.
Given that Shane is an accomplished photographer, I was a little surprised that his cause hasn’t been forwarded much in photographic circles, or more specifically the photoblogosphere. Jack Kurtz picked up on the story and posted it to Lightstalkers but it got no takers. Shane is a member.
Tewfic liked Shane’s Darfur multimedia but missed the story of his and his friends capture … as many of us did.
And, of course, we only anticipate Shane’s release in the context of all three’s release.
HELP HERE, HELP THERE
Perhaps, especially when the photographic community are mobilising to help in Haiti, we should also be aware of ongoing problems elsewhere?
The family have set up the Free The Hikers website, and also Facebook and a Twitter. We can start there with our actions.
BIOGRAPHIES
Shane Bauer received 1st place for independent audio slideshow features in the 2008 NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism contest. In 2007, he was a national finalist for photojournalism in the Harry Chapin Media Awards as well as a national finalist for feature photography for the Society of Professional Journalists’ 2007 Mark of Excellence Awards. He also received the Lyon Prize in photography that year. (Source)
Sarah Shourd, 31, is an English teacher in Damascus and is learning Arabic. She previously taught as part of the Iraqi Student Project, a program which gives Iraqi students living in Damascus the skills to continue their education in US schools. Sarah has written articles on travel and social issues reflecting her time in Syria, Ethiopia, Yemen and Mexico (Escape From Iraq: A Muslim Family Finds Solace in Ramadan, Brave Eyes, Laughing Hearts: My First Encounter with Yemen, Families Shout Their Love Across Minefields in Golan Heights). She attended UC Berkeley in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she lived after graduating until moving to Damascus with Shane. (Source)
Joshua Fattal began undergraduate work at UC Santa Barbara and graduated from UC Berkeley (2004). For three years after college he was invested in the Aprovecho Research Center, a sustainable living project in Oregon. In 2009, Josh was on a years travel partly independently and partly as a teaching assistant for the International Honours Program ‘Health and Community’ semester. (Source)
Prison Photography 