Editing For The Future

 

A little girl in the hospital in Cange, Haiti.   An average shot that I spent some time editing, and  now think is fairly presentable. 

I've been photo-editing for the past 24 hours or so, playing with an Apples Aperture upgrade from 1.5 to 3.0.  It's a nifty piece of software that lets me do things within my editing capabilities, and while I have Adobe's Photoshop, it's just bigger and more robust that I really need. It's been exciting to walk through so many photographs, to venture backwards in time and remember people and places through some of the shots that I'm revisiting. 

Photography is doing exactly what I hoped it would do, documenting the things that I've seen and people that I've met along my path of travel.  In my past life I never took a single photograph or came home with any memorabilia; twenty years of traveling the globe and I had little to show for it other than memories and some good bar stories.  Now that I'm shooting my children and grandchildren will be able to look at some of my shots and see the same things that I did, stand where I stood, and feel the same emotions of the moment. This makes me happy.

Not Soon To Forget

I spent the morning in a 77,000-man tent city that was occupying what used to be a country club golf course.  The irony of the once manicured lawns now housing Haiti's most desperate was not lost on me.

To describe what a tent city is like is next to impossible, at least for me and my limited literary skills.  The heat was unbearable as we struggled up hill after hill making our way down tiny alleys between the makeshift dwellings constructed of plastic tarps, dirty sheets, and sticks. Children played in the filth and dust as parents sold packs of gum or candy in front of their "tents".  Inside, behind the plastic, were the family's entire possessions; a mud-covered mattress, a handful of dented pots, and some soiled blankets. 

The smell of rotting garbage, urine, and human and animal feces all combined in the baking Haitian sun to form an oder like nothing I've ever experienced in my lifetime.  Flies picked at my face and body until I couldn't take it anymore, and I certainly didn't want to think about were the flies had just come from. The children smiled but the adults mumbled the same pleas for help over and over, reaching out to you with dirty, emaciated fingers trying to touch your arm to get your attention.  This is a degree of misery that I've never seen before, and have vowed to not soon forget.  No words that I can craft are capable of describing the human suffering witnessed today. 

Photogs Up Close

 One of the really good things that has come out of my experience in Haiti is that I've had the opportunity to mingle with and observe dozens of professional photojournalists.  These guys and gals go out every day and document the thousands of stories, and then come back to the hotel and sit around the bar selecting, editing, and sending their work around the world.  It's been an unbelievable opportunity and privilege to watch this process up close.

As I sit here there are several photogs looking over their day's shots on small MacBooks, and editing in Photoshop.  They're serious and pensive within the process, and once the work is fed they grab a beer and relax for the remainder of the evening.  The ever-present question is how long they should stay, when does the story run out?

Here is what I've noticed from the photog community:

• Most use Cannon cameras, normally two, one slung on each shoulder
• Photo vests are for PSDs.  Security ruined the vests for photogs.  Now its backpacks.
• They all seem to edit in Photoshop
• There is not a lot of sharing or viewing other's shots, but they will show you if asked
• Way too much smoking going on during the editing process
• NGOs pay better than magazines
• There's a difference between shooting art and news
• During the moment, hold the hammers down, try to stay in composition and focus
• All have agents they send their photos through
• Macs are the laptops of choice
• Skype gets them back home at bedtime
• The average salary is extremely hard-earned.  This life comes at a price.

Opportunities

The media's freedom of movement within Iraq has been severely restricted over the last year or so due to the high levels of violence, and the heightened threat against westerners. For the most part media crews have relied upon the U.S. military to shuttle them around the country as they "embed" with various units. It's worked out well for the military because it gets ample opportunity to get it's message out. The media, on the other hand, is itching to do other stories that don't include shots of U.S. soldiers or Marines ridding about in HUMMVs.

With the recent successes of the "surge" the bureaus are becoming more active in their efforts to get out on the streets and gather other, non-military stories. It still requires immense amounts of security coordination, but little by little things are beginning to open up. There's an direct relationship between the security situation on the ground in Iraq and quantity of stories filed by the Baghdad bureaus.

On another note, if I were a "backpack journalist" I'd be heading to Turkey right now. The situation there remains questionable as the Turks have a reputation for entering Iraq, making some noise and leaving again. This time, however, there seems to be more activity and not a lot of news coverage due to the fact that expense assets are tied up elsewhere. Opportunity exists.