100Eyes Blog

Archive for January, 2010

Shoot for 100Eyes: Gade, Haiti!

Friday, January 15th, 2010




The earthquake in Haiti has brought 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 the workshops please contact me through our workshop page for Haiti: here.

For those interested in shooting and already headed to Haiti, feel free to respond with a comment below.

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From David Belle in Jacmel

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Dear Friends,

Jacmel was hit very hard by the massive earthquake. Miraculously our Cine Institute team and students seem to all be alive. The town lost many many buildings and presumably many more lives. In an urgent email from our school director, Andrew Bigosinski said, “There is no local rescue plan or capacity. No emergency food, water, blankets or medicine. The Hospital St. Michel collapsed. I joined 3000 others to sleep at the airstrip last night. You could hear the howling of people crying in town. Nightmarish. I never could have expected the ferocity of this quake.”

Our own infrastructure at the Institute is badly damaged.
We are gearing up to work on three fronts:
get news out about Jacmel so help arrives there too
help family abroad confirm status of their family in Jacmel
Acquire and distribute medical care, medicine, food and water to the town and surrounding areas.
Internet is barely working so please be patient.

If you have family in Jacmel send names and their details to
info@cineinstitute.com
and we will attempt to get news of them for you.

Port-au-prince appears to be nearly flattened and dominating the current coverage. It appears that there is no substantial infrastructure remaining to launch search and recovery and treat wounded.

The national palace, the UN HQs, the General Hospital, Medicins sans Frontier are all leveled. We are still trying to figure out just who is left that can be effective. So much now depends on how quickly the US, UN and others can get in there and how effectively they can coordinate efforts.

Thank you for your support,

David Belle
Ciné Institute

SUPPORT THE RECOVERY EFFORT
IN EARTHQUAKE DEVASTATED JACMEL.

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