You wrote, “Well, the holiday’s gotten long,” signaling it was time to leave.
Exactly. I can’t wait to get out and back to work. There’s this compulsion—to do more, do better professionally. You’re as good as your last photograph.
January 25: When I’m able to get a signal and get through, I’m bombarded with requests from clients. It’s hard to explain to them that just getting through the city is a war—I don’t have the time to communicate this. I shoot, edit, and file as much as I can, while I search for electricity, even a place to sit and work for a few minutes. I’m not on a big budget, so the $1,000-per-night rooms are not an option. Besides, the big TV networks have blocked out most of the hotels in town.
How difficult is it to sell your work?
I shot good stuff in Haiti. Not a lot of it got published and that pissed me off. Everybody and their dog went to Haiti. The regular crew of rockstar photographers showed up. There was one guy—a self-proclaimed war photographer who’s really an egomaniac trying to build up a big brand around himself. He threw up a post on Lightstalkers.com offering $4,000 workshops on how to shoot in Haiti. The backlash was incredible and he removed the post. Another great photographer who cracked was auctioning prints from Haiti, which is pushing the limit. Me? I’m a bit frustrated. My friend Dominic, another great photographer who got in with the Wall Street Journal, did brilliant work and got a lot of attention. I’m in a hurry to get to Mogadishu so I can redeem myself.
You’ve seen many different situations and issues from a bird’s-eye perspective. What is one issue that really stands out?
One troubling thing is how the humanitarian relief and development industry is exploding into a huge business. How I feed my family comes from doing work for NGOs and I’m not so sure how good I feel about that anymore. A couple weeks ago I had to buy a motorcycle in Port Au Prince because you couldn’t get through town because of huge, hours-long, gridlocked traffic jams of white Landcruisers with one white guy driving. Literally. Then there are the tiffs between NGOs. In Congo, I actually saw NGO guys pushing each other around, arguing over jurisdiction of a group of internally displaced people—as the poor Congolese were watching!
Post 9/11 the industry itself, the desperation of the Western world, this whole war on terror thing is great—the perfect threat. People want to have their iPhones but at the same time say, “I don’t want some terrorist to blow himself up.” Yet, there’s a positive aspect—people are paying attention. Haiti’s been miserable forever and nobody paid any attention. Ever. What was troubling was to see the drain relief industry personnel put on resources. It became “their” emergency disaster, highly personalized while a whole nation of people are completely fucked. It was infuriating. The NGOs are focusing on getting on the ground, distributing relief, and dropping tents in Port Au Prince. The rainy season is coming. Most of the buildings in Pétionville, the hill towering over Port Au Prince proper, are teetering. Chances are they could come sliding down, killing millions of survivors who should be moved out of the city into camps—because it’s going to be a long-term recovery. There hasn’t been enough of a focus on the potential for huge outbreaks of illness, dysentery, malaria, and infection—the potential for a knock-on disaster, thousands of people living in real squalor in a decimated city that needs to be totally leveled and rebuilt.
At one point I was a furniture designer. I can do all kinds of things. Over a decade I spun off into something that’s just not me and around 2005 I decided I’m mortal. I have an ability that not everybody has and I’m compelled to use it while I can. But, to be honest, there is addiction in it. To go from this to weddings or studio portraits—I can’t see it. But there is a limit. I mean, I can’t do this forever.
