"Spotlight on Ben Depp" at The Image, Deconstructed

"BEN: Try to be a human before being a photographer - if you have the chance to save somebody's life, do it. Walking away from a malnourished child on the edge of death or a cholera victim that needs transport stays with you."

An interview with Ben about taking this picture and on shooting cholera in Haiti is featured over on Ross Taylor's The Image Deconstructed today: http://blog.imagedeconstructed.com/2011/10/spotlight-on-ben-depp.html

There and There

I've spent the last month in Paris, Perpignan, Port-Au-Prince, Port Salut, Les Anglais, Bomòn, Pestel, Cap-Haitian, Milot, Limbe, Fondes des Negres, Fondes des Blancs, and have gone to Leogane twice.

Now I'm back home, happy, safe and sound. Traveling in Haiti can be a little unpredictable. The day after flying into Cap-Haitian a local airline's plane crashed and burned trying to land there. The next day we came across a guy just hit and killed in the road. The day after that I saw a teenager get really banged up rolling down the road after falling off a truck, and the following day we ran over a dog - one of the few I've seen in Haiti wearing a collar. (I wasn't driving).

Scarier than traveling in Haiti is the carbon footprint I'm racking up. My round trip flight from Port-au-Prince to Paris produced 5.81 metric tons of CO2. Sorry, Bangladesh. 

Bassin-Bleu

Last weekend we finally made it to Bassin-Bleu, about 40 minutes (+ a deep-ish river crossing) into the mountains above Jacmel. I won't bother with any more words since it is obvious from Ben's photos how incredibly worth the trip it was:

p.s. Apparently the pools are usually much, much bluer!

to wrap up this long week

Artibonite valley at sunset 

Étang Saumâtre (in English, brackish pond)

The largest lake in Haiti, on the border of the Dominican Republic.

Keep Spraying

I keep telling Alexis it will take more than just graffiti to become president. But I could be wrong.

Port-Au-Prince

Port-Au-Prince. Photos from the archives.

The answer is not in logbase or in your email.

Bathroom wall, UN Logistics base. January 22, 2010. 

pic of the day

Saturday in Saut d'Eau

On Assignment

  

I spent last Monday and Tuesday shooting the beautiful empty beaches in the Southwest of the Dominican Republic.

My flight from Charlotte to Miami - incidentally, on the airline that paid me to take this trip - was delayed by 45 minutes because the luggage wasn't calculated when they loaded the plane. They had to re-calculate it while the pilot made a joke about his trigonometry being rusty. Because of the delay I made it to the gate in Miami as my plane was boarding, but then something happened to the engine next to me as we sped up to take off - there was loud bang and then the airplane stopped on the runway. The pilot said maybe a compressor blew out (whatever that means) but that we would be fine and not to worry. After ten minutes, he got back on the intercom to say that they had checked the book and we would be fine - it was just a problem with the autopilot and us accelerating too quickly - so they turned the plane around and took off successfully. The engine still sounded really strange and I've never been so sure that my flight would crash into the ocean.

I did get to the DR in one piece, rented a car, drove six hours to the Pedernales region, took a couple pictures, slept in my car next to a big lagoon in a national park and then took more pictures the next day of a bunch of different beaches, all hours apart. I filed my pictures by 3 PM and drove 6 hours back to Santo Domingo in time to have a beer at a gas station where I slept in my car again. I returned the car at 6am Wednesday morning, motorcycle-taxied, bussed and motorcycle-taxied again to the bus station. I bought my ticket to Port-au-Prince right before the bus boarded. 7 hours later, I arrived home to my beautiful wife, an indian meal and an avocado tree full of avacados.

  

I was hungry and in a hurry, so I bought this frozen pizza at a supermarket in Santo Domingo. At a military checkpoint, a fat soldier asked me for some and instantly produced a huge kitchen knife to cut himself a slice.  

 

 

The Road (now) More Traveled

The Inter-American Development Bank is funding this road project in the south of Haiti, aiming to cut travel time and transportation costs, and to improve living conditions in the southern provinces. This 50-mile stretch of road connects Les Cayes and Jeremie and several villages in between. A Brazilian company, OAS, is doing the construction. The road is far from complete, but is already transforming commerce and daily life in the area. Travel time has been cut in half; fewer trucks are breaking down, so less food is spoiled; and farmers are planting more crops in anticipation of more dependable farm-to-market transportation.

All of this is great, but in reality the project's impact is a little more complex. I was hoping to find a solid development project to photograph that had a clear cut, positive impact (and perhaps cure some of my own disillusionment about development work). Instead, I came across locals displaced by the road who have yet to be reimbursed for their houses and land by the government. OAS is responsible for reimbursing those whose land and houses are unintentionally damaged by the construction and they have; but the government hasn't come through on their part of the deal. The road also improves transportation into the most forested part of the country, and the forests will probably diminish with increased access to the charcoal market in Port-Au-Prince. One of the heavy equipment operators told me he thought that the way the road was being built was terrible and it would wash away quickly.

Time will tell what this road does for the region. Most of the folks I talked to were really excited about the improved road, but I'm not sure I've found my perfect project yet.

-posted by Ben

Awash in Pink

Port-au-Prince has been getting a new coat of pink paint in anticipation of the inauguration of Michel Martelly, Haiti's new, right-wing president, tomorrow.  

 

Prints

I just started selling prints which is exciting for me. A few will be up for sale in Mennou Gallery in Petionville in the next couple days. I'm also trying to market these pictures online...

What's in Your Wallet?

A Port-au-Prince man shows me the 4 images he carries with him at all times: Images 1 and 3 - Jean Bertrand Aristide; Image 2 - a rooster, symbolic of Fanmi Lavalas; Image 4 - a combo of Jesus Christ and Aristide.

Ben's Carnival Picks

Where the Bodies Go

In Haiti, parents sometimes threaten their misbehaved children with abandonment in Titanyen. A place where the dead outnumber the living, Titanyen is a settlement on the outskirts of Port-Au-Prince sandwiched between the mountains and the ocean. Past dictators and presidents including the Duvaliers and Aristide used Titanyen as a dumping ground to disappear the bodies of political dissidents. While those buried Titanyen used to be victims of political violence, today they are victims of economic violence, be it poor construction on unstable hillsides or lack of access to clean water and medical services. Thousands of victims of the January 12th, 2010 earthquake were buried here in mass graves and every day, cholera victims are dumped unceremoniously at the same sites.

photo of the day

A pastor prays after baptizing congregants in the bay next to Port-Au-Prince

January 12 in photos

People gathering at places like collapsed schools and mass graves to remember loved ones lost in the earthquake:

Pierre Rigaud comes to the National Cemetery to remember his two children ages 8 and 10 and his parents who he lost in the January 12th earthquake.

 People come to a pray at a small church in the National Cemetery

This is a video I shot a couple of weeks ago. I haven't watched it all yet because my internet is too slow. (I didn't do the reporting or editing).