by Jon Lackman | 29 April 2011 | Photography
A writer for the French blog Niouzesetweberies writes:
Fabienne Cherisma is a fifteen-year-old Haitian adolescent. She escaped the tragic earthquake. But Fabienne happened to be among the ruins when she received three bullets to the head from Haitian police trying to disperse looters. This photo by Paul Hansen won best photo of the year in Sweden. One can easily see why. The photo offers a gripping image of the death of an innocent child, and of the desperation and human tragedy at the heart of natural catastrophe. But this other photo has provoked controversy. It goes behind the camera [to show seven photojournalists crowded around her] and the perspective it suggests may be even more depressing.
All these photographers are surely on assignment, and felt they shouldn’t miss this “opportunity” and transmit the picture to their editors ASAP–rather than try to explain why every other news agency published the picture (as early as the same day it was made). My interest is in the photograph of the pathetic group of photographers, and not in the actual “news item”. Remember the picture from the late 80′s/early 90′s that showed a starving (probably african) child sitting on the ground with a waiting vulture in the near background? And was it only a rumor that the photographer who made that image later committed suicide? Dirty business, all that.