Enough is Enough, Or Is It?

It's been asked a lot in the last month: Were there too many journalists in Haiti? In particular, too many photographers?

I head back to Haiti on Saturday and, as such, have pondered that one quite a bit myself. The issue has even been explored on Lens, the photojournalism blog at the New York Times and probably the best place outside of academia to find engaging and insightful dialogue on photojournalism. It's worth your time to check out the excellent essay and images here.

Lens does a great job going in-depth, so I won't belabor things by rehashing the arguments here. Suffice it to say, I've always felt that any photographer going to Haiti (or taking any photo, for that matter) should ask: Am I shooting this for myself, or am I shooting to contribute something new to the greater understanding of the story? They should also ask not only if they are respecting the subject, but if they are respecting the spirit of what is appropriate in a given circumstance.

Haitians have always been skeptical of the motives of photographers, and I do not blame them. I've probably given them reason to be skeptical myself on occasion, and I hope that I've learned from my mistakes.

(For the record, anyone desiring to do relief work in Haiti should also ask themselves similarly hard questions: Am I doing this for my reputation and my need for self-satisfaction, or to help the helpless and bring God glory?)

I was in Port-au-Prince soon enough after the earthquake that there were not many journalists on the ground yet. I did not have to deal with the bona fide media circus in the weeks that followed. But I caught a glimpse of what was to come, like the moment a television crew stabbed a microphone at a victim's face the moment she was pulled from the rubble of a building. There were only a handful of us at the scene, but I already felt it was too crowded.

And yet, for all the cameras that were there and at every scene around Port-au-Prince, there were almost certainly important images that would not have been made if any of those had been missing. After everyone else had stopped shooting at the rescue mentioned here, I made an image that later stood out to me as the essential image from the evening: The redemptive moment when the victim embraced her mother (the again, giving my background in wedding photography, I've always been a sucker for hugs).

I don't want to give the false impression that I somehow am letting myself off the hook because I am a Christian photographer working for a Christian NGO in Haiti. On the contrary, I feel that fact imposes on me, in some ways, an even higher set of standards, both in excellence and also in integrity. We are not immune to superficial or self-serving motives. In a part of town on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, I watched a videographer from another Christian NGO ask his subject to turn as bit while he was doing some relief work, "so I can get a better angle on the logo on your shirt."

After a disaster of such horrific scope as the earthquake, I don't know how many photographers is the "right" number to be covering such an event. There were probably too many. But I think we know that God used the collective photos they captured to spur individuals to give aid like almost never before in American history.

The more pertinent question at the moment might well be, Why aren't there more photographers documenting the struggle now that the dust has cleared? And a follow-up: Why don't Americans seem to be as interested in such stories?

My favorite subjects are and always have been ordinary people, those on the fringes of human and environmental conflict who generally suffer most of the consequences but are often ignored. There are many great stories to be told in Haiti right now, most of which will require "explanation and contemplation," in the words of Magnum Photographer Christopher Anderson.

Those are the ones I hope to tell.