Sunday morning my essay on the search for the disappeared in Guatemala appeared in El Periodico, one of the main newspapers there. My good friend Moises Castillo, the photo editor for the paper and long time AP photographer in Guatemala, edited the selection and shepherded it into print. It’s a big deal for me to get these pictures published there, and in front of Guatemalan viewers. Especially in the same week that former dictator Efrain Rios Montt finally went to court to answer to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for the killings he ordered during his tenure as head of Guatemala during the civil war. It’s vital to find the victims of forced disappearance and extra judicial killings from the war years- but it’s not enough. The people who committed these crimes have to be brought to justice for them. They have to answer for what they did.

Rainy day bank roundup for Bloomberg News. Too good to pass up. If you’re like me you can appreciate a little pink flair in an otherwise relentlessly grey day.

Both flags, and they played both national anthems at a Chinese business association banquet in Queens. The entire scene, I couldn’t get over how red it was.

Jonathan Ferreira gets a haircut in his neighborhood in the Bronx.

Over the course of the fall and into the winter, I got a series of assignments from the New York Times to work on their Neediest Cases project. This year was the 100th anniversary of the NYTimes Neediest Cases Fund, so they are trying to do 100 stories. I love doing these assignments and getting to meet and photograph the folks they feature, people who are usually moving ahead from tough patches in their lives with the help of local organizations or charities that themselves need help to keep going…

Continue reading ‘The Neediest Cases for The New York Times’

Toward the end of my trip to Guatemala, I headed down to the coast with Abd to photograph the Corta de Cana, the sugar cane harvest, for Bloomberg News. Guatemala is the fifth largest exporter of sugar in the world, and the sugar industry employs about 350,000 workers, so it’s a big deal…

Continue reading ‘Sugar Cane Harvest’

I was honored to be selected last month by the NPPA as one of five recipients of their new Short Grants for documentary photography. I was selected to continue my story on Cpl. Manny Jimenez, the Marine I have been following since his injury in Helmand last year in an IED blast while I was on patrol with him. The grants are intended to fund locally focused, short term documentary projects. This type of work has suffered in recent years as news budgets and outlets for visual storytelling have constricted, and the NPPA hopes to help address the situation with these grants. It was nice to be in the company as well of four other great photographers and stories- Mary F. Calvert, Mark Ovaska, Gabriela Bulisova, and my man Matt Eich. Congrats to everyone. Now let’s get to work on these stories.

Sergio Menendez, left, an animator at Milk ‘N Cookies, a tech firm at Campus Technològico, works with Melvin Alonso, a graphic designer, on a project.

The other day I was standing out on Roosevelt Boulevard, just about to climb on a bus out to the hills when my phone rang. It was the great Sandra Stevenson, and she had an assignment for the Times that needed immediate attention here in beautiful (?) Guatemala City. It was a fascinating story, about a high rise building and an entrepreneur that is trying to create a small silicon valley here in Guate. I know, crazy. So I headed over to the spot, Campus Tec, and met with folks and shot some tech pictures. It felt like I was in Cupertino or something. A day later I was on the bus to Nebaj, and two days after that I was photographing an exhumation. Weird. The story by Times reporter Damien Cave is great, give it a read. There are some outtakes after the jump…

Patricia Cofiño, a student at a school at Campus Technològico, gets a shoe shine by Paolo Alejandro Morales before class.

Continue reading ‘Guatemala Tech for The New York Times’

Back in Guatemala for a couple of weeks. It’s election season, and as usual the choices aren’t very appealing, but this year both are in a tight race for the least appealing. Otto Perez Molina is the favorite, a former army general and the loser in the last presidential race. If he wins on November 6, Guatemala will have come full circle- 15 years after the Peace Accords ended the civil war and the country turned it’s back on military rule, military man will assume power. It’s a repudiation of the spirit of the Accords and a dark turn for a country thats almost only had dark turns for the last 57 years.

I am here for about three weeks. Get in touch if you need anything.

Guatemala Cell- 502.48619877

Well, after weeks of tension, Friday the 14th came along and when push came to shove, Mayor Bloomberg blinked. He averted what could have been a nasty scene and let the protestors at Zuccotti Park, the spiritual focus if not the actual logistical headquarters of Occupy Wall Street, keep their turf. It was probably a good move politically, (everyone was curious as to what that particular police action was going to look like,) and it definitely shifted even more political capital into the protest column and less in the city/police/banker column. I was out for whatever was going to take place, and after the announcement and the euphoria, folks decided to work off the tension with a celebratory romp through the financial district. It got aggressive for a bit, and there were a handful of arrests. Here are some pictures from the morning.

I have been spending some time down at Zuccotti park, both on assignment and on my own, trying to get a feel for things. It is definitely something else. It took a minute, but the entire enterprise has struck a nerve and caught the attention if not the imagination of the press, the frustrated middle class, and even the right. Stay tuned here, I have some more pictures to show. It is anyones guess where it goes from here, but it will be a hell of a ride either way.

More photos after the jump   …

Continue reading ‘Eviction Averted- Occupy Wall Street stays put’

Pete Brook, blogger and photography critic and commentator, got interviewed by the Lens Blog for his new prison photography project, and they featured one of my pictures in the post. He is traveling cross-country doing a series of interviews to find out more about prisons, prison photographers, prisoners, and the photographers who photograph prisoners. He set up a Kickstarter project, (which already well surpassed it’s funding goals,) and one way he is raising money is selling prints by folks that shoot in prisons. The print I donated is already spoken for,  but there are a bunch of pictures available from some great photographers, and if you have the money, as of last check there is still a Danny Lyon print available- whoa. It’s a fascinating project, and I am excited to be a part of it. I am looking forward to talking with him- Pete is an insightful guy and a great writer. I think our ideas on the subject of photographing in prisons, and probably on the nature and political and social economy of incarceration diverge quit a bit, so it will be interesting to hash things out. He has written on my work before, here. Keep an eye out for his interviews he is posting as he finishes them- like this one by long time Bay Area photographer Robert Gumpert. Bob shot a project for years in SF’s County Jail, and he is no joke.

So it’s a big joke here in New York, one that I was not privy to- that supposedly almost every pizza place is called Ray’s Original or some variation of. Last month I shot a story on the closing of the actual, real, first Ray’s pizza in Nolita. The reporter, Michael Wilson, went back through old phone books until he found only one Ray’s- this one. The Story is a great read- family guff, FBI informants, mob ties, mozzarella. He did a great job on it, and it made it out to page A-1 on Sunday. There is a slide show as well. It was a good day hanging out, learning the ins and outs of great pizza making. Above, Marco Antonio Ortega puts a pizza in the oven. Some more pictures after the jump…

Continue reading ‘The End of Ray’s for The New York Times’

Last month I shot my first assignment for the New York Times. It was raining to beat the band, and I got soaked, but it was good times at the Dominican Day Parade. Many thanks to Sandra Stevenson for the chance. It ran the next day, five columns inside. I am still enough of a kid about it to get a kick out of seeing my first picture in the Gray Lady. Pretty exciting. Here’s a couple more from the parade…

Continue reading ‘First Times’

So, this is crazy.

I went to the Hambletonian, (it’s like the Kentucky Derby of Harness Racing) at the Meadowlands in Jersey about a week ago, to shoot some pictures for my aunt Ellen and her Harness Horse Youth Foundation Summer Camp. I stayed to cover the race as well. I was hanging around the barns watching folks get ready, warming up their horses and keeping them calm before the big race. I notice this one young woman playing with this huge colt in the most fascinating, spirited way. They were amazing together, and I moved closer taking some pictures. Her name was Risa Tanaka, and she was the caretaker for Broad Bahn, a three year old trotting colt that had drawn the #1 post position for the Hambletonian. He had this chain attached to his halter that he kept playing with, chomping on, and I asked her about it. She replied, and I realized she was deaf. She told me it helps him relax, like a nervous habit. I hung around taking pictures of them playing and teasing each other. They were just hanging out like it was any old day, not a day when he was about to run for 1.5 Million dollars. I was fascinated by the two of them and their rapport.

I met back up with Ellen and announced that, (knowing next to nothing about picking racehorses,) I had just met the most interesting horse and his caretaker and that Broad Bahn was going to win the race. I made my way down to the track, photographed all of the race day goings on and some of the undercard races, and waited for the big show…(continue below)

Continue reading ‘Hambletonian 2011′

Starcher’s Lament from Soul of Athens on Vimeo.

This is the short documentary I made for my story Almost Out that was published on Our Dreams are Different, both the site and the App. It’s about Doug Starcher, a 31 year old felon who was finishing a 10 year bid at SEPTA. I spent a lot of time with Doug and the guys out there, and I learned a lot from them. I hope you will as well.

I heard from him a couple weeks back. He’s still out of prison, and though things haven’t gone quite according to plan, he is rolling with the punches. It’s hard to decide, and then do the hard work of turning your life around. I think things looked different when he was still inside. But he’s trying, and time will tell if he can become the person he wants to be after it’s all said and done.

Are different. The 2011 version of Soul of Athens- Our Dreams are Different is up and running. We really tried to push the project this year, to move it in a new direction. I am confident this is the finest group of nonfiction reporting and web documentary you are likely to come across this year. Dig in. There is a lot to learn from, a lot to be moved by, and a lot to be inspired by in here. Might I suggest for starters Adrift, Honor thy Brother, Love in Lost Places, The Refuge, All Black, or my story, Almost Out...

If you aren’t familiar with Soul of Athens…

Continue reading ‘Our Dreams’