Edward Linsmier is my first guest blogger, he is a photojournalist based out of southern florida. Edward has spent a lot of tim working and shooting in Haiti over the past several years and has a close relationship with the country and it's people. When the earth quake happened I knew he would go down so I contacted him about doing this for me. Here is a story from Edward as well as some heart stopping images.
We heard gunshots and knew we needed to be closer. We processed the
thought for a split second and we took off running with our fixer not
far behind. People ran past us as we came to an intersection in a
heavily destroyed downtown section of Port au Prince. There were
police and shop keepers with guns. People were yelling and some were
running with their arms in the air to show they weren't carrying
anything stolen. More shots rang out and we honed in on the location
they were coming from- not far up the block. Looters ran past us
carrying anything of value. Emboldened by the electricity of the
chaos, we advanced further and saw people laying on the ground with
police yelling and waving guns in the air and shouting commands. Our
fixer is translating the commands into English- "Lay on the ground,
you should be ashamed of yourselves. You! You! Get down here, lay on
the ground!" More shots rang out in the air and the Haitian Police
yelled at us to get back as soon as they saw us approaching. We
retreated several steps and waited behind a truck for several seconds
until the police were distracted. I saw another photographer up the
road and decided that we needed to make a move closer to him so we
could make some pictures. The police let us pass and we began
photographing the scene. Tensions cycled. The police let the people
up, then eventually left at which point the crowded street began to
produce people willing to loot again. Soon lines of people began
gathering goods seized from the bowels of the destroyed buildings. We
followed the line up onto a downed roof top that led to the exposed
insides of several shops filled with the scavenging and excited crowd.
We were making pictures. Some people briefly yelled at us not to take
their picture but hesitated to stay around long enough to enforce
their requests. More gunshots filled the air. We couldn't tell where
they were coming from but they seemed close. There was a commotion
from not far down the street. The fixer motioned for me to come
because the police had caught a man and had him down on the ground. I,
in turn, motioned for my friend and fellow photographer, Nathan Weber,
who was still on the slanting concrete rooftop to follow me to the
commotion down the road. I yelled his name and he looked at me with a
blank stare. Nathan is someone who is on point in a situation such as
this. He communicates quickly, clearly and with authority when needed.
He is no stranger to photographing in similar situations but something
of this magnitude was new to both of us. I knew he heard me and
figured he would be right behind me as I headed down to the commotion.
I began photographing a man on the ground and the fixer stood near us
and began translating what the police were saying into English, all
the while keeping a keen eye on our surroundings. Then someone ran
past our fixer and said something in Creole. Our fixer then yelled to
us that someone had been shot where we had just been. We ran maybe 50
yards back and climbed back up on the roof to see Nathan in almost the
exact same spot where I last saw him, except he was looking at a girl
who was lying face down on the slanting concrete roof. As best as I
can recall, Nathan spoke in short sentences, "I saw her fall. I
thought she tripped and knocked herself out. She's dead. Fuck. She got
shot. I was right here." The decision to continue making photographs
was instinctual. More photographers showed up and we were all making
pictures, composing the dead girl in the foreground as the looters
continued to walk past her, almost over her, carrying whatever they
could. Several men stopped to turn her over, seemingly to identify the
body. They gently took her arms and almost had to twist her just a
little to face her upward. They looked at her with little emotion and
left. She had been shot in the head. From what I could tell, the
bullet entered her cheek and exited from the back of her head. The
blood had been pooling in some picture frames she was carrying when
she fell. After the men moved her, the blood began to run down the
slanting concrete roof towards us. We all were still making pictures.
To anybody else, it must have looked sick, a crowd of photographers
vying for the best position to tell the story of the death of a girl.
Just about the time that I figured the pictures were over and we
should leave, a frantic man and several others emerged from the crowd.
It was the family of the girl. The father hoisted her onto his
shoulders and began the journey of bringing his daughter home. The
photographers followed. Ordinarily, this would be a scene that hardly
anyone could bare to photograph. They were experiencing probably some
of the most painful moments of their lives but they knew why we were
there. Not once did anyone give a mean look; not once did I hear
anyone question why all the photographers were following this family's
grief so intently and so closely. It was part of the story.
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