ZORIAH - A PHOTOJOURNALIST AND WAR PHOTOGRAPHER'S BLOG

Actress and Model Zoe D'Amato - Baghaded ER Negative Sandwich

Actress and model Zoe D'Amato merged with an image of a bombing victim in Iraq's infamous "Baghdad ER."  

Designed to bring light to social and humanitarian issues by combining images of fashion and celebrities with images of conflict, crisis and disaster, this "negative sandwich" features an x-ray from Iraq's bloodiest emergency room, the infamous Baghdad ER. The x-ray belongs to a U.S. soldier who was injured when a roadside bomb or possibly a rocket-propelled grenade hit his vehicle, causing severe damage to his arm. Upon arrival at Baghdad ER, his arm was x-rayed to show doctors damage to his bones as well as any shrapnel that they would need to remove. The white flakes near D'Amato's right shoulder blade are pieces of shrapnel that appeared in the x-ray.

My work from 2008 in Baghad ER can be found here and the full story from 2007 is here. I will repost the 2007 story here in its entirety soon along with the full text.

More from the war photography meet fashion photography series coming soon.

Haiti Earthquake Before and After Pictures

Photographs of Port au Prince, Haiti, before and after the earthquake.

The photo on the left was taken while I was teaching a photojournalism workshop in Port au Prince last December. The image on the right was taken from the same location in January just days after the earthquake. This image is posted in a high resolution format, so I urge you all to view it at its full size to see the detail (if you are viewing this on the web you can double-click the image to open the larger view and for those that are viewing via RSS it should appear at its full size).

The building that I was staying in and photographed the "before" image from was completely destroyed in the earthquake. When I returned and shot the "after" image I was able to climb up on the rubble and get nearly the same angle as the first image was shot from. Looking closely at the two images shows the massive amount of destruction as well as an idea of what the Haitians are facing as far as clean up and rebuilding. If you look at the layers and layers of concrete, you can begin to see how removing the rubble will be a massive undertaking. Removal is only half the battle; rebuilding the city and doing so with high quality building standards that will prevent such a high death toll in future quakes will be essential, and only possible once the destruction has been cleaned up.

Haiti will be suffering from this humanitarian crisis for years to come and we must all continue to pay attention to the needs of the Haitian people.

War Photography, Meet Fashion Photography

  Model Laura Peterson's negative sandwiched with an image of devastation in Lebanon after the 34-Day Summer War. 

I have been widely criticized for commercializing photojournalism and war photography since I appeared in the Warner Brothers television show "In Harms Way." Since then I have been working hard on ways of making my work even more commercial. The bottom line is that for photojournalism to do any good, it must be seen — and seen by as large of an audience as possible.

Photojournalism has become a rigid and stagnant industry. It is obsessed with rules, hiding behind "ethics" in order to produce nothing but formulaic, generic press photography and generally forgetting about the fact that it is our job to use our ART to educate the world and bring about awareness. My personal mission is to go beyond what others are doing in hopes of creating works that are completely new and fresh, instead of mimicking the work and career paths of others.

Several years ago I went from covering the conflict in Gaza straight to New York to shoot Fashion Week. My entire time in Gaza I did not see one other photographer, yet at fashion week I was packed in with 50 or more shooters during runway shows. I was distressed by this in the beginning, but soon I began to see possibilities.

What if you could use the glamor and sex appeal of fashion and celebrity photography along with the messages in photojournalism? What if you could create works of art that would not only stun people visually, but also educate people about a subject that they may otherwise ignore or find too depressing to pay attention to?

Years ago when I did my work using film and darkrooms I fell in love with a process called "Negative Sandwiching" or "Sandwich Printing" or "Multiple Printing." This process involved actually placing two negatives on top of each other before exposing the image (alternately you could expose using one negative and then again with a second). The same process can be done digitally now with much more accuracy and detail.  

I would like to announce that I am beginning to take my career in a new direction. I am not now, nor will I ever give up photojournalism, but it is time to go far beyond the limits of the profession.

Six months ago I began shooting models and celebrities to work on creating composite images of beauty, sex and fame mixed with conflict, crisis and disasters. I am in the process of making a book as well as an international exhibition of this work. All of the models and celebrities involved in this project have donated their time, as have I, and the proceeds from this project will benefit refugees of conflict.

Warning, Graphic Content: Images From The Earthquake in Haiti - Humanitarian Photojournalism

Warning Graphic Images of Death/Haitian Earthquake

I am posting my second set of images from the earthquake in Haiti.  The first set can be found here.   I will post the third part of this series just as soon as I have had time to finish editing. I would like to remind everyone that the need in Haiti is far from over and encourage all of you to give what you can, go there and photograph or at the very least, be aware of the situation there.

I have just arrived in Bangladesh to teach two workshops and work on a new project here, which I look forward to sharing in the coming months.     

 Haitians do laundry and bathe in a river outside of Port au Prince in the aftermath of the earthquake.

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A woman lies dead in the street after being shot by police. Police shot and killed several individuals claiming that they were prisoners who escaped from the collapsed prison, although many others disputed this and said the police were killing indiscriminately.

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A young boy runs out of a partially destroyed business as police begin to shoot at looters.  

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The ripped gloves of a medical worker outside of a hospital overflowing from Haitians injured in the earthquake.

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A badly decomposed body on the streets of Port au Prince, Haiti.

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 A woman stands in front of a fire in the early morning hours. Most Haitians remain without homes, the rest are too scared to sleep indoors and pass their days and nights on the streets.

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A trench dug as a mass grave awaits more bodies.

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A child's doll lies in the ruins of a home.  

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A dead body lies on the street outside of the overflowing morgue.

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A massive tent city houses Haiti's displaced.

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Displaced Haitians pass time on the streets outside of a small make-shift camp.   

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Fresh mass graves being dug. 

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 Haitians reflected in the mud and filth of the flooding streets.

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  A young girl an a massive camp for the displaced is seen through the cracked windshield of a bus damaged in the earthquake.

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An injured woman in a hallway of an overflowing hospital in the Dominical Republic near the Haitian border. 

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Disaster Photojournalism Workshops - The Controversy and Why The Critics are Wrong

My critics are wrong. Offering to teach photojournalists to work in difficult situations and to help to maintain their personal safety while documenting the struggles of their fellow human beings is NOT UNETHICAL. Charging them, donating half of the money to charity and using the other half to cover my expenses and fund future projects is no more exploiting the situation and the Haitian people than the staff and assignment photographers who get paid thousands by major publications for their work. If people are going to go after those that make their livings on others' suffering, then let's drag reporters, journalists, TV crews, educators and a million other professions into the mix. But before you do that, picture the world without these people.

My ability to teach is backed up by my past students, their testimonials and my 100-percent satisfaction track record on my workshops. My ability as a photographer is backed up by my client list, my bio and, most importantly, the work I produce.  

For all of you who do not believe I should be able to refer to myself as a photojournalist, you give me good reason to want to disassociate myself from a title you have muddied with your arrogance, closed-mindedness and disrespect. Until I find another name for what I do, one which separates me from the crowd of sheep I have learned to have such little respect for, I will continue to call myself a photojournalist and be proud of what it means to me. Keeping the title, if nothing else, will add a bit of diversity to the profession.

For those of you who would like to find out more about this, you can do so by visiting the sites below:

http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/zoriahs-haiti-workshop-ideas-and-direction

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victoria-fine/is-to-ethical-to-charge-p_b_451899.html 

http://j1111.blogspot.com/2010/02/learning-to-cover-tragedy-in-middle-of.html

And one coming here:

http://www.wired.com/rawfile/