ZORIAH - A PHOTOJOURNALIST AND WAR PHOTOGRAPHER'S BLOG

Gulf Oil Spill - Finishing Up

It has been a long couple of weeks, filled with early mornings, hot days, long boat trips over rough waters, plane flights high above those rough waters and an average of five hours of driving each and every day of the week.  My camera is coated in salt water, my skin is a deep red and my clothes will most likely walk out of the room and try to wash themselves off as soon as I take them off.  God knows I dont have enough energy left to wash them myself.  But I am wrapping up the project soon and will begin editing images in the coming weeks.  I hope to post the full feature story here in about a month.

Tropical Storm Bonnie - Inconvenient for a Photographer

Tropical Storm Bonnie, which as kind enough to not become Hurricane Bonnie, has still managed to make my project more difficult than it already was.  I was due to go out with the US Coast Guard today to photograph work on one of their oil skimming ships in the Gulf of Mexico and stay overnight with the workers there.  Unfortunately all of the operations were canceled yesterday due to the weather.  I was able to get on a Coast Guard plane yesterday to fly over the spill sight and snap a few photographs of the remaining oil and skimming operations.

For now I am lying in my hotel room trying to get caught up on editing.  I really cant complain, as I found a wonderful room in an old mansion in New Orleans Garden District.  I am actually staying in the mansion of the Tabasco family, and I must say they had a very, very nice home.  Hopefully things will be back on track by monday and I will be able to continue my work photographing the BP Gulf Oil Spill.  I will keep you updated.

Oil Spill - BP Oil and The Response in the Gulf

I arrived in Louisiana a week ago and began to work on documenting the aftermath of the Gulf Coast Oil Spill.  It has been hot and hectic and each day has brought new challenges.  The area that must be covered in order to photograph this particular disaster is just gigantic and I have spent an average of four hours a day in the car moving from one location to the next.  I have visited a rehabilitation center for birds affected by the oil spill, spoken with fishermen as well as photographed affected marshlands in the gulf.  And it is just the beginning of this project.

I will be waking up tomorrow at three in the morning to head out to join a boat searching for wildlife in distress, which will be a unique photographic opportunity.  I look forward to sharing those images, as well as all the others, with all of you in the coming weeks.  For now, I have to try to sleep.

Other posts about the oil spill:

The Solution to the BP Oil Spill is on YouTube

Haiti -Two Months After The Disaster - Part 2

This is the second set of images from my most recent work in Haiti.  Two months after the quake the country was still in utter chaos with few signs of hope for rapid improvement.  Entering the rain and hurricane seasons was also weighing on the minds of the countless families living in tents and makeshift shelters.

Images from Haiti the week of the earthquake can be found here and here

A before and after comparison is here

Part one of this series of images shot two months after the earthquake is here

 

A girl eats a piece of corn on the dirt floors of her mothers shack in Port au Prince, Haiti.  The already impoverished family was forced to take on another member after a young relative's mother died in the quake.

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To children walk through streets filled with rubble in a neighborhood nearly completely destroyed by the quake

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A man living on the streets hangs his hand washed laundry to dry on the fence of a school that was severely damaged by the quake.

 

A boy stands on a staircase after bathing in cups of water outside one of hundreds of makeshift refugee camps

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An elderly man stands in front of his home, which was reduced to rubble during the Haitian Earthquake

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 An injured boy rests in tent that is being used to house overflow patients on the grounds of the main hospital in downtown Port au Prince

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A large box of dirty medical instruments waiting to be cleaned outside of the hospital triage

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Fearing further injuries and deaths from aftershocks, most church services are held outdoors.

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A large group of Haitian men sit in a tent given out by an aid organization and watch sports on a small television set.

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  A man sleeps on the streets of Port au Prince

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Haiti -Two Months After The Disaster - Part 2 Coming Soon

The longer I work as a photojournalist the more time I put into editing my images.  You would think that over time it would take less time, but in reality I have found that I am more tuned to details as I continue my work.  Organizing, dodging, burning, cropping, dust removal etc all take quite a lot of time, especially when working on several projects at a time.  So, although I am able to post less on this blog as I did when I first began it, I hope what I do post is more powerful and interesting and makes the wait easier.

I will post another installment of images from the Haitian Earthquake in the coming days.  I still have a couple more sets to post here as well as a longer feature story I started the week of the earthquake and finished on my most recent trip there.  I look forward to sharing them with you, as well as whatever I am able to gather in the Gulf of Mexico in the coming weeks.

 

A man carries a salvaged bed headboard past the twisted remains of building in downtown Port au Prince Haiti.  The struggle survival and a relative quality of life will continue long after the earthquake fades from the headlines.