Port-au-Prince, Haiti 08/10 The St. Therese Park tent city has a population, according to official documents, of over 4,000 residents.The camp is one of many erected around the city after the January earthquake. The camp is an amazing testimony to the strength and resiliency of the human spirit. Among its residents, we met a man who lost his leg in the earthquake and now lives in a 8’ x 4’ space with his wife and two children. A rat recently bit their youngest one so they send them away to stay with relatives in the Haitian countryside. There was the single mother of a 10-month old baby who lost her husband in the earthquake who told us when it rains her mattress would get so wet she had to stand up while holding her child in her arms to keep him dry. Yet I saw laughing children who had not toys yet used blown-up condoms as soccer balls. Adults laughing and going about their lives. People would take showers out in the open yet still managed to perform such simple task with an air of pride and dignity. Haiti was a country plagued with problems before earthquake. It just made things worst for Haitians but at least it brought the attention of the world back to a country which needs its help. We as journalist are duty bound to tell these stories with our words and pictures in the hopes that others will not forget and to remind the rest of us of how lucky we really are. BEHIND THE SCENES: A writer and I were sent to Haiti to follow up on a couple of earthquake-related stories on specific subjects. On top of doing these I suggested we do a third story on a tent city by spending time at one of these places and documenting daily life. I managed to visit this camp about four times and I was surprised on how welcoming most of the people were to yet another group of journalists. TECHNICAL STUFF: ISOs went from 100 to 12,800, speeds varied from ½ a second to 2,000th of a second, WB: cloudy and AWB. OTHER TECH NOTES: I know modern DSLRS have an amazing range of light sensibility but I was left to wonder: what good does it do for A photographer when your camera can see in almost-complete darkness yet when you look through the view finder it is so dark you can barely focus? I also came face to face with the harsh realization that a camera sensor needs contrast in order for the AF function to work and that this feature is rendered pretty much useless in such darkness. YOU CAN ALSO FIND THE STORY AT http://boston.com/bostonglobe/photos/photos_galleries/petionville_haiti_tent_city_2010
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