By Jennifer Glickel
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LOWER EAST SIDE — Local photojournalists whose work gave New Yorkers an insight into the tremendous devastation suffered in Haiti after January’s earthquake are coming together Tuesday to help rebuild the destruction they saw firsthand.
The New York Press Photographers Association (NYPPA) is hosting Help for Haiti, a benefit fundraiser in which New York’s best photographers will display their work in a slideshow and discuss their experiences in the ravaged country.
The slideshow will be held at the Eldridge Street Museum on Eldridge Street near Canal Street and starts at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
“The photography community in New York City is a small family. Once the photographers all came back from Haiti, they were telling stories about their experiences there and the stories were very moving,” said NYPPA vice president and Daily News photographer Julia Xanthos.
“We knew we had to do something to help.”
Among the photographers expected to show their work include those from the New York Times, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Newsday and other agencies.
“I’ve been all over the world, but I’ve never experienced the realm of poverty like I did in Haiti,” said Reuters photographer Shannon Stapleton, who arrived in Haiti a week after the earthquake.
“When I pulled into the outskirts of the city, it just seemed like Haiti ... it wasn’t until I got closer into town that I could feel that a huge earthquake had happened there. The smell of death was in the air.”
Stapleton said one of the most chilling moments of his trip was when he came across a 13-year-old lying dead on the side of a road. The teen had been stoned for stealing food, and still had boulders pinning down both of his hands, Stapleton said.
Still, many of the photos included in the slideshow capture the resilience of the Haitian citizens in the aftermath, including those who dug out children from the rubble with their bare hands, or a boy clambering atop the collapsed ruins of what used to be a school.
"The thing about it is that people didn't stop, they just continued ... going about their life. People have to have some kind of resilience," said photojournalist Ramin Talaie, who traveled to Haiti with a group of volunteer doctors on assignment for Parade Magazine.
It’s a rare opportunity to hear the stories behind the headlines from the journalists who witnessed it, Xanthos said.
“They’ve all just come back with these incredible stories and it’s an opportunity to hear from them in an intimate setting,” she said.
All proceeds from the fundraiser will be donated to Doctors Without Borders, or Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), and are earmarked for the organization’s humanitarian work in Haiti.
"Our work has value, in that it gets the word out. But when you're wounded a MSF doctor is infinitely more valuable than a photojournalist," said Charles Eckert, a freelance photojournalist who blogged for Newsday from Haiti.
"They do very important work. I donate to them as an individual, but to be part of a fundraiser, I'm really proud of that," Eckert added.
