Kate Brooks
Dec.
2001: Pakistani militants are held in a makeshift prison after being
captured for illegally entering Afghanistan. The Afghan authorities
later released them on a Ramadan amnesty. This photo is one of several
prints donated for a Christie's auction to raise funds of the family of
photographer Anton Hammerl.
Unai Aranzadi
Freelance photographer Anton Hammerl working near Brega, Libya, April 1, 2011.
By Phaedra Singelis, msnbc.com
A little over a year ago, on April 5, 2011, South African photographer
Anton Hammerl
was killed in Libya, shot by forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi during the
fight for Brega, a key oil town on the coast. His body has still not
been recovered.
It was initially reported that Hammerl was
captured and was being held by the Libyan government along with fellow journalists
James Foley, Manu Brabo and
Clare Morgana Gillis, who witnessed the shooting but weren’t able to report his death for 44 days while they were held captive.
Foley
and Gillis, who have both returned to Libya in search of his remains,
believe they have traced his body in a mass grave, though it has not
been positively identified or returned to his family. Due to the current
chaos surrounding the current Libyan government and the tens of
thousands still missing, getting DNA testing is complicated, but they
hope that, with the support of the South African government, they will
prevail and bring his body home.
As a freelance photographer,
Hammerl didn’t have the support of a publication behind him and didn’t
have a life insurance policy. He leaves behind his wife, Penny Sukhraj,
and three children, Aurora, 11, Neo, 8, and baby Hiro, 1.
To help the family, a group of international journalists have organized a silent
auction of contemporary photojournalism prints
to be held at Christie’s on May 15 in New York City. It is the first
sale at Christie’s to feature contemporary photojournalism exclusively.
Lynsey Addario / VII
A Bhutanese man walks through a forest in Rethung Gonpa village outside of Trashigang, in east Bhutan, August 8, 2007.
Several
lots of limited-edition, signed prints by some of the world’s leading
photographers, such as Platon, David Hume Kennerly, David Alan Harvey,
Bruce Davidson and Sebastião Salgado, will be offered. Some of the
prints, which
can be viewed online
ahead of the auction, come with additional donations, such as a book or
a meeting with the photographer. New York Times photographer Fred
Conrad is auctioning off a portrait sitting along with a print.
Foley
and Gillis helped organize the auction with the support of
photojournalist David Brabyn based on an idea from Peter Bouckaert of
Human Rights Watch. “Anton’s death, unlike Tim (Hetherington) and Chris
(Hondros), leaves behind two young children,” Bouckaert wrote on
Facebook. “I am wondering if we can’t organize a common print auction
where various photographers donate a favorite print.”
Larry Fink
Philadelphia, 1990
With
the help of Brabyn, they solicited photographers and built a website.
But, deciding that wasn’t enough, they decided to approach a top auction
house, eventually gaining the support of Christie’s auctioneer and
senior vice president Lydia Fenet. CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour
will host the event and Hammerl’s widow will be in attendance. Those
who cannot attend can submit an absentee bid or place a telephone bid.
Additionally, there are ways to adopt a print, become a sponsor or make a
donation.
In
addition to providing support for his family, the organization hopes to
raise awareness about the dangers facing an increasing number of
freelance journalists who work in perilous situations without the
backing of a major news organization.
Economic pressures and
changes in the media landscape in recent years have resulted in fewer
staff positions and an increase in journalists going it alone. In
addition, assignments in areas of conflict have become more dangerous,
in part due to increased anger at Western nations. The Newseum lists 70
journalists that lost their lives in 2011, and so far this year
21 more have died.
According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, 179
journalists were detained in 2011, a 20 percent increase over 2010 and
the highest level since 1990. Hammerl’s name, along with 69 other
journalists killed in 2011, will be added to the Journalists Memorial at
the
Newseum in Washington, D.C., during a ceremony on Monday, May 14.
Ed Kashi / VII
A
young Kurdish boy enjoys some play time with found objects in his home
in Kirkuk, Iraq on June 6, 2005. The boy's home is a camp for internally
displaced Kurds at a former Kirkuk football stadium. After the
overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the liberation of Iraq in 2003, many
Kurds who had been forcibly removed from Kirkuk during Saddam's program
of Arabization returned. There were no homes for them, so they set up
camps in abandoned buildings, the football stadium and tents on the
outskirts of this embattled city.
Some of the photographers who
donated prints spoke to msnbc.com about why they donated and described the dangers journalists have been facing in recent years.
Ed Kashi, a
New York-based freelance photographer and filmmaker represented by the
VII Photo Agency, covers social and political issues and often works in
hazardous locations. Winner of numerous awards and exhibited worldwide,
Kashi has also produced seven books
.
Kashi says his print
donation is a “reflection of his support for the brotherhood/sisterhood
of the people who do this kind of work” and an acknowledgement of how
much more dangerous it has become. “Just today (May 4, 2012),
three journalists were killed in Mexico,”
he said. He ascribes the growing toll in part to warfare where there is
no front line and therefore no protection offered by being with one
side or the other, In addition, he says, there is a growing perception,
particularly in Muslim countries, that Western journalists are not
neutral actors, thus creating a more treacherous and unpredictable
atmosphere.
Rather than working on spec, Kashi is often on
assignment for publications such as National Geographic, which, he says,
offers a journalist more security in the sense that it strengthens
their “network of communication” should something happen. He says,
though, that being willing to take risks is the “nature of the beast,”
whether on assignment for a publication or not.
For journalists
who want to work on these kinds of stories, Kashi offers some advice:
Build a strong network and line of communication. Set a specific time
period to check in and communicate if you’re going to be delayed. Take a
rigorous set of precautions, have a plan to get out and listen to your
fixers and other people you are working with locally.
Ron Haviv / VII
A
displaced Muslim girl takes up shelter at a destroyed mosque after
fleeing a government offensive against the Tamil Tigers in Nanathan, Sri
Lanka, September 2007.
Ron Haviv, a
New York-based freelancer and co-founder of the VII Photo Agency, has
made a career covering conflict and humanitarian crises around the
world. He has been on assignment for such publications as Fortune, The
New Yorker, Paris Match and Time magazine, and has published books on
Haiti, Afghanistan and the Balkans.
Though Haviv never met
Hammerl, he says he has been touched personally and professionally by
his death and the increasing dangers journalists have been facing,
describing the “powerful bond” among those who put their lives at risk.
Competition, he says, isn’t as important as getting the story out, and
often they share food, logistics, and information.
Haviv says that
since the War on Terror began after 9/11, journalists’ deaths and
injuries have been “eye-opening events for those more established
photographers” like himself. The deaths of
Anton Hammerl,
Tim Hetherington,
Chris Hondros,
Remi Ochlik,
Marie Colvin and Anthony Shadid
in the last year also have created a new problem: Editors have pulled
back coverage and have been reluctant to put photojournalists on
assignment where they would become responsible for their safety.
Though
Haviv hasn’t stopped covering conflicts, recent events have made him
more thoughtful about his methods. Early in his career he took a more
“haphazard” approach, but is now planning on taking a refresher class in
trauma first aid, among other precautions. Despite having covered the
Balkan wars, where over 50 journalists were killed from 1991-1995, Haviv
says the evolving dangers facing journalists today have taken things to
a “whole new level.”
Joao Silva
Iraq: Kurmashia Marsh: February 18, 2004: A Marsh Arab poles his canoe through Kirmashiya Marsh in southern Iraq.
Joao Silva, has been covering conflict since the violent uprising in South Africa in the 1990s as part of what is known as the
“Bang Bang Club.”
He met Hammerl during this time while they were both working at The
Star, one of the most prestigious daily newspapers in South Africa.
Silva
was nearly killed in 2010 and lost both his legs when he stepped on a
mine while accompanying soldiers on patrol in Afghanistan. “We’ve taken a
big hit,” he says of the conflict photographers’ community, but he
doesn’t think they should stop covering the stories. “We are the
messenger,” he said. “If we’re not there, who will be?
“We have a responsibility as journalists to be there. We have a role and a responsibility to society.”
Silva
was injured while on contract for The New York Times, but was not
covered as a staff member. Soon after, though, the Times put him on
staff and fought to keep him in the military hospital system, where he
was cared for at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. “I
was one of the lucky ones,” he says, “but Anton was a freelancer, and
he didn’t have that support.”
Joao Silva
Malawi:
Blantyre: June 29, 2005: At a prison in Malawi, inmates sleep on the
floor, so tightly packed that they turn only when a designated prisoner
wakes them to do so en masse.
Silva
hopes the auction will raise a lot of money. He donated two prints; one
was taken in 2004 in Iraq and is one of the more peaceful images he
made covering the conflict. It shows how Marsh Arabs reclaimed their way
of life after Saddam Hussein was toppled from power. The other is from a
Malawian prison in 2005 and depicts inhumane conditions. Silva said the
scene reminded him of stories of the conditions aboard slave ships.
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