Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Live Discussion with Colin Finlay
Presented by Western Digital
Colin Finlay, one of the foremost documentary photographers in the world, and one of Western Digital's Creative Masters, will host a live discussion for Western Digital’s LinkedIn Storage Group on Thursday, February 4th from 10:00 a.m. to 12 noon PT.
For more than 17 years, Colin Finlay has documented the human condition with compassion, empathy and dignity. He is a six-time winner of the Pictures of the Year International honors for his coverage of war and conflict, disappearing traditions, the environment in both its glory and its devastation, genocide, famine, religious pilgrimage and global cultures. In pursuit of his passion, he has circled the globe twenty-seven times in search of that one photo that will be a testament to the depth of human will and compassion.
During the live discussion on LinkedIn, Finlay will discuss his career as a documentary photographer, and answer questions from participants. Finlay is scheduled to leave for Haiti on a humanitarian effort with the International Medical Corps as a photojournalist in mid-February. This trip will mark the sixth time he has visited Haiti since 1991 where he witnessed political upheaval, a mumps epidemic killing scores of children, and now the devastation from the recent earthquake.
Go to WD's LinkedIn Storage Group to join in on the live discussion scheduled for Feb 4th from 10 am to noon PT.
About the photo: There was a tiny hamlet, maybe six hours outside Port au Prince, filled with the ghosts of small children. The whole area, not just the village, had been isolated by the Cedras regime, and now three-quarters of the town's children had died in a mumps epidemic. Their parents had voted for Aristide in the previous election, and those votes -- officially registered in Port au Prince -- had cost them dearly under the current military dictatorship. Add the U.S. embargo, and the people were virtually cut off from the capitol.
The village leader had lost three children of his own; two in one day, and a third he had carried on his back all the way down a long, treacherous road to a health clinic that had been closed. The military, weeks before, had cleared out all medicine and equipment and taken it back to Port au Prince -- more punishment for their Aristide vote. He made the long trek back to his village -- with child on his back -- where she later died.
Now his son -- his last child -- was sick. This portrait shows this child clutching the hand of his father. My eyes locked with the village leader for quite some time and knew what he said was very important. I asked my interpreter what he said and his response was, "please tell the world we are the ones who are suffering."
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