Eyes...

One of my pictures is being used as our calendar for 2008. They will be up for sale through our website, which I am developing at the moment.

Here is a low-res version of the calendar. The picture has been posted here before, in better quality.


There is quite a buzz around the office today. The marketing campaign I created has completed its mini-trial, to much success. We are now preparing to implement it nationally. I have a meeting with a national celebrity on Sunday to finalise details. The official launch will be in 2 weeks, which will in turn be 2 days before I leave for Texas.

I've had quite a few comments about this picture, so it may be appropriate to give the background story. I met this man in Mirzaganj, in the District of Patuakhali. This area was severely damaged by Cyclone Sidr; houses blown over, crops destroyed, livestock killed, belongings swept away by the tidal surges. I had been trekking through villages while the other 2 members of my team were sitting and talking to the locals, in order to determine the extent of the damage. I was being led/followed by several people, all eager to show me just how hard their homes and their livelihoods had been hit.

Confronting is perhaps not the ideal word to describe the situation. Confronting implies shock, something out of the ordinary... the sad truth of the matter is that the images weren't new, weren't out of the ordinary. This area had been damaged by the floods of July 2007... then the floods of September 2007... now this cyclone.

As I made my way through the undergrowth, now supplanted by broken trees and branches, I came across a house a little removed from the others. That's not quite accurate; I came across the remains of a house, wood and tin and cloths and rags tossed into a heap atop a mound of mud... it had been a week since the cyclone, and still nothing had dried...

This elderly man stepped across the threshold of what used to be his door towards me... the combination of this man's eyes, his tears, his small, fragile frame, his wavering voice trying so desperately to tell me something... it was too much.

I lifted the camera to hide my own tears as I began shooting.

I can't shake his face from my mind now.
I'm not sure I want to.

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