Last October I was assigned by the Washington Post for a story on the ethanol facilities, including the sugarcane farms that blanket miles and miles of bright red soil in the state of Goias, Brazil. Long gone are the back breaking manual labor, these days the major ethanol corporations use machines to cut sugarcane, operated by some of the same men who once cut the stalks by hand.
Story: Setbacks for Brazil's Ethanol Sector
Gallery: sugarcane
Very honored that this story on the forced eviction of one favela in Rio de Janeiro was published on the new National Geographic blog, called, Proof. (please click on Proof to see story)
Residents of Largo do Tanque were forced from their homes in Rio de Janeiro’s West Zone, to make room for the Transcarioca Highway, that will eventually be built to accommodate the 2016 Olympics, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Monday, Feb. 25, 2013.
In less than 2 weeks, 54 houses were demolished. The City advisor responsible for payment compensation, told residents not to speak with one another or seek legal advice otherwise he would reduce settlement offers. Many residents agreed to compensations, around R$7000 (US$3500), not nearly enough to afford to buy a plot of land.
According to the Brazilian Constitution, residents have legal rights to their homes, while compensation should allow them to attain an equal situation elsewhere.
The West Zone, located west of downtown and beach neighborhoods is often overlooked and is widely known to be run by militia groups, who are former and current police and firefighter personnel that run extortion rings to monopolies.
This photo essay documents one day in the life of an eviction to show how fleeting a home can be.
In October I went to the interior of Bahia state, a region far from the turquoise blue waters near the capital of Salvador. The region is hot, and windy. So windy in fact it has become the perfect setting for wind turbines because of its unique constant flow of wind across this region. Please check out the story: In Brazil, the wind is blowing in a new era of renewable energy.
Gallery: Wind Energy in Brazil
Archive: Bahia's Wind Power
She's the head of a plant genetics lab at UC Davis; he teaches organic farming there. They're married (with kids), and they coauthored, Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food.
Parklets have become incredibly popular in San Francisco over the past two years, and there is one design company called Rebar Art & Design Studio that has taken the lead. Read all about John Bela in an interview, called Free Parking.
My work from Guatemala's food insecurity project called, Green Hunger, was recently published in the Christina Science Monitor as part of a featured issue on rising food prices. It was an intense few days of working on this project last August and I'm thrilled its been published. Click on the picture to view it bigger. The spread is not online, so I've added my text below.
Jalapa, Guatemala - Throughout this fertile land is a hidden problem; chronic malnutrition among children. The rate here is the highest in Latin America and the sixth highest in the world, says the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Chronic malnutrition is not simple the lack of food but a lack of nutrients in the kinds of food consumed - mostly beans and corn tortillas. Researchers say half of the children under age 5 here are chronically malnourished , leading to poor development, both physically and mentally. The government, aware that the nation's future is at stake, has launched Hambre Cero (Zero Hunger), a program that includes food supplements for pregnant women and infants.
That's not enough, according to José Luis Vivero Pol, director of Action Against Hunger in Central America (ACH), a nongovernmental organization. He reports that the crux of the problem is the "hungry season" when crop reserves from the previous year run low. To address this in a sustainable way, he and others say, the government must see to the needs of small farmers for land, credit, and expertise in order to boost crop yields. National policies that encourage food exports at the expense of production for national consumption also need to be modified.
Guatemala, with a population of 14 million, is one of the world's top exporters of sugage, coffee, bananas, and corn. Ironically, those most affected by chronic hunger here are farming families.
Humanitarian organizations like ACH aim to educate villagers about nurtrition and urge them to grow vergetables native to their climates. They support beekeeping and building greenhouses to protect seedlings from severe weather. Also, fair-trade coffee growing amkes that crop more profitable for farmers to grow.
Can biofarming be the answer to sustainble food sources? UC Davis Professors Pamela Ronald, a plant pathologist, and her husband, organic farmer, Raoul Adamchak, coauthored "Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food," that discusses genetic engineering as a tool to make farming more sustainable.
Pamela has a very interesting blog with articles and discussions about bio-farming:
http://scienceblogs.com/tomorrowstable/
This was a portrait shoot of the professors at UC Davis, but I wanted to also candidly photograph them in Raoul's garden. Unfortunately Pamela wasn't working in the lab that day, but we (the writer and I) did stop by to check it out...see outtakes below.
While famine rages in Somalia, many other countries face hardships also due to the rise in food prices and climate change. This is very much the case in Guatemala, where farmers can no longer predict the time to plant and harvest production is very small. Heavy rains and long droughts prevent healthy growth of crops, in particular maize, where the cost of corn rose 40% since last year. There is plenty of food in Guatemala, a country where half the population lives in poverty and violence is 4x more then Mexico. However most of the food production is for export (mostly to the US). Small farmers are especially vulnerable, where half the crop is for family consumption and the other half to sell at the markets. This year, many small farmers have produce low yields of crops mainly due to extreme weather (heavy rains, and long droughts).
Here are two images from my film edit. the scans are low res until i can get home to make higher quality scans, but was anxious to share since i haven't posted on my blog in a few weeks.
I recently spent two weeks in mexico researching a project and visiting old friends. i found myself mostly taking snapshots with my iphone then with my camera. at times, it just seemed easier. here's a dyptch of my travels in transit, hovering over Mexico City and on the road to Guanajuato.
In celebration of Earth Day, let us conserve, reuse, and recycle every day.
Row 1: Smoky haze from burning garbage and land clearing over Padang, Indonesia.
Row 2: (L) Post-tsunami recovery in Aceh, Indonesia. (R) New Years celebration in Cambodia
Row 3: (L) Dry soil downstream in northeast Cambodia from a dam in Vietnam. (R) Water buffalo seek food in northeast Cambodia.
Row 4: (L) A gourd grows from a higuera tree, in Puerto Rico. Gourds are traditionaly used for instruments. (M) Writer Holly Payne embraces forgiveness. (R) Gardening and growing local.
In the early morning, before the sun rose, I checked my email while still in bed for the possibility of any upcoming assignments or licensing of images I made from the previous week. I was still feeling a little down about not being able to sell images about the Cambodia stampede, that killed nearly 450 people, and felt like the world had forgotten about this relatively young country. With one eye open, trying to dim the light of my laptop, I see an email for a travel assignment from the New York Times. Yay. After emailing with the photo editor, at the time, about the logistics of the assignment, grabbing breakfast and packing, I was on a six hour bus ride to southwestern Cambodia, to the Koh Kong region, by noon. To note: I am so thankful of Laura O'Neill for assigning me these travel pieces throughout the past year.
The bus dropped me off in the middle of nowhere, but the locals knew that was a stop to the eco-village of Chi Pat. I met my driver and off we went, an hour long ride through the countryside. The scenery was fantastic, even from the bumpy ride on the back of a 1960-something motorbike. The light warm and glowy as the sun began to fall. At the end of the road, or dirt path really, the old driver, who didn't speak english, motioned to me that I was to get on a raft-like water taxi that will take me over to the village. The last time i was on a sort of raft was crossing the Situate River from Guatemala to Mexico with migrants, only this one had better flotation. Whew.
I spent the next couple days hustling and photographing a list of places on my assignment. Most readers don't know the back story to the pictures of an assignment, or how photographers get there. Most don't know that we have very little time to capture the essence of a writer's story, and that can be quite challenging if those storytelling elements are not there when I am. The best part about traveling is the leisure of spontaneity, but when on assignment, esp for the nyt, there is very little time for that. The decisions I make when choosing the places to photograph on the list can make or break the assignment. I try to shoot everything but then it gives me less time to wait for the moments. Things have to happen with immediate serendipity, so I never pre-visualize my images. I have to remain flexible and mindful, which seems relevant, especially in a Buddhist country, but a common practice I bring with me wherever I go.
Read Naomi Lindt's insightful story on Koh Kong because she brings to light some of the fragile elements of the region, including animal poaching and land development that threatens the ecosystem and the loss of 11,000 acres of forest. As foreigners and travelers, we shouldn't act immune to such realities just because we're on vacation.
Jessie DeWitt did a great edit for the NYT slideshow and below are my outtakes:
Destination: Koh Kong, Cambodia Pt II - Images by Lianne Milton
Well here it is. I've been procrasting on posting my 2010 year in pictures because I've had such a hard time editing, but thanks to friend and photographer Kevin German who helped pretty much edited my selects from the year. And also because i've been absurdly obssesed with this particular song to go with the slideshow. For me, it sort of articulated the mood of this edit. I ended up having to cut it short, poor song, but in the end it really doesn't matter because its not about the song as it is about these pictures. Right? So if you are over it, go ahead and hit mute. Otherwise, the song is untitled, by an Icelandic band called Sigur Rós.
This is my second year working as a freelance photojournalist. It's been a year of tremendous growth in the way I photograph, what I look for, and opening my eyes up to see beyond the immediate. I especially thank my closest friends and mentors for the support and for pushing my vision. Without an agency, or a collective, or really even any proper marketing, I've managed to successfully obtain new clients, from assignment work to resales. While its great to have the support and annual get togethers, in my opinion, you don't have to be a part of a collective to make it as a photographer. You just need trusted friends, colleagues and mentors. And a home for your archive.
These 25 pictures are a cumulation of assigment and personal work. The resilency of these people i've met and photographed will always make me a stronger person. This year I continued my projects on addiction in Cambodia and Sharia law in Aceh. In Cambodia, I gained rare access to a drug detention center (or re-education center) that had been reported on for human rights abuses. I also had several incredible travel assignments from the NY Times, here in San Francisco, throughout wine country Northern California, Indonesia, and Cambodia. Foto8 featured a collaborative story on dam issues in the Mekong delta, and twice Slideluck Potshow DC selected two stories for their events.
My goal for 2011 is to refine the kind of photographer I want to be; telling stories about people and places affected by politics on a social level. I've always believed in the power of journalism, and the still image. I know that at the very least, it engages people into discussion. I prefer not to cover stories where there are dozens of photographers already there because other just-as-important stories go forgotten. And I don't have to travel (far) but I do, because these journeys have always been a part of my existence, since my first breath of life.
Photojournalism magazine Foto 8 is featuring a collaborative story, produced by writer Fiona MacGregor and myself, on the effects of hydraulic dams in Vietnam have on the lives of ethnic minorities living in Cambodia's Mekong Delta. Please click here to read a synopsis of Fiona's story and my slideshow: downstream
Last week I left Cambodia for Yogyakarta, Indonesia to cover a couple days of the effects of Mt. Merapi volcano. I've actually never seen a volcano. Alive. And breathing. Was fascinating. NPR selected several of my images for their volcano coverage, where you can read the story and view slideshow here: waiting for the sky to fall
And you can see much more of volcano images on my archive (2pgs): Mt. Merapi
Burn victims continue to die at least once a day...the city hospital's ICU unit is overwhelmed with the number of patients. Some of which they are not quite sure how to treat because of internal burns from inhaling hot toxic gas and ash. While farmers continue to harvest with the looming volcano behind them billowing black and grey smoke.