Andrea Bruce was driving when something caught her eye.
“I actually saw them from the road …. I asked, 'What is happening here?'"
Unlike most people in the world, Bruce can travel to amazing places. And when she sees something, she can stop.
What she saw late afternoon in 2016 were two girls, one 11 and one 10, sitting on the foundation of a home in the southwestern part of Haiti that had been wrecked by Hurricane Matthew just days before.
Bruce, working for National Geographic, got her cameras out. “They had just had their first day of school since the hurricane,’’ she said. “They had these perfectly washed clothes and bows in their hair, and they were studying.”
The image of the two girls was one in a portfolio that won Bruce a prestigious $20,000 prize given to one woman photographer a year. It's called the Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award. Through it, the the International Women’s Media Foundation honors women journalists who document crucial stories in challenging environments while capturing poignant moments of humanity. It was established in honor of German AP photographer Anja Niedringhaus, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2014.
In an interview, Bruce talked about this and two other images she shot in cholera-stricken Haiti, part of a worldwide look at public sanitation and its effects on societies.
What the images have in common is their humanity. Bruce, who started out at the Concord (N.H.) Monitor before covering wars for the Washington Post, has brought something of her roots in journalism to bigger outlets. Of local news-gathering, she says: “I loved that kind of journalism, places where people feel totally invisible and making them feel visible. Going to war, it’s kind of the same thing.”
Rosa Dena, 85, cleaning her home after Hurricane Matthew (Andrea Bruce)
On the drive to the southern Haitian city of Jeremie, Bruce saw something.
“I basically drove all throughout the southern part of Haiti. There were roads washed out, mudslides happening in front of us. But I was determined to find people the media did not reach. … I was driving and I saw this house, up on a hill, kind of where a castle once was."
She stopped. Walked up the hill toward … walls?
“I saw her sweeping and cleaning what was left of her home. She seemed so resigned to what was delivered to her house."
“It’s almost like there’s no one to blame, and it would be easier if there was. The only thing you could do is clean up.”
The tent service, west of the southern Haitian city of Les Cayes (Andrea Bruce)
“I find that the best way to find images is to go explore, and walk down roads I’ve never gone before,” Bruce says in explaining this photo. “I didn’t even see another car or vehicle on this road, and then saw this demolished village, and happened upon this scene — I couldn’t even believe it."
“It was a religious service. There was a church there before, a building, and now there was a tent.”
The hurricane had washed away the Elise Adventure Morija Church. Only the foundation remained. They put the tent on the foundation for services, such as this one, on Nov. 19, 2016.
To find these scenes, Bruce went to where other media did not. She parked the car, hiked for several days up the mountains, forded seven rivers, and was humbled by the nobility and dignity around her.
The hurricane came right before an election. “On election day,” she says, “there was a beautiful pilgrimage of people so eager to vote.” They were walking for days, wading in streams, returning to their home village to vote, she says, a touch of wonder in her voice.
Note: For a bit more on Andrea Bruce and the award, please catch the top of Thursday's Poynter media roundup. One paragraph: “Andrea was selected for her empathy, her emotional connection with subjects, and for the dignity that shines through her portfolio,” said the jurors for the $20,000 Niedringhaus prize from the International Women’s Media Foundation.
