The Republic of Port-au-Prince

These images are drawn from over 10 years photographing in the city of Port-au-Prince, through political turmoil natural disasters and in times of normalcy. Haitians sometimes refer to their capital as “the Republic of Port-au-Prince”, because the city houses almost 50% of the country’s population and because it is so different from the rest of the largely rural nation. What I seek in my photographs is a kind of cross-current. I never want the photograph to be just one thing, one mood, one idea. Rather, it should be a place where multiple, often contradictory, impressions overlap. The complexity, beauty, mystery and misery of Port-au-Prince forces such contradictions upon the photographer at every turn.