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ZREPORTAGE
P R E S E N T S
TRAIN JUMPERS
TRAIN JUMPERS
BR EANCÉ KE SCTO RY: . B Y E R
A MOTHER’S JOURNEY
DOUBLEtruck PICTURES THAT NEED TO BE SEEN
M A G A Z I N E world’s best news pictures aug. 20, 2006 - m a r. 1 , 2 0 0 7
7 SPRING ISSUE 2007 AWARD-WINNING PHOTOJOURNALISM
BEST USE OF PHOTOGRAPHY - BOP 2007
SPRING ISSUE 2007 AWARD-WINNING PHOTOJOURNALISM
BEST USE OF PHOTOGRAPHY - BOP 2007
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Welcome to DOUBLEtruck Magazine –
Spring 2007-Issue Seven! This issue contains images taken between August 20, 2006 and March 1, 2007
doubletruck: n. An ad or editorial project that covers two facing pages. The term originates from the days when heavy forms for newspaper pages, largely filled with lead type, were rolled around the composing room floor on heavy carts called trucks. Two pages for one project meant a doubletruck. --- The Detroit Free Press
W
e kick off this issue with a new bonus feature, zReportage.com. Train Jumpers is an exceptional reportage by Gary Coronado, with Christine Evans’ equally moving text. Renée C. Byer’s Backstory follows. The subject is a mother’s courage, grace and dignity above all. The unforgettable essay on Cyndie French and Derek Madsen is a tale that will leave no eye dry in the house. Since the last issue, I spent three extreme weeks in the Sahara covering the toughest road race in the world, Lisboa-Dakar 2007. I made this picture of a Dakar gladiator, who after a grueling day racing summed up the whole experience for me with his expression. Being a photojournalist these days is like being a racecar driver or a gladiator. There are insane deadlines, unbelievable obstacles and tough ethical choices at every turn. The photographers in this issue have all risen to these challenges and surpassed them. Bravo to you one and all! Our spring 2007 issue is 116 pages, with 56 doubletrucks. This is a record number of two-page spreads! DOUBLEtruck just keeps getting bigger and better. Enjoy the world’s best picture show, and go to our site for instructions on how submit and see if you make in the next issue. All are welcome. We are proud to announce we won the top award in the field...the NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism 2007: Best Use of Photography for Magazines. Thank you to the judges. It’s an honor to be in the company of National Geographic, who placed second, and Sports Illustrated, who placed third, in addition to all the other great players in this field. DOUBLEtruck is only possible with your support, so subscribe and tell a friend.You may also buy back issues from our Website: DTzine.com or Amazon.com. Thank you for your support.
Scott Mc Kiernan Publisher Thank you, as always, for your support.
Scott Mc Kiernan Publisher
REPORTAGE
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DTzine.com 7
P R E S E N T S
TRAIN JUMPERS PHOTOGRAPHY:
Gary Coronado The Palm Beach Post
O
n an unusually dreary day in a dot-sized town in southern Mexico, the beast roared through, opened its jaws and swallowed the man who tried to tame it.A gasp went up from the little shacks and stores that hug the railroad tracks like laundry on a line, and grandmothers rushed out from back rooms with rags to fashion a makeshift tourniquet. But when they saw the nature of the poor fellow’s injuries — a crushed leg, a split torso — they abandoned their scraps and murmured their prayers instead. Clusters of schoolgirls in crimson uniforms huddled at the scene, covering their mouths with slender, sun-browned fingers, and a few walked north to peek at the black boot that poked up from the weeds like a death notice; only the very curious ventured farther to look for the small piece of shinbone rumored to have lodged itself in the grass after the train ate the man’s leg and the rushing wind blew bits of it into the engine yard. It was odd, seeing a pink Puma cap there, too, and trying to imagine the young Guatemalan who just a few moments ago had been wearing it — a man who now bumped along in a small, white ambulance on his way to the capital, where it was hoped a team of doctors would be able to save him. The schoolgirls were joined by their mothers in the housedresses they wore for making tortillas, and by men in soiled work pants the color of the fields. Little boys peeked out from their sisters’ skirts,
and a 12-year-old girl, who on normal days practiced her marching-band steps on the crossties, stood motionless.Lo irónico, said the town’s residents — accomplished medical examiners after years of such calamities. The irony was that Celestino Hernandez, 19, might have survived were it not for the machete he carried for protection. When he slipped from the train, he fell on his sword. “It is impossible not to cry — sometimes I don’t go to the window anymore, because I don’t want to see it,” said Teofila Montejo, who witnessed the accident from the little store where she sells pork rinds and candies. Perhaps it was his first time. Perhaps he was weak or exhausted or dehydrated. Whatever the case, he tried to jump the train from a standstill — a miscalculation, like mounting a galloping horse from an armchair — and then he fell, and the beast sucked him under. The big, steel wheels, 36 inches in diameter and 6 inches wide, rolled over his right leg, and his long knife turned against him. The rescue squad took him to the local hospital, where doctors tried to staunch the blood, and then the ambulance carried him over the hills from Tenosique, the sleepy town of his mistake, to the bigger city of Villahermosa in Tabasco state. Incredibly, he was not alone. A few minutes earlier, 32-year-old Daniel Ramos of Honduras had tried his luck and lost, slipping onto the rails near the terra-cotta boarding house for students in the nicer part of town. The next day, the townspeople whispered the news, The Honduran had lived, the Guatemalan had not. A few streets away, an old manual typewriter worked overtime. It fell to the men at Grupo Beta, the humanitarian branch of Mexico’s immigration agency, to write up the latest “mutilation reports.” In the meticulous records, Ramos would go down as the 19th “train jumper” of the year to lose a limb (or worse) in this part of the country. Hernandez would make the 20th. It was, however, only June. And everyone in the little town knew the beast was hungry still. One destination: ‘La tierra prometida’ It was here in Tenosique, along this very stretch of tracks, that a few months earlier a plump and cheerful shoemaker named Raul Ordonez reached for the ladder of a swiftly moving oil tanker.
Ordonez is 42, the father of three — and part of a growing exodus of Central Americans who, in rapidly increasing numbers, have joined Mexicans in their quest to reach the United States. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people from this region battered by years of civil war and natural disasters slip across the Guatemala border into Mexico. And, of those, the poorest and most desperate — men like Raul Ordonez — resort to riding on the tops of the long cargo trains they call “the beast.” Where are they going? La tierra prometida.“The promised land.”
The United States — and jobs. Even word of the big, new fence dreamed up by the U.S. Congress and approved recently by President Bush does not stop the escalating flow.”The trains are for the poorest of the poor,” says Carlos Miranda, a migration expert in the southern state of Chiapas. “If they thought they had any other choice, they would take it.” Nobody knows precisely how many migrants take the trains, but on certain days, in the most popular train towns — Arriaga, along the southern Pacific Coast, and Tenosique, a modest farming town south of the Yucatan — you
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“It is impossible not to cry - sometimes I don’t go to the window anymore, because I don’t want to see it.” -Teofila Montejo
will find hundreds, even thousands, of people waiting by the tracks. If they are lucky, they will hang on long enough to make it to Mexico City, where they switch lines in the massive train yards, and then in dwindling numbers head out again, pushing north to the U.S. border, or as close as they can get. The risks are enormous: They must navigate a spidery network of aging rails — the trains themselves sometimes jump the tracks — through jungles and deserts and mountains, searing heat and icy rain. They face attacks by the bandits and gun-toting gangs that patrol the
trains, and must hop off and on at immigration checkpoints, risking limb and life each time. The trip can take weeks, or months, if you allow for all the pitfalls and stopovers to earn a few pesos for food. Why do they do it? Risk it all? Leave behind families and birthplaces, hometowns and churches — not to mention any guarantee of personal safety — to take a chance on the trains? And not just on a freight train. On top of a freight train. Or hanging on to the side of a freight train. The journey can be nearly impossible
to comprehend. But spend some time here in southern Mexico — visit the hospitals, the shelters, the train towns with their honey-colored sunsets and telltale pants legs decaying under the tracks — and you begin to get the picture: Forty million people live in Central America, and nearly half are poor. This is why they come. In Honduras, 46 percent live in extreme poverty. In Guatemala, 130,000 lost their homes last year in Hurricane Stan. El Salvador is crippled by drought, and in Nicaragua, one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere, the majority of the people have little or no work. This is why they come. Mexico tries to catch them — detaining 240,000 last year. But this southern border is porous, and, says Mexico’s immigration commissioner, Hipolito Trevino, “we cannot stop them all.” How many lose arms or legs along the way? Impossible to know — not everyone is counted. Officially, 96 last year. Those are the numbers, but numbers do not have a heartbeat. Raul Ordonez does. He is an amiable soul. Soft-spoken but determined. In his tiny kitchen back at home, on the poor side of the river in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, he keeps an old turquoise sewing machine by the stove. It was once the machine of his dreams; he purchased it from a fellow who was traveling north (to the States, of course) so he could start up his shoemaking business. He had already learned to make both the uppers and soles, so he was optimistic — until a few years ago, when cheap, imported shoes flooded the market, and, suddenly, nobody was interested in a poor cobbler’s product. Ordonez talked to his wife, Norma. She said, “I know what you have to do, and I understand.” He talked with his 17-year-old son, Emerson, who said, “Well, then, I am going with you.” And so it is here in Tenosique — where, until the train-migrants came, all was quiet — that the shoemaker stood by the tracks that cut through the glittery sugar-cane fields on a warm April day and reached for the ladder. And jumped. His hands were sweating. The tanker was the ninth car from the end. He felt himself slipping. There were eight cars left. Sounding like thunder, each one rolled over his legs.
This is the face of the migration.
It is almost a celebratory affair, the leaving of a train. The train jumpers shout. Wave. Give the thumbs up. Rise to their feet and peer over the edge. In the town squares that dot the tracks, children swing as their parents, dressed up for Saturday night, watch the drama unfold with the nonchalance of theatergoers who have seen the show one too many times. Still, everybody looks up when the whistle blows, just in case — and there, atop the train, is the face of the migration. Wedged between cargo cars, perched on tanker tops, stuck in stuffy boxcars, with money sewn into shirt cuffs and pants hems, they hop on, often in daylight, high noon even, because arresting impoverished migrants has not, historically, been a top priority in Mexico. Women and children are most vulnerable, to the elements and man, and most difficult to spot. If they can, they wait for the trains to stop in the dusty yards, then slip on at night. You can find them hiding in the dark hollows of the hopper cars, the children wide-eyed, their mothers fingering the family Bible. Where are they headed? The usual spots: California, Texas, Florida and New York. But also to Iowa and North Carolina and Tennessee — places nobody used to think of going. Back home, they are bean farmers whose fields turned fallow, fishermen whose waters no longer yield. Sharecroppers who can no longer eke out a living pulling maize from the hills. Urban dwellers tired of feeling useless in cities with no jobs. Honduran. Salvadoran. Guatemalan.Twenty years old. Fifty years. Ten. Babies lashed to their mothers’ backs with bits of bright cloth and twine. Some have relatives in the States, and already they can tell you the names of all the streets in their destination cities; which bakeries are open before the labor van leaves; which churches say a Spanish Mass. They have maps in their pockets — and only 1,500 to miles to go. In Arriaga, the church shelter logbook tells the story. Bleary-eyed staffers stay up all night, recording the details of the migration — names, ages, destinations and hometowns, as well as a long list of the difficulties migrants suffer along the way: robberies, rapes, electrocutions and extortion. Last year, 3,000 people stayed a night or two at the shelter, and this year, the staff expects twice that. “We don’t even have time to put in all
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“The father has gone looking for people with little success,” says shelter worker Elias Clemente. “Other times, people die, and the bodies just stay where they fell. Nobody comes.”
the names,” the town priest says. A story has circulated about a 3-year-old girl who fell from the tracks and broke her arm. But where? “The father has gone looking for people with little success,” says shelter worker Elias Clemente. “Other times, people die, and the bodies just stay where they fell. Nobody comes.” Outside, the pink light fades, and Jose Luis Gonzalez, a Jesuit priest visiting from Guatemala, takes off his Florida baseball cap. “This migration,” he says, “is such a grave situation. In my parish, in a community of 100 families, we have only three men left. Three! “All the others have all gone north. And now, the women and children are going, too.” It is not hard to find absurd examples of the migration. Take the middleaged woman going north to buy her sick mother medicine. Her feet are bloody, her toes have turned black, and she is wearing her very best outfit, a cheap, brown skirt. How will she jump in that? “I have no choice,” she says. “My coyote stole my jeans.” She cuts a memorable figure, but not as memorable, perhaps, as the one-legged man headed north to buy an artificial leg — to replace the one he lost when he came the first time. Is this crazy? Yes. The “silent” border, they call this southern frontier, a lovely misnomer. Because when a man falls, the whole town hears the screams. Even a fence won’t stop them. For decades, the most popular crossing spot into Mexico was a crazy Guatemala border town called Tecun Uman, otherwise known as the “Little Tijuana” of the south. The kid standing hawkeyed on the river bank has a machete, and it is not for cutting cane. The man in the shadows has a gun, and it is not tucked in his waistband. Here, the story goes, a thousand prostitutes do business in the little hotels, and the local banks suggest, politely, that all patrons check their firearms at the door. Mosey down to the river. A 10-minute ride on a wooden raft, pulled by men with rippling back muscles, takes you across the skinny Suchiate River to Mexico. You can fit everything onto these rafts — 1,000 packages of ramen noodles, fat men on cellphones, live chickens, cases of contraband soda — as the 5,000 entrepreneurs who do business here know. Somewhere a stereo blasts Funkytown, the eight-minute version, with a perfectly appropriate lyric: Gotta move on.
Stop by here on a Sunday morning, and you’ll find the local priest, Ademar Barilli, saying Mass at the sea-green church that rises like a miracle on the edge of town. As the director of the local House of the Migrant shelter, he is an expert of sorts on the growing migration and the hundreds of thousands of people who attempt to cross the Guatemala border on their way to the States each year. Only a fraction, he says, perhaps 4 or 5 percent, will actually make it. Barilli calls them “economic refugees, truthfully poor.” Not just chasers of the famous American Dream. “Even if the United States builds the biggest fence in the world,” he says, “they will still come.” But they will have to alter their route, because the hurricane that destroyed so many homes and livelihoods in Central America last October — driving even more people north — also wiped out the train tracks just across the river in southern Chiapas, Mexico. “The entire path of the migration changed,” Barilli says. “If people cross here, they must now walk 300 kilometers (186 miles) to Arriaga to catch the train, and along the way, there are many dangers. Or, they must be adventurous and find a new route altogether. The entire length of Guatemala is now the new frontier and even a more perilous one.” Raul Ordonez discovered as much when he traveled by bus and boat through Guatemala, arriving at El Ceibo, a wild, tarp-covered market city (knock-off Izod shirts, $8; guns, negotiable). From there, he scaled the grassy hills, crossed the border and dropped down into Mexico. The closest town was Suenos de Oro. “Dreams of Gold.” It was not an omen. Legless, tiptoeing past the virgin It is an early summer day, and the man who now lies without his legs in the little hospital in Emiliano Zapata has plenty of dreams, but it would be a stretch to say they are made of gold. What he really has are practical aspirations: He would like to build a small home for his family, so he and Norma and their three boys will no longer have to crowd into Norma’s father’s home, a collection of ramshackle rooms stacked up a mountainside like children’s blocks; he would like to educate their sons, which means buying books and pencils; he would like to start a business of his own, perhaps a cheese and butter stand, since it seems unlikely shoemaking will work out.
He’s not heavy; he’s his father How does a legless man get home? Sometimes, he must take matters into his own hands. After immigration neglected to collect him from the hospital in Emiliano Zapata, Raul Ordonez made arrangements for his own release and the long trip back. The hospital staff was crushed to see him go and gave him 1,000 pesos. He was amazed when the director’s secretary presented him with a wheelchair, and he exclaimed, delightedly, “All this attention for a migrant!” The bus ride to Honduras took three days, and all along the way, everybody asked him the same question, “What happened to your legs?” “I rode the train of death,” he told them. And then — he was back in Tegucigalpa. He stayed the first night in a hotel just to get used to things. He had already asked Norma what he needed to know, and she had said, Yes, I still love you, so that was settled. The next day was Friday, and the neighbors who run a coffin-making business next to the Ordonez home were busy putting the lacquer on a pine box in the middle of the dirt street. Practically everybody in the barrio had heard the story of how the shoemaker fell from the train, and now they all wondered the same thing: How would this man with no legs ever climb up the narrow mountain steps that lead to his front door? They needn’t have worried. The plan had already been laid. The taxi pulled up. Norma was inside, wearing her dangly earrings and favorite green blouse. And there, in the front seat, was Raul, in a fresh plaid shirt and ironed jeans that had to be rolled up and taped at the thighs. It happened so fast, few people noticed. The cab door opened, and Emerson — the oldest boy, the one who had accompanied his father north — hoisted his dad effortlessly onto his back and, in what seemed a single breath, ran up the seventy-odd steps to the family home. When he got to the doorway, Raul Ordonez reached up and swung himself in, then walked on his hands to the bed. And hugged his sons. That was it. There would be plenty of time later to discuss the next plan. “I am thinking,” Emerson would say, after his father had settled in, “that I will have to go north soon.” His mother, cooking, would look up. But she already knew. He would take the train. Text by Christine Evans/The Palm Beach Post
BACKSTORY P h o t o g r a p h e r R e n é e C. B y e r 2 0 0 7
P U L I T Z E R
P R I Z E: F E A T U R E P H O T O G R A P H Y
N
o one wants to hear the words, “Your child has cancer.” When you look into the face of someone with cancer, you may have no idea what is going on beyond chemo and radiation. It’s human nature to turn away. But it is real life, often raw, and it’s going on in homes all over this country, where more than a million people are diagnosed every year. Billions of dollars are given toward cancer research, but virtually nothing is given to help families through the emotional and financial challenges to allow them the time to spend with their dying child. A yearlong chronicling of single mom Cyndie French, 40, and her 11-year-old son Derek Madsen is not an ordinary cancer saga. Derek died at home in the arms of his mother in May 2006. This is not a story about his death. It’s the story of how he lived and how he was guided with the unconditional love, persistence and patience of his mother, despite all odds.
DT: How did the story start? Renée: I met Cyndie French at an assignment to cover a race for the cure. It was a daily assignment that I woke up at 5 a.m. to cover in May 2005. I had covered a similar assignment in Seattle and was aware that the survivor celebration yielded emotional photos so I remained after covering the race for nine more hours in hopes of making a compelling photo. It was a blistering hot day, and I was exhausted when I focused my lens on Cyndie French in a sea of thousands of people. She was there giving back and volunteering for the second year in a row with her daughter Brianna, 5. I was immediately inspired by a mom who was out helping others even though she was struggling herself with a son Derek, 10, who was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a rare childhood cancer. Thus began my one-year journey documenting this story for The Sacramento Bee newspaper, where I managed to still shoot daily assignments. How did you handle this tough story? Derek was not a happy boy when I met him, in fact, he was upset and angry, as most preadolescent boys would be after almost five months of treatment to try and cure his cancer. Readers would later write, commending that we showcased a real child. I didn’t think I would be able to break his anger and get him to accept me, but with a lot of patience and time, I gained his trust and love. His mom would say he could see how much I cared through my eyes. How did you juggle your emotions? This was an extremely difficult story to tell because my instincts were to try and help, but I knew as a journalist I had to let things unfold and the most important thing was not to interrupt their daily pattern or life. There are so many pictures I missed because the situations were so sensitive and emotional that I felt like the click of my shutter would be adding to their pain—
so I would spend endless hours making no pictures at all. Many times I would get a gut feeling of pain as if I were being punched in the stomach. At times, I was overwhelmed with compassion for the situation, but I knew how important it was to step back and make photographs, although it would take all my strength emotionally hoping that in the end the photographs would yield the importance of the many issues I was documenting. I felt like it was my patience, honesty and sensitivity that gained me the access to do this story. I feel when people let you into their lives it’s a gift and that you have to honor and respect their space. Sometimes that meant not making photos. I was struck by the devotion of a mother despite all odds as she made every moment count in a sea of chaos for her son. Access is always a nightmare, how was it on this? Access inside hospitals and doctors’ offices were especially challenging, and every day I had to work double time to get the access I needed to make the photos as if I had never entered the hospital before. Covering stories in hospitals has become very difficult since 911. I was always justifying my existence with PR people, doctors, nurses, lab technicians and hospice workers. A person you had cleared everything with one day wasn’t there the next. Appointments would be changed often at the last minute. And even after I gained the access and trust, I always had a handful of medical professionals judging me as I shot every frame. End result of all your hard work? This story went beyond the doctor’s office to a mom whose relentless love and devotion for her son was inspiring. Whether it was purchasing a can of Silly String or racing Derek up and down the hallways of the hospital, she was always there for him. Giving up her business at a loss to care for her son. Making every moment count was her top priority. Since publication of the story, Cyndie is still trying to give back by creating a nonprofit, Derek’s Wish. I feel privileged that Cyndie and Derek accepted me into their lives. I’m thankful for The Sacramento Bee, ZUMA Press, zReportage.com and PDN for publishing this story. Hopefully, through these publications and the national and international awards this series has won, awareness of Cyndie’s nonprofit (dereks-wish.com) will inspire others to help families in need. The response was overwhelming, with more than 700 readers posting comments or calling. The series quickly became the most viewed, read and emailed package in the history of Sacbee.com. Readers donated more than $40,000, and Cyndie has since started the nonprofit “Derek’s Wish,” which helps other struggling families pay rent and buy groceries when their children are undergoing cancer treatment.
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Renée C. Byer
With over 20 years of experience in the media industry, Renée C. Byer is an accomplished, award-winning photographer, designer and picture editor. She has taken honors from the National Press Photographers Association Pictures of the Year, Society for News Design, Associated Press, and the Best of the West photo and design contest. Most recently, her feature photo “Nude Queen” won the Mark Twain Award, the AP News Executives Council top honor. Byer has been a staff photographer at The Sacramento Bee for the past two years. Before the Bee, Byer worked the Seattle Post-Intelligencer where her photography was a Dart Award finalist for excellence in reporting on victims of violence. Byer is a long-time newspaper photographer who has worked around the country at a number of top dailies, including the Peoria Journal Star (Peoria, IL), Statesman Journal (Salem, OR), The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY) and the Hartford Courant (Hartford, CT), among others.
Photographer Renée C. Byer was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for her work on “A Mother’s Journey.”
A Mother’s Journey May 10, 2006 - Sacramento CA, USA - Cyndie French fights her emotions, as she prepares to flush out Derek’s catheter with saline solution before hospice nurse Sue Kirkpatrick, left, administers a sedative that will give the 11-year-old a peaceful death.“I know in my heart I’ve done everything I can,” says Cyndie.
DOUBLEtruck
PIC TURES THAT NEED TO BE SEEN
wor ld’s best news pictures
Aug. 20, 2006 - Mar. 1, 2007
Volume IV, Issue SEVEN Double Issue • SPRING 2007
Scott Mc Kiernan, Publisher & Editor in Chief Kelly Mc Kiernan, Managing Editor Ruaridh Stewart, Director of Photography Scott Mc Kiernan, Creative Director Gretchen Murray, Associate Art Director Advertising, Sponsorship + Distribution: Scott@DTzine.com
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOJOURNALISTS Armando Arorizo • Mark Avery • Soriano Borgioli • Mike Brooks Ringo Chiu • Kate Davison • Rob DeLorenzo • Jay Drowns Jean Francois Frey • Jim Gehrz • Dave Getzschman • Pierre Gleizes • Shaun Harris Yu Hong’en • David Honl • Sarah Hoskins • Dong-Min Jang • Davod Jaramillo David Levene • Mike Lucia • Erik M. Lunsford • Matt Mai • Liam Maloney • Alan Marler Guy Martin • Scott Mc Kiernan • Rick Nahmias • Fabio Palli • Randy Pench Tan Qingju Duan Renhu • Li Shuangqi • Carsten Snejbjerg • David Spencer Jane Tyska • José Luis Villegas • Jim West • Marcus Yam • Long Zaiquan • Altaf Zargar Submissions@DTzine.com Submission Guidelines at DTzine.com
DOUBLEtruck Magazine is produced and published by ZUMA Press, Inc. The entire contents of DOUBLEtruck Magazine are copyrighted and may not be reproduced or transmitted, either in whole or in part, in any matter, including photocopy, recording or any information-storage or retrieval system known or to be invented, without written permission from the publisher. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Holy Death Aug. 20, 2006 - San Francisco, California, USA - “All of humanity is afraid of death, 100 percent of us. This is a preparation for death. More than anything, it’s about not being afraid to know there will be something after my spiritual release.” Yajahira, a transsexual sex worker, began praying to Santísima Muerte and prostituting herself at the age of 12. As she gets dressed for an evening’s work, her rituals include prayer and offerings of apples, garlic or water at the altar, which was sent to her after she got settled in San Francisco’s notorious Tenderloin District.The charm of the “Holy Death” around Yajahira’s neck never leaves her body, except when she showers.
Picture by Rick Nahmias/ZUMA
MAGAZINE SPRING 2007
Life Goes On
Picture by Liam Maloney/ZUMA
Aug. 20, 2006 - Bint Jbeil, Lebanon - Life goes on through a bullet hole in a mural depicting Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict resulted in a large number of civilian and military casualties, extensive damage to civilian infrastructure and massive population displacement from July 12, 2006, until a ceasefire went into effect on Aug. 14, 2006.
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Quake Sanctuary
Picture by Matt Mai/Color China Photos/ZUMA
Aug. 20, 2006 - Yanjin County, Yunnan, China - Two girls rest in a refugee camp for people whose houses were ruined during an earthquake in China. The magnitude 5.1 earthquake hit a mountainous area in southwestern China, killing and injuring dozens.The earthquake struck at 9:10 a.m. , toppling homes and sending large rocks tumbling down onto residential areas in and around Yunnan province’s Yanjin county.
DTzine.com 23
X Marks the Spot
Picture by Pierre Gleizes/Greenpeace/ZUMA
Aug. 20, 2006 - Sainte-Marthe, Aquitaine, France - Greenpeace activists enter a French genetically engineered (GE) maize field and carve a giant crop circle with an X, marking the field as a contamination zone, after a French court ruled that Greenpeace France take down maps of French commercial GE maize fields from its Website. Greenpeace wants the French government to publish a public register listing every GE field.
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Antiwar Ghost
Picture by Ringo Chiu/ZUMA
Aug. 20, 2006 - Los Angeles, California, USA - A member of a performance group creates an outline of the human body as group members express their antiwar sentiment during a protest. About 1,000 people marched through downtown Los Angeles to protest the Israeli military campaign in Lebanon and demand the United States stop supplying arms to Jerusalem.
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Bang, Bang Derby
Picture by Marcus Yam/Buffalo News
Aug. 20, 2006 - Hamburg, New York, USA - Drivers participate in the World’s Largest Demolition Derby at the Erie County Fair, also known as America’s Fair, despite weather conditions that wrapped up the fair with a bang.
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Riverbed Playtime
Picture by Color China Photos/ZUMA
Aug. 21, 2006 - Chongqing, China - Two children play on the Jialing River’s dried-up riverbed during a drought. Approximately 7.84 million people in 37 districts and counties in Chongqing suffered drinking-water shortages. The drought has caused 3.75 billion yuan ($470 million U.S. dollars) in losses. Local governments arranged for 13,420 water wagons and dug nearly 30,000 new wells to provide water for 4.24 million people.
DTzine.com 31
River Game
Picture by Long Zaiquan/UPPA/ZUMA
Aug. 29, 2006 - Chongqing, China - Chongqing citizens play mahjong in the cool river to prevent sunstroke.
DTzine.com 33
Twilight Zone - The FEMA City Episode
Picture by David Spencer/The Palm Beach Post/ZUMA
Sept. 14, 2006 - Indiantown, Florida, USA - Heritage Park residents Denise Jones, center, and neighbors Sarah Chandler, right, and Chandler’s daughter Deluxious Chandler, 20, left, all live in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) trailers. They have to move out of their trailers and are unsure where to live. When the government opened the gates of this sprawling trailer city in 2004, victims of Hurricane Charley came streaming in. What was supposed to be temporary housing by law˜federal emergency housing is supposed to last only 18 months˜quickly turned into a full-fledged city with all the troubles of city life. Drug use and domestic violence were common. In three days, the govern-
DTzine.com 35 ment says it will end its commitment to this troubled place that 109 people still call home. The 90-acre trailer park, at one time the largest emergency trailer site in the country, is all but certain to remain open even after FEMA has withdrawn its support. Today, the park is finally peaceful, but desolate. It’s silent but for the sounds of cars buzzing down nearby Interstate 75, and the stray dogs barking into the night. People rarely leave their trailers or talk with each other.
Man in a Bucket
Picture by Chongqing/Imaginechina/ZUMA
Sept. 20, 2006 - Chongqing, China - A man is evacuated over the side of a building in a lifesaving seat during an evacuation drill.
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War Never Ends for Some
Picture by Fabio Palli/LaPresse/ZUMA
Sept. 25, 2006 - Beirut, Lebanon - The conflict is over between Hezbollah and Israeli soldiers, but for some, the battle has just begun.
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Real-Life Horror Movie
Picture by Mike Brooks/ZUMA
Sept. 27, 2006 - Bailey, Colorado, USA - Students outside the school grieve for the six hostages still held inside Platte Canyon High School. Duane Morrison, 53, took six girls hostage in a Bailey high school classroom and fatally wounded 16-year-old Emily Keyes before killing himself. Morrison had already sexually assaulted and traumatized the students when the raid was ordered to end the standoff. His motive remains a mystery.
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Kashmir Streets Run Red
Picture by Altaf Zargar/ZUMA
Oct. 5, 2006 - Lal Chowk, Kashmir, India - Indian security forces stand near the body of a militant who was killed during an encounter between militants and Indian security forces in Srinagar. The skirmish ended today, after 27 hours of gun fighting at this busy shopping center in the capital of Kashmir. Ten people, including three militants and six security personnel, were killed.
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Big Bear
Picture by Jay Drowns/Sporting News/ZUMA
Oct. 8, 2006 - Chicago, Illinois, USA - Chicago Bears superstar linebacker Brian Urlacher dominates the Buffalo Bills with a 40-7 victory at Soldier Field.
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Baby Hunting
Picture by Shaun Harris/SOLO/ZUMA
Oct. 16, 2006 - Lilongwe, Malawi, Africa - Yohane Banda, a 31-year-old peasant farmer and father of the 13-month-old Malawian boy Madonna wants to adopt, sits with his 56-year-old mother Athnet Mwale. Banda’s wife died a week after their son was born. She was 28. Banda took his son to Home of Hope Orphan Care Centre in Mchinji, a town near Malawi’s Zambian border, where they had Banda sign a letter to show that he was handing him over to their charge.
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The Bathroom CafE
Picture by Tan Qingju/Imaginechina/ZUMA
Oct. 22, 2006 - Shenzhen, Guangdong, China - Two women eat while sitting on toilets, serving as seats, at the 80 Cafe in the Futian District.The bathroom-themed restaurant is decorated with toilets, showers and a bathtub. Food is served in bathtub-shaped bowls.
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Oaxaca Burning
Picture by Davod Jaramillo/El Universal/ZUMA
Oct. 30, 2006 - Oaxaca, Mexico - Federal police tear down protest blockades and push striking teachers out of the main square that has served as their home base for five months. The federal government’s decision to send forces into Oaxaca came after teachers agreed to return to work by Monday, ending a strike that kept 1.3 million children out of classes across the southern state.
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Ammonia Gas Leak Kills One in China
Picture by Color China Photos/ZUMA
Nov. 1, 2006 - Dawu County, Hubei, China - A victim receives medical treatment at a hospital after an ammonia leak at the nitrogen fertilizer factory Huangmailing Phosphorus Chemical Industrial Group. About 100,000 local residents were quickly evacuated from the factory. One worker died and six others were injured in the accident.
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No Mas
Picture by Marcus Yam
Nov. 4, 2006 - Santa Ana, California, USA - Football players from Santa Ana take a break at halftime while recovering from fatigue at the Santa Ana Bowl. Santa Ana lost to Saddleback College after having their best start of the season in nearly 40 years.
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Obama! Obama!
Picture by Dave Getzschman/ZUMA
Nov. 5, 2006 - St. Louis, Missouri, USA - On the eve of a congressional election that would determine which party controls the U.S. Senate in January, Illinois Senator Barack Obama rallied support for Claire McCaskill, the Democrat attempting to unseat Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., at a campaign event in Forest Park. Obama, a rising star in the Democratic Party who recently announced he might run for president in 2008, was making his third visit to Missouri to stump for McCaskill.
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Rockwell Moment
Picture by Jim Gehrz/Minneapolis Star Tribune/ZUMA
Nov. 7, 2006 - Shafer, Minnesota, USA - The Franconia town hall bustles with activity just moments after the polling place opened at 7 a.m.
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Rummy Blues
Picture by Ringo Chiu/ZUMA
Nov. 8, 2006 - Washington, DC, USA - President Bush announces Donald H. Rumsfeld’s resignation within hours of the Democrats’ triumph in congressional elections. Bush then nominates former CIA Director Robert Gates as defense secretary to replace Rumsfeld.
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Seven Seconds
Picture by Erik M. Lunsford/The Palm Beach Post/ZUMA
Nov. 11, 2006 - Gainesville, Florida, USA - Florida’s Jarvis Moss (94) blocks the field goal with seven seconds left on the clock in Saturday’s game between the University of Florida Gators and the South Carolina Gamecocks at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Florida won 17-16.
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Smoke and Mirrors
Picture by Yu Hong’en/ChinaFotoPress/ZUMA
Nov. 13, 2006 - Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China - Chinese soldiers crawl on the beach through smoke during training exercises at a military base.
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Cossacks Rise Again
Picture by Guy Martin/ZUMA
Nov. 17, 2006 - Rostov-on-Don, Russia - Despite the long periods away from home and the harsh conditions of academy life, young Cossacks enjoy the close friendships of their comrades. Children ages 6-17 attend Cossack academies in a move by the government to reinstate Russian orthodoxy in the ethnically diverse northern Caucasus.
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Sea of Red
Picture by Jay Drowns/Sporting News/ZUMA
Nov. 18, 2006 - Columbus, Ohio, USA - Fans flood Ohio State Stadium’s field after Ohio State claims the Big Ten title with a 42-39 win over Michigan.
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Montoya Flames Out
Picture by Alan Marler/ZUMA
Nov. 19, 2006 - Homestead, Florida, USA - Juan Pablo Montoya crashes during the Ford 400 Nextel Cup Series race at the Homestead-Miami Speedway. The former Formula One driver escaped the car uninjured, but his race was over.
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You Can Never Come Home
Picture by Guy Martin/ZUMA
Nov. 20, 2006 - White Nile, Sudan - Most of the 350 returning Dinka tribespeople on board the barge are women, children and the elderly. Many of the young men that would have been married to these women were either killed in the civil war or are walking the Dinka tribe’s thousands of cattle north along the east side of the river. The 21-year civil war is said to have cost the lives of 2 million people and displaced an estimated 4 million Sudanese from their traditional tribal homelands.
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Monk Militia
Picture by Duan Renhu/ChinaFotoPress/ZUMA
Nov. 21, 2006 - Nanjing, Hebei, China - Buddhist monks practice sharpshooting with automatic weapons under the watchful eye of the Nanjing Police Department. It was the first time that monks from the Xuanzang Temple had fired weapons.
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Motorbike Graveyard
Picture by Matt Mai/Color China Photos/ZUMA
Nov. 21, 2006 - Guangzhou, Guangdong, China - Workers at a metal recycle company get ready to destroy motorbikes confiscated by police. On Jan. 1, 2007, all motorbikes were banned in the downtown area in an effort to curb pollution and crack down on the motorbike-riding robbers that have long plagued the city.
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Under Pressure
Picture by Soriano Borgioli/LaPresse/ZUMA
Nov. 26, 2006 - Montecatini Terme, Pistoia, Italy - Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, 70, slumps at the podium during a rally in Tuscany. He was later diagnosed with a minor heart condition. Berlusconi, Italy’s richest man, went on trial last week for alleged tax fraud and money laundering and could face up to 12 years in jail if convicted.
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Whale Massacre
Picture by Kate Davison/Greenpeace/ZUMA
Nov. 28, 2006 - Australian Antarctic, South Seas - A dead whale is hoisted from the ocean onto a Japanese whaling ship off Tasmania, in the globally recognized Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. The Japanese whaling fleet expected a catch of 900 minke whales, more than double its previous catch. Though the Japanese say the whaling is for scientific research, Australia and the U.S. say it’s a way of carrying out subsidized commercial whaling.
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Homeroom
Picture by Sarah Hoskins/ZUMA
Nov. 30, 2006 - Union Grove, Wisconsin, USA - This girl is allowed out of her room at the Southern Oaks Girls School (SOGS) to study. SOGS is a Type 1 secured juvenile correctional facility. Their programs include a Short-Term Re-Entry Program for Juvenile Females.
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Not a PETA Protest
Picture by Armando Arorizo/ZUMA
Nov. 30, 2006 - Mexico City, Mexico - The Mexican farmers from the 400 Pueblos group protest the loss of their land during the term of Senator Dante Delgado Rannauro.
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Sleeping with Angel
Picture by Rob DeLorenzo/ZUMA
Dec. 8, 2006 - Tucson, Arizona, USA - Daniel Jimenez TKOs Angel Recio in the ninth round at the Desert Diamond Casino. The popular boxing series, promoted by Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions, successfully completed its second season in front of a sold-out crowd.
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Danish Rumble
Picture by Carsten Snejbjerg/Polfoto/ZUMA
Dec. 16, 2006 - Norreboro, Copenhagen, Denmark - Hundreds of young people fight with police to keep their youth club, Ungdomshuset, which has been sold to the religious group Faderhuset.
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Party Like it’s 1999
Picture by Jim West/ZUMA
Dec. 30, 2006 - Dearborn, Michigan, USA - Iraqi-Americans celebrate in the streets after learning of the hanging of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging for crimes against humanity.
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Happy New Year
Picture by Jean Francois Frey/Maxppp/ZUMA
Jan. 1, 2007 - Mulhouse, France - People riot and burn cars during violent New Year’s Eve celebrations in Alsace.
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Gladiators of Dakar
Picture by Scott Mc Kiernan/ZUMA
Jan. 16, 2007 - Nema, Mauritania, Africa - The wear and tear of being a desert gladiator finally takes its toll upon NASCAR superstar Robby Gordon.True to its reputation as the world’s toughest rally, the Dakar race claimed its share of non-finishers this year. Though 515 competitors started the Lisboa-Dakar 2007, only 310 reached the capital city of Senegal and finished the 29th edition. Gordon not only completed his third Dakar rally, but he finished in the eighth position, his best Dakar finish to date.
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Seoul Police TV
Picture by Dong-Min Jang/EPN/ZUMA
Jan. 17, 2007 - Seoul, South Korea - A policeman looks at monitors in the police station’s CCTV crime prevention center. Several thousand monitors around the city of Seoul help insure the safety of its citizens.
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Six Nine Hundred Family
Picture by José Luis Villegas/The Sacramento Bee/ZUMA
Jan. 18, 2007 - Sacramento, California, USA - Marlon Owens flashes his gold-capped grill. The letters SNHF stand for Six Nine Hundred Family, which is Owens’ crew. Sacramento’s underground rappers have sold millions of CDs. Middle America is a prime market for south Sacramento’s underground hip-hop, which is exported to the cities and suburbs of Phoenix, Kansas City and Chicago. The music is a window into a world that fans may never really know.
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The Hand Trembler
Picture by Mark Avery/ZUMA
Jan. 18, 2007 - Twentynine Palms, California, USA - While on leave from the military, Marine Pvt. Ronnie Tallman, a Navajo, learns that he has what his community considers a sacred gift. He is a hand trembler, an extremely rare healer who has the power when in a trance to determine what is wrong with someone physically, emotionally or spiritually. Tallman requested but was denied conscientious objector status. Today the Marines reversed course and approved the discharge application.
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Since 680 A.D.
Picture by David Honl/ZUMA
Jan. 29, 2007 - Istanbul, Turkey - Shia Muslims gather in the Halkali section of Istanbul for the annual Ashura event. Ashura commemorates the death of the Prophet Muhammed’s grandson Hussein ibn Ali, who was massacred in 680 A.D. with his followers in Karbala (modern-day Iraq). Shias consider Hussein the successor to Muhammed and his martyrdom is a distinguishing mark of Shia faith.
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10 Billion Bees
Picture by Randy Pench/The Sacramento Bee/ZUMA
Jan. 31, 2007 - Sacramento, California, USA - Brent Woodworth’s crew tends to the hives and feeds them corn syrup and nutrients in preparation for the busy pollination schedule. Roughly 4,500 bee boxes sit in the foothills east of Oakdale. Each February, hundreds of beekeepers from around the nation bring roughly 10 billion bees to California to pollinate almond trees.
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Deadly ComMute
Picture by Imaginechina/ZUMA
Feb. 12, 2007 - Henan, China - A victim’s bloody hand is seen against a truck involved in a pileup on the Lianhuo Speedway. About 60 cars and trucks crashed on the speedway in the morning due to the heavy fog. Eight people died in the accident.
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Wine Country
Picture by Mike Lucia/Tri-Valley Herald/ZUMA
Feb. 21, 2007 - Livermore, California, USA - Cyclists race through Livermore’s wine country on Tesla Road during stage three of the AMGEN Tour of California.
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Designer Coffins
Picture by David Levene/Guardian/eyevine/ZUMA
Feb. 28, 2007 - Accra, Ghana, Africa - A man stands proudly next to the pink fish coffin he created at a coffin-maker’s workshop. Approximately one in three people are infected with HIV in the area, so production levels at coffin workshops are high.
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Snowy Fashion
Picture by Li Shuangqi/Imaginechina/ZUMA
Mar. 1, 2007 - Shenyang, Liaoning, China - Chinese locals use plastic bags to protect themselves from heavy snowfall when winter returns with a vengeance.
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