A baby stopped breathing on a packed Miami highway

Tuesday, February 20, marks 10 years since Pamela Rauseo’s heroic efforts saved her nephew’s life.

When to take a photograph? The ethics and privacy of photographing a person in grief or tragedy, and when to step in to help or to comfort a person, has been the subject of discussion for years in my profession of photojournalism.

As a photojournalist at the Miami Herald for the past 40 years, these issues have always been on my mind. During disasters, turmoil, tragedy, defeat, and death, the emotions seen on my subject’s faces can be extreme. When to press the shutter button and when to stop is not always clear.

Ten years ago, a traumatic life or death event unfolded before my eyes. Stopped in traffic on Miami’s State Road 836 Dolphin Expressway, Pamela Rauseo stepped out of her SUV screaming as she carried a 5-month-old baby who was not breathing and was turning blue.

Instantly, I jumped out of my car to help as traffic sped past us. Inexperienced to properly perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), I did the best thing that came to mind; I flagged down other motorists. A woman named Lucila Godoy, stopped to help. I turned and spotted a police car and ran through traffic until I reached Sweetwater Police Officer Amauris Bastidas, who then raced to the scene. Through the lifesaving techniques of CPR by Rauseo, the baby began breathing again.

I rushed back to my car and saw four police officers and Godoy helping. I stepped back and paused. I did not want Rauseo to see me taking pictures. My heart did not want to inflict more stress on this traumatized woman, but I know that history demonstrates that compelling images can produce unforeseen and often beneficial results.

A still photograph can alter the course of history, influence policy, raise awareness, and prompt leaders to take action. In this case, inspire others to become trained in CPR and swiftly offer aid to those in dire need.

So, I grabbed my cameras and began documenting what I saw. Little Sebastian de la Cruz stopped breathing for a second time, and his aunt Pamela Rauseo again performed CPR.

I captured the breath of life in a still photograph.

The image went viral around the world. In response, television and radio broadcasters stressed the need for people to learn CPR to save lives.

My photograph raised that awareness. Years of experience prepared me for that day. My first role is to respond to those in need before I respond as a photojournalist.

#miamiherald #photojournalism Canon #thinktankphoto

Read the Miami Herald by Michelle Merchante here:

https://www.miamiherald.com/.../mia.../article285132902.html

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Death toll rises to 32 in Surfside collapse as demolition opens new areas to search teams

The remaining portion of the 12-story Champlain Towers South, site of one of the worst building failures in U.S. history, tumbled to the ground, after a controlled demolition explosion at 10:30 p.m. Sunday, July 4th, 2021. So far, 32 people are confirmed dead and over 100 are still missing in the rubble in the town of Surfside. Miami Herald, #storytelling #photojournalism #Canon #CPS #ThinkTankPro THINK TANK PHOTO, #3leggedthing

The Sunday Still: From Patrick Farrell

The Sunday Still from Patrick Farrell with Jodi Mailander Farrell

DECEMBER6,2020   An Empty Seat Connecting with families to photograph their most private moments is a delicate, time-honored tradition in photojournalism made even more difficult by COVID-19 restrictions. But as Americans marked Thanksgiving on Nov. 26 amid a pandemic that has killed more than a quarter of a million people in the United States, AP photographer John Minchillo deftly captured one New York family’s deep loss in a poignant photograph that resonated across the country. In the intimate photo, Vivian Zayas reaches out during the family’s pre-meal prayer to grasp the flower-draped walker of her mother, Ana Martinez, who died in April from the virus in a nursing home. Minchillo shoots from the perspective of the empty place setting, focusing on the neatly-folded house coat and fading into the family’s collective heads bowed in prayer over turkey and green beans. In one instant, story-telling image, a country’s Norman Rockwell moment has slipped into sadness and regret. Patrick Farrell is the 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winner for Breaking News Photography for The Miami Herald, where he worked from 1987 to 2019. He is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Journalism and Media Management at the University of Miami School of Communication. Jodi Mailander Farrell is a former Miami Herald reporter and editor who is an adjunct writing instructor in the School of Communication at the University of Miami.

 NOVEMBER 22, 2020

DO OR DYE The powerful still image stops time, allowing us to study the moment and ask life’s big questions. Why are we in this war? What can we do to prevent this from happening again? What the heck is dripping down Rudy Giuliani’s face? European Pressphoto Agency (EPA) photographer Jim Lo Scalzo’s sharp, frame-filling close-up of Giuliani’s leaky sideburns at a Nov. 19 press conference dominated viral photos under scrutiny this week, as the world’s top political journalists called in hairdressers for analysis. Was it hair dye? Mascara? The mystery liquid streaking the cheeks of President Donald Trump’s sweaty personal lawyer became a meltdown metaphor for a wild, rant-filled 90-minute presser at Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., where Trump’s campaign legal team continued to claim widespread voter fraud won the presidency for Joe Biden. Years from now, when we start to wonder if 2020 was really as bizarre as we remember it, Scalzo and other photographers won’t let us forget. We’ll have this moment, with the American flag in the background, as our reminder—a photo with staying power any hairdresser would dye for. NOVEMBER 15, 2020   VICTORY FOR AUNTIE Wearing suffragette white like their history-making great aunt, two little girls caught the nation’s eye when they stepped out on stage in Wilmington, Delaware, on Nov. 7 for a victory celebration. But it was a behind-the-scenes photo by their mom that captured the meaningful moment best. Proving that access and Robert Capa’s “you’re not close enough” rule still prevail, the family photo by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ niece Meena Harris is an unguarded ta-da moment celebrating Harris shattering one of the world’s most obstinate glass ceilings to become the first woman, first Black person and first South Asian American to be elected vice president of the United States. “While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last,” Harris told the crowd. Flanked by two American flags, Amara Ajagu, 4, and her 2-year-old sister responded with little girl joy. NOVEMBER 8, 2020   THE COUNTRY VOTER In 1948, shooting for Life magazine, master photo essayist W. Eugene Smith created a series of pivotal photographs called “The Country Doctor” that captured the isolated drama of small-town life in the remote Colorado Rocky Mountains. Getty Images photographer Mario Tama channels Smith and the sweet Americana of painter Norman Rockwell in this Nov. 3 powerful storytelling image of Holly Schuler with her kids in tow as she heads to cast her ballot at dusk on election day at Sherman Township Hall, a former one-room schoolhouse in Zearing, Iowa. Shooting from a low angle, Tama silhouettes Schuler and her children against the crisp sky’s fading light. He balances the golden light dancing off the façade of the old schoolhouse and the inviting warmth of the interior light, pulling back just enough to include the American flag gently waving in the wind. The small red taillight of the lone car on the horizon blinks a solitary spot of color. In a noisy presidential election year, Tama’s quiet composition whispers volumes about the power of a single vote.  NOVEMBER 1, 2020   MIRROR MIRROR How many state houses can you count? Boston Globe photographer John Tlumacki has made images for 30 years that give New Englanders an extraordinary perspective of their beloved home and beyond, from the Boston Marathon bombing and the Winter Olympics to wildlife and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Pulitzer Prize finalist takes our eyes to another dimension with his mind-bending macro photograph on Oct. 29 of raindrops on the window of a car parked on Beacon Street repeatedly mirroring the Massachusetts State House. It’s a classic example of how our seemingly mundane surroundings can become quite incredible if you take a closer look. October 25, 2020   BACK IN THE SPOTLIGHT Recalling New York Times photographer Damon Winter’s memorable, Pulitzer Prize-winning photos of Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign, the AP’s Matt Slocum captured a hazy, dramatic image of an older, grayer former president back in the spotlight Oct. 21 as he stumped for Joe Biden in Philadelphia. Slocum marked the rare appearance by exposing for the light illuminating Obama, allowing the rest of the image to drop off into the moody darkness of the drive-in rally of about 300 cars outside Lincoln Financial Field. OCTOBER 18, 2020   VIEWPOINT The campaign trail can be long and grueling for candidates, but also for photographers trying to overcome restricted access with extraordinary angles. New social distancing rules compound the challenge. Photographer Roberto Schmidt, who has shot a deadly Mount Everest avalanche and been held hostage in Libya during his 25-year career with Agence France-Presse (AFP), relied on his quick reflexes to adapt to a media scrum around Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Oct. 10 in Erie, Pennsylvania. Schmidt dropped low and framed Biden with reporters’ extended arms for his uncommon portrait of political life on the road. He anchored the image with a reporter’s smartphone and masked profile in the bottom left corner and adjusted exposure to keep the light from the sky darkening his primary subject. The added visual element of a big, colorful umbrella provides diagonal shapes that lead the eye to the center of the photo, which captures a time and place like no other that day.  OCTOBER 11, 2020   WILD GOOSE CHASE Moonlight, sunlight, thunderstorms, joggers, dancers, tourists and even the random goose make cameo appearances in the stunning New York City skyline photos of former Reuters photographer and photo editor Gary Hershorn, whose new photography book, “New York Celestial,” is a love letter to light and shadows in Gotham. Hershorn’s Instagram feed is like eye candy for photophiles and I Love New Yorkers. Posted on Oct. 4, his striking image of a goose strutting in an empty lot in Union City, New Jersey, plays with depth and layers as the sun rises behind the Empire State Building across the Hudson River. Hershorn’s long lens compresses the depth, which pulls together background and foreground. A starbursting sunrise sandwiched between goose and ESB adds POP! The vantage point creates an eye-stopping, multi-dimensional King Kong moment that makes the viewer see the world in a new way. OCTOBER 4, 2020   MIGHTY GIRL For a story about retired Olympian weightlifter Mercy Obiero training her 10-year-old granddaughter in Kenya, The Sun newspaper photographer Monicah Mwangi dropped down to get a low angle and shot up for a powerful photograph that captures the drama of the little girl lifting weights in a Nairobi gym on Sept. 18.  It’s difficult to position yourself in a small, crowded space, but Mwangi wisely shrunk down to accentuate the moment and avoid her own reflection in the gym’s mirrors. Keysha Atiky’s granny, the first female weightlifter from Kenya to make it to the Olympics in 2012, also is absent from the image, but her presence is felt in Keysha’s tenacious stance and expression.  SEPTEMBER 27, 2020   HELLO, DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND With symmetry and patterns, AP photographer Ariel Schalit captured a lone cyclist—and the overwhelming isolation of Israel’s second coronavirus lockdown on the first day of Rosh Hashanah—in a single photograph from Tel Aviv on Sept. 18. Circular red and green traffic lights mimic the shape of the blazing yellow hole in the sky, guiding our eyes toward the solitary figure riding into the sunset. Even the repetition of arrows on the empty street and the surrounding darkness point the way. With a new three-week lockdown imposed due to a steadily worsening COVID-19 outbreak, the image told the story of a nation once again shutting down its roads, markets and beaches, launching a defense of self-imposed solitude against the return of a silent killer.  SEPTEMBER 20, 2020   RIP RBG The death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday sparked national mourning and an inevitable political battle over the future of the highest court. Shooting for Reuters, Washington, D.C.-based photographer Al Drago clearly captured the mood of RBG’s millennial fan base and the looming ideological struggle ahead as he documented the crowd of hundreds gathering for an impromptu vigil on the courthouse steps. With young mourners in focus in the foreground facing the unmistakable blur of the Supreme Court Building, Drago’s solemn image speaks volumes about the loss of a liberal legal legend, its historical implications, and the bond between a young generation of women and the diminutive-yet-towering women’s rights champion who fought and thought for them.  SEPTEMBER 13, 2020   KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL Natural disasters and street conflicts are challenging assignments, but the real test of a skilled shooter is producing a photograph from an all-nude event that can actually be published. Study, if you dare, photographer Leon Kuegeler’s well-timed image from a Sept. 6 soccer match in Germany, where players shed their uniforms– and, some might say, their dignity– to protest the increasing commercialization of professional soccer. Shooting for Reuters, Kuegeler captured the shrinking moment when concern for future lineage triggered a rare use of hands. No masks or knickers. Just flying feet and, um, physiques. How did they measure for social distance or tell their teams apart? By the length of their socks? In a week of heartbreakingly incredible photos of wildfires, children returning in masks to school, and clashes between street protesters and police – made even more horrifying when viewed from our coronavirus-imposed isolation – Kuegeler’s cringe-worthy distraction permits us to crack a rare smile. SEPTEMBER 6, 2020   ONE STRIKING IMAGE As a longtime photographer in the Washington Bureau of The New York Times (and one of the few members of the media to be dubbed a “genius,” by President Trump), Doug Mills spends a lot of time looking through a camera at the president. On Aug. 28, his skill and lightning reflexes paid off with a well-timed photograph that shows a streak of lightning passing behind President Trump as he walks off Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, following a New Hampshire campaign rally. The position of the car’s headlights and the bolt itself direct your eyes to the umbrella-toting president. The silhouetted salutes of the surrounding military personnel convey the pomp and circumstance of the moment. Shooting from a low position, Mills captures it all in one well-composed, fleeting instant.

AP, Sony reach deal for new still and video cameras

NEW YORK (AP) — The Associated Press says it has reached a deal with Sony Electronics to exclusively equip its visual journalists with new video and still cameras over the next two years.

The AP sends some 3,000 photos and 200 videos a day to customers worldwide. Visual journalism is a point of pride for the news cooperative, which won its 54th Pulitzer Prize this year, the 32nd it has won for photography.

READ MORE HERE

The Sunday Still: Road Trip

The Sunday Still from Patrick Farrell

Road Trip As a coronavirus-stricken United States struggled to shelter in place, celebrity photographer Brian Bowen Smith saddled up a vintage Ford pickup truck and grabbed his Leica M10 Monochrom to document Americans from the safe social distance of his front seat. With his 1958 Ford F100’s window as a frame adding another dimensional layer, Smith snapped a black-and-white photo series of famous and gritty people and places along his 11,000-mile, cross-country journey. Reese Witherspoon, Common and the blended family of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis made the cut, but so did a farm family in Wisconsin, a jazz singer in New Orleans and healthcare workers in Austin. The six-week “Drivebys” project, featured on “CBS This Morning” on July 16, visually conveys the diversity of Americans from sea to shining sea. Together, the photographs are a brief anecdote for our wanderlust – and a reminder of the frustration, isolation and resilience that unites us. Patrick Farrell, the curator of The Sunday Still, is the 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winner for Breaking News Photography for The Miami Herald, where he worked from 1987 to 2019. He is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Journalism and Media Management at the University of Miami School of Communication.

The Sunday Still: From Patrick Farrell

The Sunday Still from Patrick Farrell July 12, 2020 Welcome back to photojournalist Patrick Farrell's weekly feature, The Sunday Still. Along with this week's selection, I'm including Farrel's selects from the past several weeks. Farrell selects one image each week that showcases the best photojournalism by photojournalists from around the world. The feature runs weekly in The Sunday Long Read. The goal of the newsletter, edited by Don Van Natta Jr. and Jacob Feldman, is to put the week’s best journalism in your hands every Sunday morning.

THE ASSIGNMENT ALSO RISES Faced with empty arenas, canceled events and other nonstarters, photojournalists this summer are taking on tough assignments to make something from nothing. Reuters photographer Jon Nazca rose to the challenge in Spain by holding up photos from last year’s running of the bulls in the same Pamplona locations, effectively conveying the first cancellation of the famous San Fermin festival since the 1930s. The July 7 photo illustrations contrast quiet streets and squares with hand-held printed images that are raucous and full of life – a resourceful response to a pandemic forcing shooters to think outside the frame. The Sunday Still from Patrick Farrell July 5th, 2020   Meet Me in St. Louis? Photographing street protests is challenging enough, but it becomes even more so when an AR-15 rifle and a shiny semiautomatic pistol are pointed at you. Reuters photographer Lawrence Bryant was doubly challenged when a Black Lives Matter protest he was covering June 28 turned into a confrontation with barefoot, gun-waving homeowners Mark and Patricia McCloskey outside their 18,000-square-foot mansion in St. Louis, Missouri. Bryant, carrying only one camera, risked being confused with protestors and snapped a series of unnerving breaking news images that lit up partisan divides, with deeper symbolism about guns, race and private property vs. public space. “I just was trying to make frames,” Bryant said. “Trying to stay safe, trying to dodge the barrel of the gun and stay out of sight and out of line. I’m a big, Black man and I always have to pay attention to that anyway.”                             The Sunday Still                                                     from Patrick Farrell                                                         June 28th, 2020       MONUMENTAL CHANGE AAt 60 feet, the Robert E. Lee Monument in the center of Richmond is too massive to topple. With its fate now in the courts as lawsuits challenge Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s decision to remove the stone-and-bronze statue, the one-time symbol of the Confederate Capital has been transformed by Black Lives Matter protesters into a canvas for graffiti, a performance venue for video projections and gospel concerts, and a makeshift court for pick-up basketball. Style Weekly Photography Editor Scott Elmquist captured the public takeover in a riveting Juneteenth photo that shows Melachi Cobbs in mid-dunk against an attempted block by his cousin, Myles Bradley Cobbs. The peak playground moment amid swirling social change is made even more dramatic against an ominous gray sky, with daylight bouncing off the statue’s transformed base. The vignette is reminiscent of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer John H. White’s moving photos of Black Chicago life in the 1970s for the Environmental Protection Agency’s DOCUMERICA project. Like White’s masterful photos, Elmquist’s image conveys the everyday life conquest of joy in the moment.                                                      The Sunday Still                                                     from Patrick Farrell                                                         June 21st, 2020      LET YOUR FLAG FLY A solitary Pride Flag and the majestic U.S. Supreme Court building came together for the photo of the week in Washington, D.C., on June 15, when Reuters photographer Tom Brenner waited for the decisive moment to capture the jubilation of runner Joseph Fons as he celebrated the court’s ruling protecting LGBTQ+ workers. The monochromatic background of the towering courthouse and pastel blue sky draw all eyes to the colorful statement of the rippling flag’s rainbow colors piercing through the middle of the photograph. Brenner’s wide perspective conveys the magnitude of the moment and a movement’s victory.                            The Sunday Still                                                     from Patrick Farrell                                                         June 14th, 2020      A Country Pays Respects The power of the still image is that sometimes a photographer can show us what we don’t see or what we need to see. Shooting for The Fayetteville Observer, photographer Melissa Sue Gerrits spotted this ethereal moment on June 6 outside of Cape Fear Conference B Church, where thousands of people lined up for a memorial for George Floyd near his North Carolina birthplace, as his body traveled through there from Minneapolis, where he died in police custody, on the way to Houston, where he grew up. Gerrits’ remarkable photograph is one of many in “How Black Lives Matter Reached Every Corner of America,” a fascinating interactive display of the movement published by The New York Times that marries images, data and the poetic words of national enterprise correspondent Audra D.S. Burch. I got lost all weekend in these 250+ photos, starting with Gerrits’ stunner. Shooting from a low vantage point, Gerrits saw through the crowds to isolate the distinguished profile of a lone masked mourner leaning into the heavenly backdrop of a church steeple disappearing into the clouds. She wisely gave the photo room to breathe, conveying a moment that was solemn, majestic and otherworldly.                          The Sunday Still                                                 from Patrick Farrell                                                     June 7th, 2020                                             Fists Up Among the many powerful images from the continuing Black Lives Matter protests, freelance photographer Alyssa Schukar captured a solemn moment of solidarity June 2 at a makeshift Minneapolis memorial where George Floyd was taken into police custody. The past week brought one striking photo after another – from worldwide street demonstrations and the destruction of Confederate statues to President Trump’s Bible-toting, church-side photo op and the bright yellow Black Lives Matter street mural painted by a defiant DC mayor. Despite becoming targets of violence as they were shot by rubber bullets, pepper sprayed, arrested and at times criticized for showing demonstrators’ faces, photojournalists documented a remarkable week. Shooting for the New York Times, Schukar framed her photograph with a fist raised in the foreground, a gesture repeated in the shadows of fists through the crowd, rising to a rooftop series of clenched hands. Set against a moody sky, the historic symbol of triumph and resistance represented the momentum of a movement. The Sunday Still from Patrick Farrell May 31st, 2020   The World Turned Upside Down—Again  In three Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs seared into our collective memory, the American flag has been an expression of valor, a weapon, and a jolting statement about the American dream-turned-nightmare. On May 28, when Associated Press photographer Julio Cortez captured a lone protestor’s silhouette against the flames of a burning liquor store in Minneapolis, the upside-down flag became the latest symbol of racial injustice and outrage as people poured into the streets to protest another black man’s death in white police custody. At a minute before midnight, on the third day of protests over the death of George Floyd, Cortez caught up with the protestor passing by the fire, its flames glowing through the fabric of the flag. In that split second, Cortez snapped an image that tells a country’s history, just like Joe Rosenthal’s 1945 picture of six U.S. Marines raising the flag in Iwo Jima, Stanley Forman’s “Soiling of Old Glory” of a white teenager assaulting a black lawyer in Boston in 1977, and Robert Cohen’s photo of Ferguson protestor Edward Crawford wearing a stars-and-stripes T-shirt while throwing a tear gas canister back at police in Missouri six years ago, when 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot to death by a white police officer. Cortez’s quick news judgment on a tense, chaotic street went viral. Said AP Director of Photography David Ake: “One foot in either direction and the image would lose that backlight and lose the impact.” ➢The Undefeated: George Floyd’s mother was not there but he used her as a sacred invocation ➢The New York Times: In George Floyd’s Death, a Police Technique Results in a Too-Familar Tragedy ➢The New Yorker: The Intolerable Tensions Between American Cities and their Police Forces ➢The Washington Post: This is why Colin Kaepernick took a knee Patrick Farrell, the curator of The Sunday Still, is the 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winner for Breaking News Photography for The Miami Herald, where he worked from 1987 to 2019. He is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Journalism and Media Management at the University of Miami School of Communication.