Fashion Photographer Bruce Weber’s Moving Portrait of Little Haiti
Marcellen St. Cllien was detained at Krome for 11 months while his 18-yea-old daughter Germany was held at the women’s prison. Granted political asylum on appeal. Photo: Chris Maddaloni/Roll Call/Getty Images
Bruce Weber, the fashion photographer responsible for helping Abercrombie and Fitch and Ralph Lauren create their iconic all-American advertising campaigns, has turned his lens on to a new subject: Haitians affected by a discriminatory immigration policy.
Through his photographs of the Haitian community in Miami, Weber seeks to call attention to a U.S. immigration policy that treats undocumented Haitians who have been detained differently than immigrants from other countries. Typically, when a refugee who enters the U.S. without papers is detained, they’re allowed to post bail as they await their asylum hearings. But Haitian immigrants and asylum seekers are held in detention for long periods of time without bail.
This wasn’t the case until recently. On Dec. 3, 2001, a sailboat carrying 180 Haitian refugees arrived in Miami. All of them were detained, but the event rattled immigration authorities concerned about a refugee crisis from the country. About a year later, in October 2002, another ship carrying Haitians made the almost 700-mile trip to Miami and, again, all the passengers were detained. But immigration officials feared that releasing the detainees regularly would lead to a mass influx of Haitian asylum seekers. So Immigration and Customs Enforcement declared that Haitians entering the country without papers could be held indefinitely—and with little hope of getting political asylum. Today, Haitian requests for political asylum have been met with the highest rejection rate of any national group.
Weber’s new work in Miami’s Little Haiti is in response to this immigration policy. It captures the consequences of a broken immigration system in the same way that photojournalists captured the affects of the Depression in the 1930s.
Weber is most widely known for his ad campaigns for Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Abercrombie & Fitch—all brands that have exceptionally white identities, and at least some of which have long been criticized as both exploiting and emphasizing the notion that “all-American” equates with whiteness. It seems ironic, then, that Weber’s Little Haiti work so movingly challenges the political and legal system that literally keeps the gates of Americanness. But whatever the brands Weber shoots have stood for, his work has always been known for its ability to create character and emotion. This appears to be the same philosophy with which he’s shooting the Little Haiti series.
All of Weber’s subjects in the Little Haiti series are looking in to the camera. There’s no overt political message, but when the viewer looks at a portrait, you look straight in to the person’s eyes. You are forced to connect with the subject on a human to human level.
In his early work on Little Haiti, which was first published in 2003 as part of a Sunday insert for the Miami Herald, the photos are the most straight forward and accessible. Each portrait includes a short description of the subject’s experience with immigration policies.
Bruce Weber
(Photo: Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images for Maybach)
Many of his subjects exude confidence and power. Fara Aguste (left) was three when she stood in front of Weber’s camera. She stands tall, her eyes stare directly at the viewer and communicate a sense of confidence and calmness that seems too mature for a cute toddler. Her caption reads: “Fare Auguste, 3 years old. Detained two months with her mother by the U.S. immigration authorities; now released.”
After reading Fara’s caption, you realize that her eyes have a story tell about how she gained that maturity. Every one of Weber’s images portray that same emotional depth and complexity.
Notably, Weber’s subjects also look at ease with him. Trust and comfort are visible in their eyes alongside whatever more difficult emotions the photos convey. He has portrayed his subjects in their own element and done so without attempting to make them exotic. In doing so, he offers compelling portraits of not just individuals but of a whole community. By telling their stories, he brings a sense of place and humanity to the too often abstract debates over our broken immigration system.
Ginette Eugene, Gina Eugene and Youri Drouinead, Golden Beach, Florida. 2010.
Gina and Ginette, inseparable twins, are nurses who have devoted their lives to rescuing
gravely ill children from their Haitian homeland.
(Copyright © Bruce Weber)
Notre Dame D’Haiti Catholic Church, Little Haiti, Miami, Florida, 2010.
Copyright © Bruce Weber
Karls Paul-Noel, assistant chief Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, 2010.
Paul-Noel is the highest-ranking Haitian-American firefighter in the U.S. Earlier this year, he was one of the first international rescuers to land in Haiti after the catastrophic magnitude 7.0 earthquake. (Copyright © Bruce Weber)
Currently Bruce Weber’s Little Haiti work can be seen in “Haiti / Little Haiti” at The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Miami through Feb. 13, 2011. A catalogue featuring writings and photographs by Bruce Weber is available by calling the museum shop.
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My 2011 New Years resolution was "more personal work". Little did I know it would be with an iPhone. I went on a volunteer trip with Hope International during the 1-year anniversary of the Haiti earthquake. In between shoots for Hope, I randomly started shooting with my iPhone and quickly became interested in the possibilities. I found that the iPhone gave me better access to my surroundings. Sometimes a big DSLR can intimidate people or draw a scene so the idea was to document everything in a subtle, respectful way and the iPhone allowed for just that.All images shot and edited with an iPhone 4.
January 12th-15th, 2011
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A Bio by Annie Downs
He’s a photographer. At his core, Jeremy loves to make art. Starting out as a designer, Jeremy really only began taking pictures to bring texture into his design work. Before he knew it, he loved photography (and was getting paid to do it.). So in April of 2005, Jeremy switched over to it full time and he has never looked back. In a relatively short amount of time, Jeremy earned the respect of artists, photographers, and celebrities alike. Now hailed as one of the trailblazers in the industry, Jeremy sees taking a photograph as merely the first step in creating a piece of art.But it’s not just about that. It’s about having a natural eye behind the camera. It’s about knowing the light, the location, the subject. It’s about treating each client like a friend. And that’s what Jeremy does best.Photography has taken Jeremy to six continents. Jeremy’s skills behind the camera have allowed him to work with many clients in the entertainment industry, such as Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Sting, Clive Owen, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Imogen Heap, Courtney Cox, and Ryan Seacrest, just to name a few. He also traveled with Britney Spears in 2009 as her photographer and documented seventeen countries with the Passion World Tour in 2008. From all his travels, Jeremy has released 3 Photography books, "Hope in the Dark", "The Poor Will Be Glad" and "Awakening".It’s fair to say that his photography career has been diverse. No doubt about that. But for him, it’s not about being famous or being known or getting awards. It’s about doing everything he can and using any platform he has to make a difference. He’s a social artist.
Jeremy also spends his time on community projects, developing and working on creative ways to use his camera to make an impact. Jeremy has worked with multiple non-profit organizations and traveled throughout Africa to photograph and bring awareness to the needs of those people. He is also the founder of Help-Portrait, a worldwide movement of photographers using their time, equipment, and expertise to give back to those less fortunate. On December 12, 2009 Help-Portrait provided free portraits for over 40,000 people in 42 Countries. Lastly, after the devastating earthquake hit Haiti in January of 2010, Jeremy responded with his "Voices of Haiti" photo essay, letting the people of Haiti express their own prayers and hopes through photography. This project was displayed prominently at the entrance of a very important gathering of world leaders at the United Nations in March of 2010. They were meeting to discuss the rebuild of Haiti and they ended up pledging ten billion dollars to the effort. On that day, Jeremy's project "Voices of Haiti" proved that art can help make a difference.