I’m sitting here reading reports from the earthquake in Haiti. First I was reading some coverage from BBC News, then I was taking in some of what “The New York Times” is offering. In both cases, I feel a hot sting in my eyes. Sadness that does not produce tears. I find my mind trying to make comparisons to the Tsunami in Malaysia and Thailand in 2004 . Are we, as a global community, less shocked and saddened because there are no tourists on pristine beaches in Haiti? Can we really care that much for the people of this country, the poorest in the western hemisphere, when we have already seemed to write off its existence? Then I stop myself from this line of thought, thinking of the neatly painted toenails. I saw them in one of the images, when I looked close. The feed jut from a blanket that covers a mangled body that belongs to a woman, who like tens of thousands of other Haitians, died on Tuesday morning, killed by a geological event that was nothing more than a slight shiver for planet Earth — a slight shiver that in human terms equals a destructive power that I can not begin to imagine. But I do try to imagine how she died, and whether it her last moments were quick and painless or hours of anguish. And then I read a line in which a reporter shares that he can hear the muffled sounds of victims still trapped within collapsed buildings. They are there right now, as I type this line in complete comfort. And as I sit here in my comfort, I read how a doctor explains that, without water, many will die from thirst. The situation in Haiti is going to get a lot worse, the coverage suggests, and the millions affected will still be suffering many months from now, when there tragedy will likely be a distant thought for me.

This personal reaction of mine is not that particularly interesting to you as readers, I image. You are having a similar experience of your own, or you are  more deeply or less deeply engaged in the news from Haiti. It’s a big planet. There is a lot of sadness. We here about it every day. We all cope with it in our own ways.

The reason I write my emotional reaction in this photography blog is because I just stumbled upon “A Closer Look at the Destruction in Haiti,” an interactive Web feature produced by “The New York Times.” Text below the title invited me to “Zoom in on the images below and examine up close some of the damage caused by the earthquake in Haiti.”

The fist image — “Canapé Vert area, Port-au-Prince” — is very hard to read. Thus the zoom slider. I can zoom in and Continue reading “Does Looking Too Close Make Us Feel More Distant?”

Tags: "A Closer Look at the Destruction in Haiti", "Clarin", BBC News, Documentary Photography, Earthquake in Haiti, Photojournalism, Robert Capa, The New York Times