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Story of the Photo of the Year

Photo of the Year - Martin Bandzak

“I took the photograph of the girl in Haiti three weeks after the earthquake where I went with a team of doctors from the humanitarian organisation MAGNA Children at Risk to document the aftermath of the natural disaster. I found and photographed the girl in a local hospital (Haitian Community Hospital) in Port-au-Prince. She was sitting alone in a small hospital room. The room as very narrow and dark, the only light coming in was through the door. I walked in and sat opposite her. The girl was looking somewhere into distance and I felt that she didn’t even notice my presence. In contrast to the chaos in the hospital, her room was strangely quiet. After a while the girl looked at me and didn’t stop even when I started to take pictures of her. I was afraid that I was going to disturb her but she kept staring at me without moving. There was a lot of commotion outside the room; hospital staff was rushing around as new patients were brought in.

She didn’t move, she didn’t speak, just kept looking at me. She didn’t make a sound. It was as if she was trying to say something to me but she didn’t have to. Her expression said it all. I took a few more photographs of her and we looked at each other again in silence. I felt as though for a brief moment I became a part of her tragic story.

Slowly I got up and left the room. When I returned the next day, she wasn’t there. I don’t know her name, I don’t know where she went; I don’t know whether she got separated from her parents in the earthquake. I only know that I shall never forget her unwavering gaze.”

Martin Bandzak took the photograph with Canon D5 with 24mm lens and converted it to black and white.