Frank Fournier		This interview with Frank Fournier was conducted by Christina McQuade in 2005. S&W3: Can you tell the story of how you came to take this photograph? F.F.: It is a long story. At the time, I was in New York working on a project on AIDS. It was 1985. I had been spending quite a lot of time on AIDS; very few people were working on this at the time. I mention this to show that the agency I work with, Contact Press Images, was very focused on issues of human concern. We were preoccupied with those issues, not only here but also abroad in developing countries. I remember receiving a phone call at 11:15 in the morning and being told that there had been a volcano eruption in South America. Believe it or not, by 11:20 am, I was able to call my agency to tell them that I had booked a flight, packed my cameras, and that I was going. I arranged to have someone bring me a bit of cash at the airport, where I had a flight at 12:20 pm for Miami, and then on to Bogotá. It was kind of tight, but it worked. At the time, I was aware that in Bogotá, eight days prior to the eruption, there had been a takeover of the judicial palace by a counter political group called M-19 [also known as Movimiento 19 de Abril]. The group had taken many hostages including judges and lawyers and the army had responded with a siege of the palace. There was a lot of controversy because during the siege, all of the hostages were killed. At some point, though, the government managed to take over. I mention the political climate of the time because it is important to know that the government was clearly in charge and that it had the ability to move the army and to use helicopters, in essence, to do things that included coming to the rescue of people. It was on a Wednesday night that the Nevado del Ruiz Volcano blew up. The volcano stood pretty high at over 5,000 meters [15,000 feet] with permanent ice on its peak. Volcanologists from universities in the United States and from Colombia had already cautioned officials that this volcano would most likely blow in a month or so. They were expecting some kind of geological event that would have deep consequences depending on the intensity of the eruption. They thought that even the smallest of eruptions would cause tons of water to flood the valley. At the bottom of the valley was a small dam that volcanologists were concerned about because the dam would not be able to sustain the water pressure. And with a linked earthquake, the dam would most likely crack. When you have a volcano, there are always earthquakes and land tremors that follow. When you have water and tons of stones and trees falling down the mountain in an eruption like this, you know entire villages are going to be wiped out. There were several peasant villages along the slopes of the volcano with rich farmland, fair weather and good food. Many people from Bogotá had houses there. Volcanologists were especially afraid for a town called Armero at the bottom of that valley, which had a population of around 25,000�30,000 people. At 10:30 p.m., when villagers in and around Armero heard that there had been a small eruption, they all got scared and started to panic. There was a soccer game on television that night that everyone was watching. The electricity went out and everyone panicked. They knew that the volcano had done something and they went to church to pray. At around 11:15, about 45 minutes later, the first lava and water and stones started to reach Armero. In a very short amount of time it wiped out the town and kept going. There was chaos, of course. I think the total was between 28,000 to 32,000 people killed. These deaths could have been prevented. The church was involved, the military was involved, and the politicians were all involved. What was so frustrating was that none of them took the fundamental responsibility to protect the people. People were expecting some kind of leadership, but it never came. Knowing that there was going to be an eruption, an evacuation plan should have already been in place. S&W3: Were you informed about all of this before you went? F.F.: No. I was informed of the palace takeover, so I knew about the political climate. On my way there, I remember calling my agency from Miami and asking, "I am on my way to cover a volcano, where do I start? What am I going to cover? Do you have any new information? Where am I supposed to go? Where are most of the casualties? What exactly happened?" They had no idea, there was little to go by. One of the reasons the agency knew about the eruption was because a friend of ours, Lucia Annunziata, a writer, was working in Colombia, and placed a call to tell us. She was an Italian reporter who was covering the palace takeover. That's how we knew early. Upon arriving in Bogotá, I went to the Intercontinental Hotel where some members of the press were staying, including some from Time magazine, and I started asking them what was going on. They explained that I could get to the scene by plane. Time magazine had managed to ferry a small jet to the area. It was a Thursday evening when I arrived. Time magazine was trying to ship material back by 1:15pm on Friday. This was the cutoff time for shipping film back as well. It was about a five to six hour drive through mountain passes to the town of Armero. They thought I should use the jet. The jet was going to land about 30 kilometers [about 18 miles] from the worst hit areas. I listened to them and took the jet. It was a bit of a mistake because it couldn't take off before sunrise but I did manage to arrive by 6:30 that morning and started to work. It was very hard going. Once there, I managed to board a rescue helicopter and fly above patches of ground surrounded by lava and volcanic hot sand. People were being rescued out of these areas. That's how we started to work. I gave my film to Time and went back to work until late that evening. I got myself back to Bogotá and tried to get more information. S&W3: Had you originally been commissioned by Time magazine to cover the eruption, or did you go on your own? F.F.: I went on my own. Time magazine hired me along the way. I shipped my film with the plane that had been chartered by Time magazine. At that time, film needed to be processed, edited and sent to the printer. At the very latest, Time magazine needed the film by early Saturday morning. They wanted this to be the cover story, so they needed that film badly. The issue had to be in the stands by early Monday morning. All these deadlines create enormous pressure. That first morning was difficult. There was major chaos. Most of the people I was speaking to were totally disoriented, anxious, or ill-informed because they were further away from the hardest hit areas. So I was navigating through all of this mass confusion and logistical chaos. I went through villages where hundreds of body parts lined the sides of streets and where dead bodies were totally distorted. It was pretty gruesome and disturbing. Even survivors barely seemed alive. Everybody was in total shock. People had lost or were missing brothers, sisters, parents, uncles, children or friends. It was very challenging. At that time, I knew I had not yet reached the heart of the story. In order to physically reach the center of the devastation, t he town of Armero, I needed to walk about two and a half hours from the closest road. To go back and forth from Bogotá to Armero, you needed an additional 10 hours, not counting the time for shooting. Logistically it was very difficult. Early that morning, I was determined to walk to the center of town into areas I did not know. I walked through fields and pastures crossing people that were so overwhelmed; they seemed to be like walking zombies. They were shivering from the cold, dehydrated, starving, and shocked. They had no idea where their loved ones were, where they were going, what they wanted to do. They were devastated. It was mind boggling for me. Twenty years later, it still feels like yesterday. While making my way through this horror, I met this young farmer who told me that there was this girl that was still alive but trapped. It was confusing. I could not quite make out what he was trying to tell me. S&W3: Did you speak the language? F.F.: I speak a little bit of Spanish, nothing too elaborate. I am no Gabriel García Márquez. I was also tired. What I understood was that this person was alive, that she needed help, and that the farmer did not know what to do. I thought that if I could help, I should try. I was not thinking in terms of photographs, I was thinking about helping someone alive to get out. So I followed him. You know, sometimes you trust people. You have that sense of whom you should trust and whom you should not. I let this person drive me forty minutes to that situation. When we arrived, Omayra was by herself because other villagers and rescue people were trying to take care of someone else a little further away. By then, the Colombian government had simply declared the entire area a "national cemetery." This was revolting to us, that in 24 hours the government would decide that this was a national cemetery period. It cleared the government from further rescue attempts and allowed them to spray chalk over the entire area. (This is usually done to avoid the spread of disease and bacteria.) By declaring the area a national cemetery the voices of all those people still trapped by the aftermath of the eruption went unheard. As I walked through the night, everything was so quiet; no rustling of leaves, no flapping of wings, but what made it so eerie was that out of this silence you could hear people screaming for help. As you walked towards the voices, you often fell into ditches as you had no way of knowing what kind of terrain was under the hot, sandy, watery surface. At times you risked drowning. Sometimes you would start walking towards those screams and realize that you had to turn back, knowing they were unreachable. In other areas everything had been totally cleared, wiped out, or pushed up against the hills. That is what had happened to Omayra. She had been swept down the valley. When I reached her, it was about 6:30 in the morning. I tried talking to her. She was confused about what had happened. She could remember that she had been in her house and that she had been to church, but after that, she could not remember a thing. According to local people, Omayra was now about a mile away from her house. She had been pushed along with much debris against a hill on the edge of town. Among the debris was a lot of corrugated metal along with sections of homes and parts belonging to coffee warehouses. Not only was she stuck, trapped from the waist down by a huge amount of weight that was putting pressure on her legs, but according to a villager who was at her side, she had also been perforated at the hips. When I reached Omayra, she had already been trapped there for three days. Initially, she had been stuck there with her aunt, who died attached to her. When the aunt died, Omayra almost drowned with her. Many people tried to help Omayra. Phone calls were placed to rescue teams operating in the area. Medical equipment and personnel were badly needed, but none arrived. My experience in these situations is that you need highly trained technicians and medical people to take care of a person in that kind of situation. When you have so much pressure on a leg, you have to run an IV with some kind of inflating device to maintain pressure on it, because if you release the pressure right away, toxic chemicals that form by a lack of circulation will spread through the body. You can kill a person this way. There had been big debates in Mexico a month before. People were pulled out of an earthquake very fast. They were alive and then two hours later they died from blood toxins. Other people were pulled out very slowly, and the survival rates were much higher. So even if medical help had arrived in time, it would have been very challenging to save Omayra. I knew that at the time. When I saw her, I knew she was going to die, and I knew that there was no way out for her. I have a bit of a medical background. When I was younger, I studied medicine for four years, so I knew there was little chance. I was devastated by what I was seeing, and by my inability to help her. You have to be pretty strong to face this kind of situation. To be so weak and unable to help is incredibly demanding and frustrating. I must say, I had been in difficult situations before, but my religious, ethical and moral values were definitely going through an earthquake of their own. I was unable to help and save this person. She was incredibly loving. She was twelve-and-a-half years old, very gentle and very sweet. She talked about where she came from. She saw that I was a foreigner and she even tried a couple of words in English with me. She even said: "Can you please help me get out of here? I don't want to be late for school; it starts at 8:30." You realize that the best you can do is to stay strong, to do your work the best you can, and face it with courage. I thought that the best way I could help was to portray and document the courage and the dignity that this person had at the time. The political, religious and military leaders had turned their backs on the situation and had shown a great lack of courage, determination and leadership. It was appalling. I am not saying it's easy; but at every level you could sense a lack of leadership. It was so sad to see. So what I wanted to do was to report on the courage, dignity, and strength of this girl facing death. At some point, Omayra went into a coma just as some local guys who knew her, and wanted so much to help her, managed to bring a pump. This was about an hour before she died. Unfortunately, pumping wouldn't have done very much because the water would have continued infiltrating. What was needed was a crane. Some even tried to dive into what was basically sewage to try and help her from underwater. The determination of these people was unbelievable. Others prayed with her and that was incredible. When they finally sensed that she was dying, they tried a cardiac massage and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. But she was leaving, and everybody was very upset. In the end, they let her body slip underwater, covered her with a coffee bag, and that was it. You know, at times, you just wanted to liberate her from her pain. Every kind of thought goes through your mind. Since she is going to die, why let her suffer so much? You do not even have the courage to help her die properly. Every kind of thought goes through your mind to try to make her last moments the best, the most comfortable. You feel weak and powerless. There were other people there; I was not the only photographer, but they could not stay because they had to catch their flights. There was a 4 o'clock plane leaving from Bogotá to make deadlines in Europe. Many people I knew took my film, and Eric Bouvet gave me film because I did not want to leave-I wanted to stay. I thought the story was more important than the deadline. I did not care about the deadline; I cared about her, about reporting the story in its entirety. I did not know if my reporting was going to help or not, but I was not going to leave. Many people's first reaction to Omayra's photograph is to ask: Why didn't he help her? This reaction does not anger me. In a certain way, when people are mad at me or at the situation, I understand that reaction. I think it's healthy in some ways. Photography is not television, it's different. In a sense it can be more powerful. In general, people seem to remember photographs better than video. Nobody blames what the television shows. TV crews were interviewing Omayra like a sport person after an event . . . How was it? How do you feel? What's going on? Did you talk to your mother? Do you know that your father is dead? That kind of thing. And so when they saw the photograph, somehow they got mad at the photographer. S&W3: Why do you think that is? F.F.: I can't say why, I just know it's like that. People can take more time to look at a photograph. It's a more private kind of experience than television. With television, you have the sound, there is a distance between you and the screen. You may be watching the news as you prepare the evening meal. I think the photographic memory and the connection to hold a magazine and look at it makes it a little more physical and maybe helps people to connect better. One can take time-or not-to travel into the photograph and get details. You have time for emotions to develop; in television you have twenty seconds. Also, it's often done in such a "show business" kind of way. You can sense when a documentary is well done. You remember better when it's done more respectfully. But it is still not as strong as a photograph. I am not trying to defend one medium over another, it is just the way I think of it. The point is that Omayra reached many, many people. About a year after the eruption, the Colombian Ambassador to the Netherlands informed me that an enormous sum of money had reached Colombia to aide all of those who had survived and been displaced by the eruption. He also informed me that everybody in Colombia and in other parts of the world knew of Omayra. In a way, she and many other victims helped to create a real evacuation plan for the future. Local villagers were trained to flee to higher ground for safety. That is why I thought it was so important to report the death of Omayra. I wanted to be sure that survivors were helped and that people would never [again] have to face a needless death. S&W3: Where and when was the photograph first published? F.F.: I had given my film to three or four different people, heading out of the area. Getting out involved five- or six-hour drives through mountain passes and fights with customs officials to get the film out of the country and on to Europe. I managed to get in touch with my agent in Paris. I did it via telex [a typing machine that sends messages through the airwaves] to let them know that the film was on its way thanks to different people and competing agencies and that she would have to gather the rolls. I also placed a call to let her know that I had documented a dreadful situation. I remember telling her that I was worried about the quality of the films that I had shot. Between the intense situation and fatigue, I was shaking a lot while taking pictures. The films needed to be pushed. At the time I did not know if Omayra was or will be known but I wanted to be sure that magazines portrayed the story and her respectfully. I did not want Omayra to be sensationalized. For the next few days, I kept working until things started to settle. By Wednesday, I received a call at the hotel and was told that the pictures had run in Paris Match. It became a big deal because they used it as the cover story and also in the inside of the magazine. Paris Match included images of Omayra by other photographers as well. Especially the photograph used in Talking Pictures [and reprinted here]. This one seems to be a little bit stronger than the others, because she connects with your eyes. It is like she is speaking to you. Many people got mad at me, which I did not mind-I understood it very well. Later on the picture was used in many ways by many people. It was out of my hands, and took on a life of its own. The agency submitted it and it won a few prizes, then the wires picked it up. During all of this, Contact Press Images played such an important, vital role. They picked, organized, processed and edited all the film. These photographs were the work of several people. That is why you include the name of the photographer and the name of the agency. The agency not only solves all the technical problems of transporting the film and gaining access to magazines, they also guarantee that images are being used properly. I must say that Contact Press Images did a very good job with this story. S&W3: How has the digital age changed this process? F.F.: It has changed it a lot. In a way it's great. Before, you were sending film and you had no idea what you had. You did not even know if you had exposed your film properly. Now the immediacy and tools of digital photography allow for greater control. The downside is that the pressure to be among the first to post on the Internet does not allow for depth, for the ability to absorb a story. In my view, that pressure becomes tantamount to disinformation and consequently a lie. I find that now people are less informed rather than more. And because there are only one, or two, or three main sources of information, it's amazing how even newspapers run the same things. We are not necessarily better informed. It is very disturbing. Some journalists are expressing themselves in books, as they prefer this format to magazines that make showpieces out of stories. Even in sports, it has become unbearable to listen to the Olympics. Everything is like a People magazine drama. The truth is that life is a lot more interesting than the way it is being presented. It is so much more fascinating; there is so much more to learn by working differently. One has to be courageous about how to proceed because it is financially demanding; you are going against the current. It seems that every time you want to do something you have to make a lot of noise. S&W3: The process sounds very ego-driven. F.F.: Yes! And one always has to remember: you are nothing. You are only a bridge between the situation and the readers. You do not exist. The only important thing is the story. Everything else is irrelevant. S&W3: Can you say more about what you mean by looking for the heart of a situation? F.F.: When you report, you are not informed. You are trying to understand what is going on. The story is progressing as you are trying to figure out the what, when, and how. You have to try and figure out a chain of events as time keeps moving forward. The sooner and closer you can be to the center of the story, the better. The more time passes, the more things get diluted. A writer or reporter can somehow rebuild a story. I cannot be a mile away from it. I have to be in it. You can always write a paper or interview people to reconstruct a scene. I have to physically be there. I am a photographer, if I am not there, I won't get it. S&W3: You undertook four years of medical studies before beginning your career in photography (in 1975). What made you make the career switch? F.F.: When I was younger, I always loved journalism, but I was discouraged by my family and went to medical school instead. I have been happy. I have covered many places and things and I have had tremendous access to events that have brought me deep insight. The people you encounter give you so much, and it is so intense. It is very important to be honest with the people you photograph and report. I wish I could give more back. These people trust you. That is why it's so important to do the best you can. You have to be very respectful. I went to Rwanda in 1994 using my frequent flyer mileage. I was by myself covering the story [the recent Rwandan genocide] for two weeks. I took all these photographs and I should have been happy-they were very well published. But I was devastated. I felt I had betrayed the people that I had photographed because [French president Fran�ois] Mitterrand and [President Bill] Clinton knew what was going to happen, but they just let things happen knowing that people would keep dying. The fact that the photographs had not provoked change, that the press could not somehow demand answers from our leaders, made me feel that the press was failing. I felt that things were not working within the system that I was part of. This made me really consider whether I could keep doing things this way. I had to start doing things differently. I was really devastated. It took me a long time to come out of it. S&W3: Do you feel you have made changes in the way you work since then? F.F.: I've worked very hard on it. It's a slow process. You are only a small piece of a chain, and there is only so much one can do. I try to keep the same attitude, but I have to work it out. I do not want to be part of a substandard chain. It is very irresponsible. It is destructive. Stories are bent to fit certain molds. S&W3: What could you do? F.F.: Being able to work on stories that you can control, on stories that you can follow through and that you know are going to be p ublished properly. Trying to work with people who work at agencies where things are being done the proper way. All of this is difficult; everyone goes through this challenge as well. It's a financial problem that one cannot ignore; you need to pay the rent. S&W3: What suggestions do you have for students who are reading and digesting media images and messages given your perspective? F.F.: To be suspicious, to be alert, to always understand the power of life. Also, that man is not necessarily always good.
			© Christine McQuade, April 21, 2005

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