May 22, 2015

Ukrainian Australian wins Pulitzer for photography during Ebola crisis

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Daniel Berehulak

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Daniel Berehulak

PARSIPPANY, N.J. – Daniel Berehulak, a freelance Australian photographer and photojournalist, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize on April 20 for his feature photography work on the Ebola breakout in West Africa for The New York Times.

“This award makes me think of all the people that shared their lives with me so that I was able to document this ghastly and horrible virus,” Mr. Berehulak told The New York Times. “It preys on our humanity – on everything that makes us human. People can’t hold their loved ones in their last dying moments because that’s when the virus is the most potent.”

From doctors to gravediggers, Mr. Berehulak captured images of those on the front lines of the disease for 67 straight days before taking a break. To cover the story, Mr. Berehulak had to take extreme precautions, often encasing himself from head to toe in protective gear, while confronting extreme physical and emotional hardships.

“Covering the spread and devastating impact of the Ebola virus in West Africa is by far the most challenging and important assignment of my career,” he told The Times. “It was not war in the conventional sense, it was not a conflict that was wholly visible. But it was in so many ways a battle that captivated and frightened the world. And I would be lying to say I was not also afraid at times.”

Mr. Berehulak, 39, a native of Sydney, Australia who is based in Barcelona and New Delhi, has visited more than 60 countries, including Iraq, India, Japan and Ukraine. He was a 2011 Pulitzer Prize finalist for his coverage of the 2010 floods in Pakistan, and his work has been awarded three World Press Photo awards, the John Faber award from the Overseas Press Club, and last year, Pictures of the Year International named him the Freelance/Agency Photographer of the Year.

Growing up in a Ukrainian household to post-second world war immigrant parents, Mr. Berehulak worked on the family farm and at his father’s refrigeration company. He honed his photography skills while he traveled as a college volleyball player. After college, following the death of his sister when she was 23, he seriously pursued a career as a photographer, shooting sporting events for a man who ran his business from his garage.

Continuing in sports photography, in 2002 Mr. Berehulak began freelance work for Getty Images in Sydney, and in 2005-2009 he worked from London as a staff photographer for Getty. After London, he moved to New Delhi, where he worked for Getty providing coverage of the Indian subcontinent, focusing on the social and political instability of Pakistan and its neighbors.

“You need to spend time and treat people you photograph with the utmost respect and show them in the most dignified way possible,” Mr. Berehulak explained to The Times. “Everyone is human and I don’t see any hierarchy. That’s a fundamental part of portraying people and people’s lives.”

Other Pulitzer Prize finalists (for breaking news photography) included documentary photographer Mauricio Lima, and freelance photographers Sergey Ponomarev and Uriel Sinai, for their coverage of the events in Ukraine since the Euro-Maidan protests for The New York Times. (http://www.pulitzer.org/2015_breaking_news_photography_finalist_1).

Mr. Lima, a Brazilian, was responsible for taking a photo of Irina Dovgan, a beauty salon manager in Donetsk, who was being publicly shamed and her life threatened for her support of Ukraine. Mr. Ponomarev, a Russian national, was on Independence Square since late 2013, living in tents or in hotel rooms, within earshot of the protest that ousted former president Viktor Yanukovych. Mr. Sinai, an Israeli, captured a photo of militant leader Pavel Gubaryev, as he attempted to pass himself off as a serious leader, following the forceful take-over of the Donetsk administration buildings.

On May 5, Mr. Berehulak reported for The Times from Nepal and his photographs from the areas devastated by the recent earthquakes have been seen worldwide.

Mr. Berehulak stated: “I met the soldiers when I arrived here by helicopter Tuesday, having hitched a tide from Pokhkara with the Indian military on one of its aid runs. The only other way to get to Barpak, 100 miles northwest of the capital, Kathmandu, is to hike for six hours up a narrow mountain trail popular among visiting trekkers, but now rendered mostly inaccessible by fallen rocks and made more dangerous by persistent aftershocks. I quickly learned how to tell when a new tremor was coming: All of the dogs in the village started barking. Then the earth shook.”

Examples of Mr. Berehulak’s work in Nepal can be viewed at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/world/asia/nepal-earthquake-photos.html, and more information about his Pulitzer Prize can be found at www.pulitzer.org/citation/2015-Feature-Photography.

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