- Document of Disaster
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Daniel Morel was born in Haiti in 1951. On 12 November 1964 he witnessed the public execution in Port-au-Prince of Louis Drouin and Marcel Numa—the last two survivors of the group Jeune Haïti (Young Haiti), which had planned to overthrow the regime of François "Papa Doc" Duvalier. The next day, a photographer who had recorded the rebels' deaths posted the frame-by-frame images in the front of his studio. According to Morel, it was a gruesome sight for a young child, but it made him realize that he wanted to take pictures, too: "I thought that by being a photographer I would learn not to be scared of anything." For over twenty years, Morel has documented his native country, capturing its culture, history, and people. His photographs have appeared in the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and the Wall Street Journal. He was the resident photographer for the Associated Press for fourteen years, until 2004, and has received a Citation for Excellence from the Overseas Press Club of America, the AP Award of Excellence, and the Sam Chavkin Prize for Integrity in Latin American Journalism. He has been the recipient of grants from the Soros/Open Society Foundation Documentary Photo Project to host a series of photo exhibitions in Haiti and New York aimed at enabling Haitian Americans and Haitians in Haiti to address their past and collaborate toward a positive future. As a producer, his film projects include Unfinished Country, about the Haiti elections, aired on Wide Angle on PBS in 2006, and When the Drum Is Beating, a feature-length documentary, currently in postproduction, about the revered Haitian big band Septentrional.