Photo: 2010 Earthquake in Haiti
Life Magazine
One partly cloudy Sunday in Port-au-Prince, not long after the epic earthquake, a photograph was taken of a throng of congregants as they prayed and chanted beside the tall pile of rubble that once was their cathedral.
In the foreground of the photograph, a woman held her hands high, as high as hands can be held, and pointed her face toward the sun, the muscles of her face slack. Had her wrists not been fastened – or so it seemed – to the blue sky above her head, her shoulders would have fallen to the cracked and buckling pavement on which she knelt, crushed by the weight of existence.
Yet her hands floated effortlessly heavenward, buoyed by invisible breezes. Her smile was a smile of ease and abandon, and she faced the ax of the universe with eagerness, serenity and clarity.
Photo: 2003 Earthquake in Iran
Life Magazine