Tuesday, March 28, 2017

A visual record of Venezuela's collapse into chaos

Over the last four years, as Venezuela descended into economic and social chaos, Meridith Kohut, a Houston-born photographer based in Caracas, built one of the most complete photographic chronicles of the country’s collapse. Working for the New York Times, she covered the breakdown of Venezuela’s public hospitals, workers flocking to illegal gold mines, people turning to drug smugglers to get out of the country, as well as a wave of extrajudicial killings at the hands of the police and military.

For one of these stories — a deep look at the state-run psychiatric hospital called El Pampero — she has just received the Overseas Press Club of America’s Feature Photography prize, a prestigious award shared in previous years by photographers such as Christopher Morris, David Guttenfelder and Marcus Bleasdale .... http://time.com