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To document the veterans at Walter Reed hospital with PTSD, du Cille photographed Army Sgt. John Daniel Shannon, a sniper who was injured in Iraq, with his son, Drake Shannon (right). Michel du Cille/The Washington Post/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Michel du Cille/The Washington Post/Getty Images

To document the veterans at Walter Reed hospital with PTSD, du Cille photographed Army Sgt. John Daniel Shannon, a sniper who was injured in Iraq, with his son, Drake Shannon (right).

Michel du Cille/The Washington Post/Getty Images

The friends and colleagues of Michel du Cille are in shock. They simply can't believe that the photographer with the deep voice and the gentle soul is gone. He died on Dec. 11 of an apparent heart attack while covering the Ebola crisis in Liberia for the Washington Post.

Ben de la Cruz, visuals editor for global health and development at NPR, worked for du Cille at the Post. We asked him to share his memories of the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner.

How did you first encounter du Cille?

Through his images. When I joined the Post in January 2000, [the paper] was featuring his photography from Sierra Leone in the aftermath of the Civil War. He did a photo essay in a camp for people who had amputated limbs [which had been hacked off during the conflict]. This kid is walking down the street of the camp with crutches. The sunlight is in back of him, there's an orange glow. For me, this photo symbolized the plight of the kids.

A picture like that could seem exploitive. I take it this one did not.

Michel was all about gaining the trust of people and presenting these people with dignity. There's this quote I was reading last night from [Washington Post editor] Gene Weingarten. Du Cille was doing this story about this community in Miami. After two weeks Weingarten asked him, "How's the shoot's going?" And du Cille hadn't even taken out his camera yet. He said, first the trust and then the shooting.

So he didn't just parachute in and start taking pictures.

You don't get access to anything, you don't get those intimate moments, unless you have the trust of the people. He was able to have such a long, illustrious career because he really cared about the stories and the people in them.

What was he like as a boss?

He had a tough exterior. When you were called into his office and he looked at you with a poker face, you weren't sure what he was going to say. He always spoke in this slow, deep voice that gave gravitas to everything he said. But he had an infectious laugh and a great smile. I'll always be grateful for getting the chance to learn from him.

What did you think of his coverage of Ebola?

He was fearless. He showed people lying in the street not able to get into the hospital. He went into Redemption Hospital, where it's clearly dangerous [because of the Ebola patients] and showed the conditions that people are in: crowded rooms, people lying on mattresses. It doesn't look like a modern hospital because it isn't. I think his pictures really bring it home: This is why it's so hard to control Ebola.

How would you describe his photographic voice?

He tried to capture emotion. The reason people see his photography as impactful is because there is that emotion that connects us, that humanizes the subject and story.

The Post interviewed him about photography and he said he's from the old school: Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, is what he said. And I thought, that's a good way to think about it.

Michel Du Cille

ebola

photography

On Christmas, a slew of Oscar hopefuls will hit theaters, taking on the kind of important topics you might expect from such prestige pictures: corruption in contemporary Russia, the psychological aftereffects of war, the struggles of the civil rights movement. In their company, the eccentricities of Alexandre Rockwell's Little Feet, which is getting a digital release on Vimeo and Fandor as well as a theatrical run in New York, stand out even more than normal. Shot in 16mm black-and-white and clocking in at a snappy 60 minutes, the movie could almost function as an opening short, certainly as a refreshing appetizer, for the more ambitious films receiving award chatter.

That's not to suggest the film is slight or shallow. Cutesiness and whimsy do feature prominently, but that's impossible to avoid given that the movie is about two siblings, Lana and Nico (played by Rockwell's children of the same names), who, upon discovering that one of their two goldfish has died, embark on a journey across Los Angeles to set the second one free in the Pacific Ocean. In fact, in its own understated way and without undermining the film's otherwise lighthearted mood, Little Feet broaches some serious topics of its own.

Nico and Lana, we surmise in the film's opening scenes, have recently lost their mother. The death of one of their goldfish affects them deeply, then, although it's evident that the two kids regularly process their lives through the lens of fantasy even before that — at one point, Lana tells Nico a story about a panda that becomes depressed after the death of his best friend. The moment comes only shortly after the brief appearance of their father (played by Rockwell), who we see passed out on the couch with a bottle of vodka.

Nico and Lana's journey, then, carries metaphorical weight, but it's not overwhelmed or defined by it. Little Feet doesn't merely explore escapism; it channels it. Not in the style of Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom, which may come to mind watching these children, but in a way much more ramshackle in its construction, more immediately and obviously a product of a child's imagination, with all the digressions and disorganization that entails.

Little Feet's end titles, in fact, give a story credit to "Lana and Dad," which is appropriate for a film that feels very much like a home movie, with father, son, and daughter playing dress-up around the city. Lana at one point walks around in a skeleton jumpsuit. Nene (Rene Cuante), a neighbor who joins Nico and Lana on their journey, dons a captain's hat and 3D glasses. Together, they look like they've just finished cleaning out the local thrift store.

A similarly disordered style permeates much of Little Feet, but of course, when dad is a renowned indie filmmaker, the results are a touch above what the rest of us might hope to produce in similar circumstances. Rockwell's presence is also felt in the occasional spurt of more provocative adult humor, such as when the three kids, in an attempt to get enough money for the bus to the ocean, collect empty liquor bottles off the street to cash in the deposit.

But what's most striking, in the end, are the kids themselves: Nico's rambunctious energy, his devotion to Lana, her tender protection of him. ("I love you Lana. In my brains and my heart," Nico says in one of the movie's more aww-inspiring moments.) They, along with a propulsive soundtrack, hold the film together, if only by a string. Shagginess is the movie's definitive trait, after all, which ultimately only further signals why Little Feet offers a compelling antidote to most other movies on the release calendar this month: Far from being precisely molded to elicit an emotional response, Little Feet is content to let the pieces fall more haphazardly and to seek resonance in small moments rather than grand, dramatic gestures.

Samuel Gbarzeki is fed up.

"How can we cope?" he asks.

The university professor, who teaches English to freshmen and sophomores, has been out of work since July when Liberia's government suspended schools because of the Ebola outbreak.

"Ebola is very, very dangerous because it kills and has no boundaries," he says. "But people don't know what to do. They go to bed hungry because jobs have stopped."

The trim man is wearing a tan baseball cap, pressed khaki shorts and a spotless white T-shirt. He will admit to being "something over 60 years old."

Gbarzeki says Ebola has hit at a particularly bad time for Liberians. It's one of the world's 10 poorest countries. But things had started to look up. A little more than a decade after a brutal civil war had brought the impoverished nation to its knees, authorities say Liberia was beginning to stabilize. The gross national income, for example, has been on a slow but steady upward trend.

Then came the outbreak. Unemployment has soared. Today, Liberia has become a nation of peddlers.

Gbarzeki is standing among a small crowd in front of the Daily Talk news board. The board, which stands 10 feet high and 15 feet wide on busy Tubman Boulevard in Monrovia, is an innovative and low-tech approach to sharing news in a nation where many don't own a television or a radio and can't afford a newspaper.

The board is the brainchild of Alfred Sirleaf, a journalist who created it in 2000, three years before the war ended. He updates the blackboard by hand several times a week, writing headlines in white chalk. A river of people flows past including pedestrians, laborers and multiple vendors of food, clothes, clocks, eyeglasses, kola nuts, shoes. Many stop to look at the day's news.

The headlines on Dec. 2 include: "AFTER KILLING NEARLY 6,000 PEOPLE IN AFRICA, DEATH RATE DROP WITH EBOLA ON THE RUN; DUE TO KILLER EBOLA FEAR SUPREME COURT HALTS ELECTIONS, ORDERS CANDIDATES TO STOP ACTIVITIES; CRIMINALS ENTER PRES SIRLEAF'S COMPOUND FROM BEACH SIDE STEAL WINDOW GLASSES.

Gbarzeki is stunned by this last bulletin.

"This is very astonishing," he says. "Because a president is supposed to have maximum security. If criminals can do this, it's very astonishing"

Gbarzeki says he is not a daily visitor but has been stopping by the board recently for updates on elections due to be held Dec. 16. Liberia's Supreme Court is reviewing a petition that the elections be postponed due to Ebola. But President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's government wants them to go ahead, even though it has banned mass gatherings.

Gbarzeki reflects the opinion of many standing around him when he says he doesn't understand the logic.

"According to our president, because of Ebola we should not assemble," he says. "Now they are saying elections should be held."

Gbarzeki says life was hard before Ebola.

Now?

"If Ebola closes everything, where do people get money to feed their family?," he asks. "People can hardly put food on the on table for their family. We are hurt."

ebola

Liberia

On Christmas, a slew of Oscar hopefuls will hit theaters, taking on the kind of important topics you might expect from such prestige pictures: corruption in contemporary Russia, the psychological aftereffects of war, the struggles of the civil rights movement. In their company, the eccentricities of Alexandre Rockwell's Little Feet, which is getting a digital release on Vimeo and Fandor as well as a theatrical run in New York, stand out even more than normal. Shot in 16mm black-and-white and clocking in at a snappy 60 minutes, the movie could almost function as an opening short, certainly as a refreshing appetizer, for the more ambitious films receiving award chatter.

That's not to suggest the film is slight or shallow. Cutesiness and whimsy do feature prominently, but that's impossible to avoid given that the movie is about two siblings, Lana and Nico (played by Rockwell's children of the same names), who, upon discovering that one of their two goldfish has died, embark on a journey across Los Angeles to set the second one free in the Pacific Ocean. In fact, in its own understated way and without undermining the film's otherwise lighthearted mood, Little Feet broaches some serious topics of its own.

Nico and Lana, we surmise in the film's opening scenes, have recently lost their mother. The death of one of their goldfish affects them deeply, then, although it's evident that the two kids regularly process their lives through the lens of fantasy even before that — at one point, Lana tells Nico a story about a panda that becomes depressed after the death of his best friend. The moment comes only shortly after the brief appearance of their father (played by Rockwell), who we see passed out on the couch with a bottle of vodka.

Nico and Lana's journey, then, carries metaphorical weight, but it's not overwhelmed or defined by it. Little Feet doesn't merely explore escapism; it channels it. Not in the style of Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom, which may come to mind watching these children, but in a way much more ramshackle in its construction, more immediately and obviously a product of a child's imagination, with all the digressions and disorganization that entails.

Little Feet's end titles, in fact, give a story credit to "Lana and Dad," which is appropriate for a film that feels very much like a home movie, with father, son, and daughter playing dress-up around the city. Lana at one point walks around in a skeleton jumpsuit. Nene (Rene Cuante), a neighbor who joins Nico and Lana on their journey, dons a captain's hat and 3D glasses. Together, they look like they've just finished cleaning out the local thrift store.

A similarly disordered style permeates much of Little Feet, but of course, when dad is a renowned indie filmmaker, the results are a touch above what the rest of us might hope to produce in similar circumstances. Rockwell's presence is also felt in the occasional spurt of more provocative adult humor, such as when the three kids, in an attempt to get enough money for the bus to the ocean, collect empty liquor bottles off the street to cash in the deposit.

But what's most striking, in the end, are the kids themselves: Nico's rambunctious energy, his devotion to Lana, her tender protection of him. ("I love you Lana. In my brains and my heart," Nico says in one of the movie's more aww-inspiring moments.) They, along with a propulsive soundtrack, hold the film together, if only by a string. Shagginess is the movie's definitive trait, after all, which ultimately only further signals why Little Feet offers a compelling antidote to most other movies on the release calendar this month: Far from being precisely molded to elicit an emotional response, Little Feet is content to let the pieces fall more haphazardly and to seek resonance in small moments rather than grand, dramatic gestures.