Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations
Watch Live

Remembering Michel du Cille: Photos Of Sorrow And Triumph In Liberia

Ebola survivor, Klubo Mulbah, center, a physician's assistant who was infected by a patient, celebrates among friends and family on September 24, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. She was among 15 Liberian patients who recovered from Ebola and were released from the ELWA 2 Ebola Treatment Center.
The Washington Post The Washington Post/Getty Images
Ebola survivor, Klubo Mulbah, center, a physician's assistant who was infected by a patient, celebrates among friends and family on September 24, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. She was among 15 Liberian patients who recovered from Ebola and were released from the ELWA 2 Ebola Treatment Center.

The glow from a crematorium fire lights up the night sky where bodies of people who died from Ebola are cremated on in Monrovia, Liberia.
Michel du Cille The Washington Post/Getty Images
The glow from a crematorium fire lights up the night sky where bodies of people who died from Ebola are cremated on in Monrovia, Liberia.

Two people lay dead on the floor inside the critical ward of the Redemption Hospital, which has become a transfer and holding center to intake Ebola patients located in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Monrovia.
Michel du Cille The Washington Post/Getty Images
Two people lay dead on the floor inside the critical ward of the Redemption Hospital, which has become a transfer and holding center to intake Ebola patients located in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Monrovia.

Advertisement
Alexander Morris lays flat on his back after he fainted due to the extreme heat inside a protective suit, while the Lofa County Health Department team buries his sister, on November 7, 2014 in Voinjama, Liberia.
Michel du Cille The Washington Post via Getty Images
Alexander Morris lays flat on his back after he fainted due to the extreme heat inside a protective suit, while the Lofa County Health Department team buries his sister, on November 7, 2014 in Voinjama, Liberia.

Three-time Pulitzer winning photographer Michel du Cille died on Thursday while on assignment in Liberia for The Washington Post. The paper says du Cille collapsed while walking on foot from a village in Liberia's Bong County. He was taken to a hospital but died of an apparent heart attack.

Du Cille, 58, was renowned, known for capturing intimate scenes of sorrow and triumph. The Washington Post has an obituary of the Jamaican-born du Cille.

We'll remember him here with four photographs he took in Liberia, covering the Ebola outbreak. Back in October, du Cille wrote for the paper that this assignment was tough, because throughout his career he's always aimed for compassion and dignity.

"Respect is often the last and only thing that the world can offer a deceased or dying person," he wrote for the Post. "Yet the camera itself seems to be a betrayal of the dignity I so hope to offer. Sometimes, the harshness of a gruesome scene simply cannot be sanitized. How does one give dignity to the image of a woman who has died and is lying on the ground, unattended, uncovered and alone as people walk by or gaze from a distance? But I believe that the world must see the horrible and dehumanizing effects of Ebola. The story must be told; so one moves around with tender care, gingerly, without extreme intrusion."

Here is some of his work:

Advertisement

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.