Shooting the apocalypse

How do you shoot the apocalypse? Or something very like it?

That's the question faced by photojournalists in the aftermath of any large-scale natural disaster - and an answer of sorts is provided in the Independent by Carlos Barria from Reuters, one of the first on the scene in Haiti.

Early on the morning of Wednesday, 13 January, Carlos Barria left his home in Miami and flew to Port-au-Prince aboard a chartered private jet. Roughly 12 hours earlier, an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale had been recorded 10 miles west of the city. Initial reports hinted at apocalyptic damage and loss of life. But since the Haitian capital's communication links to the outside world had been all but destroyed, Barria, a senior staff photographer with the Reuters news agency, had no idea what he might find.

After landing, he rushed through the airport and flashed a $100 bill at a motorcycle, telling the driver to take him straight to the centre of town. A few hundred yards down the road, they passed a twisted corpse, lying in the gutter. Barria leapt off the bike, snapped dozens of shots on his Canon 5D MKII, and continued on his way. Little did he know that within half an hour, dead people would appear so commonplace as to be almost unworthy of his attention.

Read his full story here - and see a selection of his haunting photos here.