Under a Grudging Sun

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Magnum photographer Webb visited Haiti at several intervals in the past decade and a half, observing radical shifts in that island's political fortunes, from the brutality of ``Papa Doc'' Duvalier's regime to the brief freedom following his downfall to a military coup and government-controlled ``elections.'' But, meanwhile, Webb also looked carefully at Haiti's everyday colors and textures, sounds and smells. His 58 color photographs, taken during 1986-88, are vibrantly physical evocations of wind and light brushing against scenes of extreme human privation. Some pictures are gently elegiac: a plantation house dwindling into decay; a waterfall where people bathe, savoring a reprieve from heat and dust. A portrait of four schoolboys saying prayers, each using his own gestural language, offers a striking oasis of calm. In pictures of political victims--whose martyrdom speaks for itself--Webb wisely refrains from editorial comment or compositional cleverness. His attention to the details of a hardscrabble peasant existence, though compromised by the voluptuous glamour of a few images, generally stays true to the workaday energy of Haitians, held tragically in check. (May)