The Miami Herald, by Patrick Farrell

Patrick Farrell, 49, has been a staff photographer for The Miami Herald since 1987. His assignments have taken him to Turkey, Haiti, Cuba and throughout Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean.

He was part of the Miami Herald staff that won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for the coverage of Hurricane Andrew’s devastation in South Florida.

He graduated in 1981 with a bachelor of arts degree in television and film production from the University of Miami. A native of Miami, he grew up in a family of 12 children and discovered photography at age 13, when he destroyed a bathroom in his parents’ home by turning it into a darkroom. (His five sisters still haven’t quite forgiven him.)

Farrell started his career working for several small community papers in Florida. He has twice been named the National Press Photographers Association’s Region 6 Newspaper Photographer of the Year (in 1992 and 1993). He also was named Southern Photographer of the Year in 1989 and again in 1993 at the Southern Short Course in Photography, the country’s longest-running photojournalism seminar.

In 2008, the Herald repeatedly sent Farrell to Haiti, which bore the brunt of the year’s Atlantic Hurricane Season. He was there the night Hurricane Ike - the fourth storm to hit Haiti in a month - reflooded the overwhelmed country, swallowing homes and lives. In all, more than 800 Haitians died and more than 1 million were left homeless by the unrelenting series of storms.