By Eric Thayer

I’m running through the desert outside a tiny town called Encino with a Texas Department of Public Safety helicopter flying above me. As I move through trees and bushes, the sand is soft and every step is an effort. It feels like I am running on the spot as I hold my cameras close so they don’t swing into my sides. Border Patrol agents are all around me and the only noises are the helicopter above, my own labored breathing and the sound of footsteps in the sand.

GALLERY: SCENES FROM THE BORDER

In south Texas, the Rio Grande River separates the U.S. from Mexico. It is a brown river that varies between 50 to 100 yards across. On the surface, the water looks calm as it meanders through the brush, but it hides swirling currents – just one of the many hazards faced by those who cross. The line between the two countries is imaginary here, but if you could see it as it appears on a map, it would be right in the middle of the river.

At this moment, the border is about 60 miles south. I’m with the U.S. Border Patrol after a report from a local rancher of a group of people crossing over his land. If they make it across the river, through the brush and past the Border Patrol there are vehicles that will take them north. From this part of Texas, there is basically just one checkpoint left, called Falfurrias. If they are able to bypass that, they can move up into other parts of the state and to the rest of the country.

Ahead of me, a Border Patrol agent chases four men and I dash to keep up. They are running from a country, from a war and towards a better life. They are running for freedom. But sometimes it’s not that simple. That’s the thing about it down here – nothing is simple about this.

The border has always fascinated me. It’s a line on a map, but when you’re down by it sometimes you can’t even tell it’s there. Other times it’s glaringly obvious, marked out by fences, walls, checkpoints and security cameras.

People who decide to make this journey face a myriad of hazards on their way. Many never make it, and the numbers of those who don’t have been rising. In Brooks County, for example, sheriff’s deputies found 129 bodies in 2012, around twice the number tallied in 2011 and six times the amount recorded in 2010.

At the Casa del Migrante in Reynosa, a border city plagued by drug violence, people’s faces show fear and apprehension, but also a quiet determination to cross or, in some cases, to return.

There are stories of people being deported, their families still in the States, as they try to return home. But there are newcomers too, who are crossing for the first time, some from parts of southern Mexico, many from Central America. They stop here after being deported or before they go over the border, in order to eat, sleep, do laundry and regroup before heading north.

More than 80 miles north of Casa del Migrante, in the town of Falfurrias, Texas, there is a small section of the Sacred Heart Burial Park devoted to those who died in Brooks County and whose remains have not been identified. There are small mounds of dirt here, marked with tiny metal signs showing dates and words like: “Unknown Female Remains” or “Male Remains”.

No matter what your politics are on this issue, you can’t ignore the numbers. Death doesn’t care about politics.

The Border Patrol and the ranchers are on the ground, and they realize this is going to happen. The ranchers see the impact on their land and the Border Patrol has a job to do. They mitigate the problem as much as they can, building emergency water stations or even an emergency beacon that alerts officers when someone presses a well-marked button to be rescued. Their first priority is to protect human life.

Here in the cemetery, I find a grave with a sign that merely reads, “Bones”, a case number and a date. It’s the mark of a long journey that ended unceremoniously, a life that stopped somewhere in the vast expanse of desert, a human being swallowed up by a harsh landscape.

I’ve known her from an ample nation
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention
Like stone.

- Emily Dickenson

By Eric Thayer

Somewhere on the edge of reality is this place.

They live a frontier existence, a hard life made more harsh by the elements. No water, no electricity, it’s a wicked landscape, dotted with expensive RVs, beat-up trailers, tents, art installations. It’s a place that exists in legends that are told around campfires or by train hoppers huddled in a box car.

Everything about this place says fringe, passing along a weathered desert road outside a small town in the desert. Through a town that itself is a sort of gateway equidistant between two major highways, but close to neither on the bottom tip of the Salton Sea. I drive through town along a weathered strip of asphalt across two sets of railroad tracks to a dirt road. This is a place people go to get away from society, to escape, to go into self-proclaimed exile from the mainstream, into a society of travelers, hippies, snowbirds, artists, outcasts, the down on their luck, the slightly unhinged and the downright crazy.

Along the road Salvation Mountain rises up, a hill that was covered in what looks like concrete, in its shadow a small society goes on. A checkpoint, most likely from the military base that this place once was, is painted with a welcome message to Slab City, named after the slabs of concrete leftover from its days as a military base that served as foundations for the buildings.

I drive past newer looking recreational vehicles, along dirt roads, some camps have signs, addresses, or are decorated, while others are unmarked. Painted signs mark roads like Edge, The Low Road, among others, stopping at a colorfully painted trailer on the northern edge.

A Slabs resident named Jack talks about coming from San Francisco, he tells stories about when the police raided the Occupy camp there, and he was forced out. After that, he came here. He has an old painted trailer, a fire pit, and talks at length about his plans for his ever expanding camp, which he marks a “property line” with rocks. His goal is to build a pyramid he can live in. He gathers building materials, but this night, the cold outweighs the need for the stockpile, and he burns 2X4’s to keep the fire going. He and Princess Stephanie cook. She brings the rice, he brings the beans. They cook over an open fire, beans in the can and add two bags of rice to a pot of boiling water. Two bags would later be too much, though they find a taker in Blue for the extra. She’s French-Canadian with plans to travel the states, but for now she’s in the trailer with Jack. There is Purple and his dog Socks and a cat on a leash, Mickel wearing a hat with a feather, his tattoo that he drew himself, his tool belt where he keeps his leatherman and his tobacco, Gary, who makes bracelets, and gives me one. Jack’s neighbor Quasi lives in a 1980s Volkswagen van and his other neighbors are a couple with a dog named Bandit; he and his owner wander the desert during the day.

Nearby is a couple with three kids, I pass them as they build a fence. Following leaving Rhode Island after not being able to get by, they traveled for a bit and finally ended up here. “We got here with a pop up trailer, and now we have this,” he says, pointing to a Slab homestead in progress, with a full size trailer, and a trailer for the kids. “Come back in a few months, and you’ll see a big difference,” he says, setting a post for a picket fence around their space.

Much of what is here is re-used and recycled. Trailers and equipment are bought, sold, traded, occasionally stolen, or scavenged. Trailers that are too far gone are broken up and used for building material and firewood. There is also quite a bit of Slabs art that some have made over the years, the centerpiece being a place in the far corner of the Slabs called East Jesus, closest to what locals refer to as a military training ground, where during the day you can hear the bombs being dropped near the Chocolate Mountains, and at night you can hear the gunfire and helicopters and see the flares as training takes place.

At the internet café, Frank helps out a snowbird couple, as a couple that arrived from Wisconsin cooks the last of the food from their refrigerator, which stopped working on their way down to the Slabs. From watching their interactions, sharing seems to be a sure way to make friends quickly. A woman named Magenta talks about how she just got out of hospital after having congestive heart failure. She says she and her husband have been trying to get out of the Slabs for a while now, but they just can’t. They have had a string of bad luck, from buying a trailer infested with bed bugs to her and her husband both having heart problems to now living in a tent. “All we’re trying to do is figure out a way to get out of here.” She says, taking a drag from her cigarette.

There’s another man, named Mark, who represents another side to the Slabs, the snowbirds, many of whom live in Canada, who chase the warmer weather during the cold months up north. He spends half the year camped here in his motor home, and the other half living in his home on Vancouver Island. Often living on fixed incomes, they gather in places like Slab city, avoiding sometimes high camping fees in state and national parks. He says 180 days is what he is allowed to stay outside of Canada to maintain his health insurance in that country, so he drives down and spends his time with a community of others in Slab City. They used to have a club, but a change in leadership caused most of the members to quit. They still gather for a Friday night potluck dinner, with one of the men bringing catfish caught in the local reservoir.

For a place that people go to get away from society, the people of the Slabs still have a need to stick together, there is still a sense of belonging here, even in a place for those few who don’t really belong anywhere. The Slabs welcome just about everyone; whether or not they stay is based on their own ability to endure the elements and the primitive living conditions out in the desert.

In some ways I can relate to them, I wander, covering the news, culture, life, but always moving, thinking at the end of a weathered strip of asphalt will be the answers. Somewhere it will all make sense. Somewhere there is a home. For me, this wasn’t it, but it was an interesting few days in the desert, with some great people who graciously let me into their lives to document with a camera.

(View a slideshow of images here)

More than three months ago, a massive tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri, killing almost 160 people and destroying nearly 8,000 homes and businesses. For a week the story garnered national and international attention. A community of 50,000 people was thrust into the spotlight.

Images of destruction dominated newspapers and newscasts. Stories were told, lives shown fragmented, a bruised and battered community rallied, despite being in a collective state of shock. Then, slowly, as the pools of rainwater dried up, the residents dug through the deep wound cut a mile wide into the landscape, picking out pieces of their shattered lives. Slowly the attention faded, though work quietly continued.

Almost three months later, I returned to Joplin to get a sense of where the community had come since the tornado. The wounds are healing. But they are healing slowly. Most of the residents have left the damaged areas, much of the debris has been removed, and although there is still much to be taken away, whole blocks have been cleared, leaving only the occasional foundation. Most of the work crews are gone; there is an occasional home under construction, but there aren’t many.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has built trailer parks on land next to an airport, about 20 minutes from the bulk of the destruction in a small piece of Joplin that juts into Webb City to the north. Stark white trailers on gravel streets, with beige interiors and blasting air conditioners are now home for many residents. They are allowed to live there rent-free for 18 months.

I spent some time with a couple and their son. The woman said she had returned two days earlier from California after battling cancer and winning; at 26. They had lost their apartment, and a representative of FEMA was there with papers to sign. He handed over the keys to their new home, and some semblance of normalcy began to return to their lives.

And it wasn’t just there.

The school district made a bold promise to open on time, and were able to back up their statement. The district was able to secure space in a mall, and built a technologically advanced school, that relies less on books – as the district decided to abandon lockers in favor of laptops issued to every student.

For students it was met with mixed emotions. There was the excitement of a new school, at a mall no less. But it was bittersweet, having lost friends, having endured their own injuries and loss, and collectively losing their school.

My last night in town was a Friday. I drove through the neighborhoods, nearly pitch black in the moonless night. Joplin will survive, and will come back. There is a collective will that can’t be denied.

But there will always be reminders. The ever-present tornado shelters will now be part of the future landscape; trees just beginning to grow leaves that will hide their broken and battered frames, that will once again be laid bare in the winter; the numerous U.S. flags. There will always be reminders for generations to come. There will be scars, on both the landscape and within the collective psyche of the community. And the stories will live on, long after the neighborhoods are put back together.

I’m on a plane from Los Angeles to JFK. About an hour before we touch down, the word goes out that the U.S. military has found and killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. I land, make a few frames at baggage claim of people watching television while I wait for my bag. Then it’s talk my way to the front of a very long taxi line and make my way to Times Square and the site of the former World Trade Center towers, which many now refer to as Ground Zero. I notice an air of celebration.

People are cheering, waving American flags. There is quite a bit of media. I wonder what this must look like to the rest of the world, here we are celebrating the killing of a man. True, he came to represent the war against terror in the United States, but it seemed to be a celebration of death, at a place that had come to symbolize the death of many at the hands of extremists. Remembering the scenes of some burning American flags and cheering after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the outrage it caused, I make pictures of the scene. This is a historic milestone in a war that had begun nearly ten years earlier, and this is a turning point in the psyche of America.

Less than 24 hours later, I’m behind a barricade at the Met Gala, an event that is on par with some of the more high profile celebrity events in the United States. It’s sort of an Oscars for the East Coast, with a high level of star participation. But it’s a grueling parade of celebrities, all walking past a long line of photographers. There is Beyonce in a dress that rendered her nearly unable to walk up the stairs, there are Tom and Gisele, there is Rhianna, and there is the last minute arrival of Madonna.

The next night I’m at an event that was focused on preventing teen pregnancy, with the highlight of the event being a private concert by Aretha Franklin. Moments later Franklin walks onto state, living up to her legend. It was truly an honor to hear her perform live. I make pictures and listen, knowing that I am truly in the presence of greatness.

Three days later and I’m on a plane to St. Louis. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had blown up a levee in Cairo, Illinois after an unusually high level of rainfall had swollen the Mississippi River and its tributaries to record levels. I start in some farm towns in Missouri, downstream from Cairo, where the river levels had caused the flooding of a few small communities, and some communities north and south of downtown Memphis.

Flooding of this nature is usually slow, in fact, it was referred to as a “slow moving disaster”. I spend some time in the flooded areas, then make my way through Arkansas, down into Mississippi, and eventually into Louisiana, where I come upon Butte La Rose. A tiny town of homes that locals refer to as “camps”, Butte La Rose is in the bayou, along the Atchafalaya River. It’s a small place, but there is history here.

After two weeks, 3622 miles on a rental car, half a dozen boat rides, a plane ride for aerials, one pair of sunglasses lost, one 24mm lens broken, and one crawfish boil invite, and numerous hotels, towns, people; I’m on my way back to St. Louis to make the decision whether to catch a flight west to California or east to New York.

But then I’m in Joplin, Missouri, it’s pouring rain, and people are walking through, dazed and looking for possessions, I see a group and walk over to them as they dig through the rubble of a home, a woman stands nearby crying. Someone asks who we’re looking for. Another person says we are looking for her grandmother, who isn’t able to get out of bed. The house is unrecognizable as even being a house. People try to figure out a floor plan, trying to determine where each room ended up, that way they can find her bed.

It’s dawn, about 36 hours since the deadly tornado struck. I’m in what’s left of an apartment building, the force of the wind caused the second floor to collapse onto the ground. I’m with a group of volunteers, and they are digging through the rubble, looking for survivors – or bodies. It’s one of those moments you want to drop your cameras, kneel down and dig through the rubble and help. It’s tough being there, feeling like you aren’t physically helping. At one point someone said that “maybe if someone weren’t taking pictures we could all lift this wall.”

It took every ounce of strength I had not to put down my cameras and dig with my bare hands to try to find someone, anyone. But I knew I was there to do a job. Recording the moment in some cases is just as important as digging. I knew that the world needed to see this moment, and that my photographs are my way of helping. Few people understand that, but when the images are out there, and people look at them and feel something, the way I feel something, then I have done my job, then I have fulfilled my purpose in something like this.

I’m in the other hospital in Joplin, the one that didn’t get hit, and I am photographing a nine year old girl who was on Range Line, one of the main streets in the town, in a car with her mother when the tornado struck. I walk into a hospital room, and her father is there, and she’s curled up in bed.

“Don’t be shy,” her father says. “I’m not,” she responds, pulling the covers up around her bruised and scabbed face, “I’m cold.” Her father lifts the covers and reveals her legs, which are the most wounded part of her, her tiny legs bruised, cut and bandaged. “The wounds are bad, but they are clean, which the doctors say is good news,” he says, showing me graphic images on his cell phone camera of the open wounds. I make a few frames of her bandaged legs, then move to the back of the hospital room.

Some relatives show up with a bag of gifts. Looking into her eyes, I know that all the stuffed animals, all the music players, all the portable gaming systems in the world won’t take away that fear. It’s in the eyes now, it’s a part of her, and it will be a while before she’ll be able to be a normal kid again. There’s a mixture of fear and defeat; of terror from being in a car that was tossed a hundred yards; of being torn away from the safety of a passenger seat, where she sat next to her mom; about being discovered laying in the street by a stranger who took her to a hospital, something that saved her young life. It’s not supposed to happen to a nine year old. It’s not supposed to happen to anyone. But it’s especially not supposed to happen to a nine year old.

I’m walking out, head down, that look in her eyes burned into my conscience. I’m making my way through the lobby when someone calls my name. I look up and it’s Kyle Gordon.

My second day in town, they were the second set of people I came across after the team looking for survivors. Alicia was eight months pregnant and rode out the storm in her basement, about a quarter mile from St. John’s Hospital. Most of the house was destroyed, and they were gracious enough to let me spend some time with them while they looked through their home, trying to find what they could in the rubble.
They walked around the home, Alicia crying, and at one point, they ended up in their son’s room, which had been torn apart by the massive tornado. Alicia cried, and as she looked at what was left of her son’s room, she fell apart. She leaned back on Kyle, and as he pulled her close, her tears streaming from the weight of seeing her home destroyed, he began to cry.

And now here we were, face to face in the hospital lobby. He said that the day after I saw them Alicia had been at the house and had been in pain. They went to the hospital, and a few hours later, the doctor removed Korbyn Storm Gordon from his mother – 11 weeks premature.

At the end of the day we’re photojournalists. This is our job. We walk in, we document. We show the world. Then we leave. But their pain is our pain. Their scars become our scars. Their fear our fear. We live in their world, but at the end of it, we get to go home, while they stay, picking up the pieces of their lives. We experience it, we see it for what it is, and in some cases, for what no one else sees from it. Whether it’s a couple going their flooded home, or worse, their destroyed home. We walk with them, we feel their sorrow, their loss, their pain. We experience their best and worst. We laugh with them, we cry with them. Those pictures that manifest, they are only fragments of time. They will never truly tell the whole story, they are tiny windows to the world, to a world that many will never understand. We try our best to show what we can of the people we meet, and their experiences. Their fears, their loss, their tragedy, their dreams, their laughter, their coping, their grief, their hope, their perseverance, their strength. We stand before them, camera in hand, a small light gathering buffer between those people and the rest of the world, and try our best to tell their stories.

And then we move on.

Arriving at the scene of the Tucson shooting, I really didn’t know what to expect. There is always a nervous energy driven by adrenalin. You know you have to be there. You know it’s going to be bad, but you know you have to be there. Someone has to tell the story. Someone has to show it to the rest of the world.

The first couple of days were spent in shock. The whole community was in shock. How could this happen here? Details that will later emerge are largely hidden at this point. The why and the how – that’s for later stories. Right now, the pressing issue is to document this. Right now is the time to photograph what the community and its people are going through. No time to think, no time to react, I need to do my job and show this for what it is right now. It’s still chaos. You try to make order from the chaos. Later the images will have context. Later you can place them into a framework, but for the moment it’s all reaction. Cover that one piece, then move on. Those fragments will all make sense later on, but for now just keep moving.

I’m an outsider, but the community has embraced their responsibility in the wake of the tragedy. There was a reaction, and then they came together. The people had opened themselves up. They let me in and let me photograph them during a horrible time in their city’s history. I didn’t experience any negativity in covering anything related to the shooting. In fact, the only time I felt unwanted was when I photographed the gun show. They did not want me there. They did not want photos made.

It’s to be expected, as this is a sensitive time here.

I was an outsider coming in to cover this tragedy, but having been there from nearly the beginning, I felt like I was a part of this. I saw it from every side while very close to the actual event. I was there fast enough to still see people involved in the shooting at the scene. I was there for the first vigils, for the first candles and pictures. I was there and saw the memorials grow. I was there before much of the media arrived, and I was there after most of them left. I’m not a resident of this place, but somehow I feel a connection to the event; an empathy for the people who were not only involved or personally affected, but for the community as well.

There are so many people who wanted to show their support. Whether it was the candlelight vigil the night after the shooting, where there weren’t enough chairs for all who attended, or the peace march for the victims ending at Giffords’ office.

The community has come together in support of one another. People have been very open, and signs of support for the victims are everywhere. The event, despite the gravity and scope of the tragedy, has really brought together a community. It’s hard to show it all in pictures – random strangers and their conversations. It’s difficult to translate a feeling of hope into images. It was such a senseless tragedy, and yet a community responded in a positive way. They have rallied around their fallen, and are tending to their wounded.