Emmy Award winner and freelance photographer, producer and occasional DP, covering the Western Hemisphere and sometimes other parts of the world while also pursuing personal documentary projects. Focusing on under-reported issues and current events, documenting social issues and humanitarian crisis in conflict-affected societies. Born in El Salvador, Central America but immigrated to the United States during the mid-1980’s settling in Los Angeles, California. I also work on long-term projects around the world, especially in the ongoing post-conflict situation in my native country of El Salvador.
2017 - 1st Place (Environment) PDN Storytellers, 2022 - Emmy Award Winner, 2022 - INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS, 2022 - 2022 PRIX DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE - PX3
The Guardina by Nina Lakhani in Nejapa El Salvador will run out of water within 80 years unless radical action is taken, a study found, while corporate interests, corruption and gangs worsen the problem ust after 6am, Victor Funez fills a three-gallon plastic pitcher with water from a tap in the cemetery, balances it on his head and trudges home, where his wife waits to soak maize kernels so she can make tortillas for breakfast. Funez, 38, stops briefly to help his daughter with some homework before heading back to the cemetery with the pink urn. This load fills large plastic milk and juice bottles used for drinking throughout the day. The tap is the family’s only source of water, so Funez makes the journey along the dusty dirt road 15 to 20 times each day. “My husband’s job is to fetch the water so I can do the housework. It’s like this every day, all day,” said Bianca Lopez, 46. “We can live without electricity – we have candles and lamps – but water, that’s essential.”
The Wall Street Journal APOPA, El Salvador—The Congress of El Salvador agreed in April to extend the authority of jailers to keep gang leaders in solitary confinement. Over the next five days, the two reigning street gangs killed more than 100 people. With the highest homicide rate of all countries in the world, El Salvador is a nation held hostage. Law-enforcement officials estimate that one gang, MS-13, operates an extortion racket with little pressure from authorities in 248 of the 262 of the country’s municipalities. It battles for neighborhood control with another gang, Barrio 18, which runs its own protection scheme in nearly as many regions.
The Wall Street Journal GRANADA, Nicaragua—After decades teaching social studies at a California high school, Noel Correa moved to Nicaragua, buying a home on the outskirts of this colonial city. Then, the country he chose as his retirement paradise began to unravel. “We were just getting settled when the fighting broke out,” said Mr. Correa, 67, who arrived here with his wife in December. “Now we are in limbo.” So are many other expats caught up in a three-month-old uprising against Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, whose crackdown in response has killed more than 300 people.