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Eric Fichtl
<p>Fishermen sell their catch near the port in Sozopol, Bulgaria.</p>

Thanks for visiting. This website features my photography, writing, and a bit about me.

PHOTOS

Here is a random sample of my photos. Visit my galleries for many more.


<p>A razpachin (coca plucker) holds handfuls of the innocuous leaves that, after several steps of processing, can become cocaine.</p>
<p>In Dili's Santa Cruz cemetery, a large cross commemorates the victims of the 1991 massacre by Indonesian security forces. On 12 November, a large crowd including many high school students marched to the cemetery in a funeral procession for a young activist killed by Indonesian forces two weeks earlier. Soldiers opened fire on the crowds, killing over 200 people at the cemetery and in the streets and hospitals after the march.</p> <p>The Santa Cruz massacre was a turning point, ramping up Timorese resistance to Indonesia's annexation of the former Portuguese colony. Smuggled footage of the massacre increased pressure on Jakarta from the international community, but brutal years still laid ahead. A long and ugly guerrilla war eventually led to Indonesia's withdrawal in 1999, a UN-administered transitional period, and Timor-Leste's independence in 2002. </p> <p>Studies suggest more than 200,000 Timorese were killed during the 24 years of Indonesia's occupation – a staggering figure made all the more disturbing when one considers that Timor-Leste's total population in 1975 was only 630,000 people.</p>
<p>A rainy day in Istanbul, shot through the iron-grille windows from Pandeli, a classic restaurant tucked away in the 17th Century Mısır Çarşısı covered market.</p>
<p>Builders on a scaffold working on restorations in the Rock of Cashel complex.</p>
<p>Two girls explore their flood-damaged former neighbourhood just behind the national congress on the banks of the Paraguay River. Their homes were flooded a few weeks before Christmas in 1997, forcing their already struggling families to relocate to makeshift residences in a public square.</p>
<p>A woman turns her back on the visitors clogging the steps of Macao's landmark Igreja de São Paulo ruins and the skyline of casino towers to capture her own take on the densely populated city.</p>
<p>People and vehicles negotiate the quasi-controlled chaos of a broad intersection in Shanghai.<br /></p>
<p>The transition from farm fields to high-rise blocks is sudden on some approaches to Sofia.</p>
TEXTS

A lot of what I write professionally carries no byline. Here are some of the works I have put my name to.

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On Laura Alcoba's 'The Rabbit House'

A unique exploration of a childhood interrupted by the onset of dictatorship and widespread repression.
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On Robert Skidelsky's 'Keynes: The Return of the Master'

Skidelsky offers an accessible introduction to the work of John Maynard Keynes
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Looking Back: Seventeen Years Since the El Mozote Massacre

Over 700 defenseless peasants were brutally murdered by a Salvadoran batallion that received U.S. military training and supplies.