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Months of preparation got Miami photographer winning shot
By TERRY SPENCER
Associated Press Writer
MIAMI (AP) – Alan Diaz had been preparing for his Pulitzer
Prize-winning photograph long before he heard the footsteps
of federalagents running toward the house where Elian Gonzalez
slept.
For months, the photojournalist had been talking to the Cuban
boy's family and getting to know the house and its surroundings.
Now, in the pre-dawn darkness last April 22, that preparation
was about to pay off.
"It's going down," Diaz yelled as he grabbed his camera,
which he'd placed beneath a towel to protect it from the early
morning dew. He jumped the fence into the side yard of the
Gonzalez family's Little Havana home, paused to set his shutter
speed and strobe light and then ran through a door a family
member had opened.
"Where's the boy?" he yelled in Spanish, as Elian's frantic
relatives scurried around the living room. A man pushed Diaz
toward the boy's bedroom, where he threw on the light. Elian
wasn't there.
He pounded on the bedroom door across the hall, which Elian's
aunt opened. Diaz could see 6-year-old Elian being held in
the closet by Donato Dalrymple, who'd helped pull the boy
from the Atlantic Ocean five months earlier.
Inside the room, Diaz took the photograph of a federal agent
with an assault rifle confronting a screaming Elian and a
stunned Dalrymple.
That photo won Diaz, 53, the Pulitzer for best spot news
photograph of 2000. He will receive $7,500. It is the AP's
47th Pulitzer –19 for writing and 28 for photographs.
"It's awesome, I can't believe it," Diaz said Monday as he
was mobbed by co-workers.
"It's a great picture, just a great picture, and we're very
pleased for Alan that he won," AP President Louis Boccardi
said.
"It's an amazing job by an amazing, talented photographer,"
said Vin Alabiso, an AP vice president and the executive photo
editor.
Diaz, then a free-lance photographer, had been hired by The
AP on Nov. 30, 1999, to take daily pictures of Elian. His
mother and 13 other Cubans had tried to flee across the Florida
Straits, but their boat sank.
Elian had been lashed to an innertube and was rescued when
Dalrymple and his cousin found him while fishing two miles
off Fort Lauderdale. Two adults who'd used another innertube
washed ashore near Miami, but Elian's mother and the others
died.
Diaz said Monday that Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez
was not enthusiastic when the photographer first arrived at
the house. But Diaz, whose parents are from Cuba, struck up
a conversation with Lazaro across the fence.
"We talked about everything –politics, coffee, sports,
women –until he was comfortable with me," Diaz said.
Diaz, who spent at least 16 hours daily covering Elian, said
that in the first days he was often the only still photographer
at the house. He would take pictures of the boy going to school
and playing in the yard and the demonstrations that occasionally
happened outside.
By April, the tension surrounding Elian was high. The Clinton
administration was demanding that Elian be turned over so
he could return to Cuba with his father, but the Miami relatives
were balking. Four days before the raid, Diaz decided he would
not leave the house until the case was resolved.
At 5:15 a.m. that Saturday, the streets surrounding the Gonzalez
home were quiet as most of the family's supporters had gone
home. Diaz had thought about taking a nap, but he couldn't
sleep. For months he had thought about what he would do if
agents raided the house – how he would try to get inside
and where he would shoot from if he couldn't.
Since the photo, Diaz's life has changed dramatically. A
free-lancer for 12 years, The AP hired him for a full-time
position last June. He has won many awards and been sought
after for interviews by other journalists.
"Everything turned around on me," the self-effacing Diaz
said. "I don't mean that in a bad sense of the word, but now
everybody wanted to hear from me.
"I'm not used to that."
On the Net:
Pulitzer Prizes: http://www.pulitzer.org
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