Driest Seasons: California's Dust Bowl

• Photographer
  Michael Robinson Chávez is a photographer at The Los Angeles Times. He has covered assignments including the 2006 Hezbollah/Israeli war, refugees in Kenya, drug abuse in Brazil, slum life in India, immigration across Mexico and gold mining in Peru. Michael has been awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and the Scripps Howard Journalism Award. He has also received numerous awards from Pictures of the Year International, the Best of Photojournalism and the Eyes of History competition. His work has been exhibited in France, Peru, Spain, Cuba, United States and Croatia. , United States
• Socials
• Website
  http://www.chavezphoto.com

When the rains didn't fall and the snows didn't stay, life in California's hard-luck
Central Valley got harder. Small towns died. Dreams dried up. And the very ground was
sinking. Long an impoverished part of a wealthy state, the residents of the Central Valley
are trying to overcome a crippling recession and now a prolonged and severe drought.
Fields are going fallow and the opportunities for workers, mostly Latin American
immigrants, have evaporated. The Central Valley appears as a foreign country, remote and
at odds with the well-watered prosperity of Los Angeles, a few hours to the south. The
tortured land is awaiting rains, that many now believe will never arrive.

• Biography
  Michael Robinson Chávez, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning photographer for The Washington Post, became seduced by photography while traveling through Peru in 1988. A native Californian and half Peruvian, he previously worked with the Associated Press, The Boston Globe and The Los Angeles Times. Robinson Chávez has covered assignments in over 75 countries including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the collapse of Venezuela, violence in Mexico, the Egyptian revolution, gold mining in Peru and the 2006 Hezbollah/Israeli war.
• Awards
  Pulitzer Prize Public Service Award, team entry, 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism, team entry, 2020 3x winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Photojournalism International Photographer of the Year, Pictures of the Year, 2020 2x winner Photographer of the Year, Northern Short Course 2x winner Ben Bradlee Award for Courage in Journalism Scripps Howard Award for Photojournalism Scripps Howard Award Finalist for Environmental Reporting Alumnus of the Year, San Francisco State University 2x winner Photographer of the Year, White House News Photographer Association Daily News Photography, Visa Pour l'Image, Perpignan, France Pollux Prize for Documentary Photography