Behind the Lens: Chronicling years-long abuse — with care

Associated Press photographers talk about their 2022 assignments, and share some of the stories behind the images.

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THE PLACE: Bisbee, Arizona, United States

THE STORY: Seven years of sex abuse: How Mormon officials let it happen

THE PHOTOGRAPHER: Dario Lopez-Mills

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ON HOW TO PHOTOGRAPH SOMETHING FROM THE PAST WITHOUT VISUALS REALLY AVAILABLE:

This was a story that had happened many years ago. And we were going to go to a little town in Arizona, where nothing was really there to photograph that related to this. The father of these kids had already taken his life in prison. And this is basically a legal case that was coming up. Mike Rezendes had obtained more than 12,000 court documents, and his intent was to show that the church had known about the abuse for many, many years and did nothing. That led to a lot of ideas of how we would shoot this.

I suggested at one point that, that we try to photograph it with a panoramic film camera. It was suitable for…
ABC News: US