India
“How does a child’s face completely encompass an indescribable, other-worldly experience?” - Another Story
Source: flickr.com
Nepal
“The nature of much of my street shooting means that it is quite nearly impossible for people to not see me. I’m the scruffy white girl with the ginormous camera trying to blend in with people who look nothing like me while I get as close as possible to the lovely people I’d like to photograph. And mostly, I prefer the eye contact. The chatting. The connection, even if it’s only a few minutes. But when I look back on shots as a group, I sometimes think the most honest portraits in the mix are the ones made without my presence.
I could make a case for the opposite being true. And sometimes that is the entire point. That how one interacts with a stranger speaks of one’s spirit just as much as one’s exchanges with those familiar. But what I most want to do with the making of a portrait is present the essence of the person with the absence of the photographer.
Kathmandu was crowded enough to make this possible. This woman was talking to her friends across the street. She never saw me, and for that, I am most glad. Her expression would have completely changed, and the essence of her being, without me, of what I saw that made me press the shutter…would have been lost.”
Source: flickr.com
India
“When we look squarely at injustice and get involved, we actually feel less pain, not more, because we overcome the gnawing guilt and despair that festers under our numbness. We clean the wound —- our own and others’ —- and it can finally heal.”
- Desmond Tutu
Source: Flickr / chipsmith
Cambodia
“AIDS hospital in a western province of Cambodia.
Her mother died last year. Her father was busy dying down the hall. In the meanwhile, she wandered this place unattended, biding her time until she was an orphan on the books. Because it will be much better for her to be an orphan from the lack of living parents than to be one simply from the lack of their physical ability to parent.
“Hospital” is actually too generous a word. It was really just one shotty roof past homelessness. No medications, no running water, no plumbing, one nurse, an occasional doctor. Food came from “mercy donations” that people in the community would leave on the front porch. Fish which quickly had flies all over it. Old rice.
The water used for everything—-cleaning, drinking, bathing—-came from an utterly vile pond out back complete with floating trash and rancid smells. My friends who were here last year spent a week cleaning the entire building (with that water), the first time cleaning had been done in 7 years. Shortly after, over half of them wound up with Dengue fever.
I have run across some mighty bad situations in my day, but this place was, without question, filled with the most profound suffering I have ever seen. Anywhere.
Being here did something to me, but I’m not yet sure what. Sometimes I think if I look at this picture long enough maybe I’ll figure it out.” - Anotherstory
Source: Flickr / chipsmith
Senegal
“I found this gentleman sitting on the sidewalk outside of a hardware store in Thiès, Senegal. There is a lot of this kind if sitting in West Africa. People just hang out on the sidewalks all the time…just sitting. Sometimes they are with friends, often times alone.
Of course, there is a downside to all this sitting…if people do not have jobs to go to, what else is one to do? But culturally, its also a wonderful thing. No one is ever in a hurry. Conversations are a priority. You don’t just walk into a store and get to business. You chat with the owner for a while, then get around to talking about what you would like to buy.
So as I was walking into the store, I said hello to this man, and we chatted for a bit. What a gentle soul he was. Our interaction reminded me very much of an expression I heard from a friend over there: “Americans have watches, but Africans have time.’” - Another Story
Source: flickr.com
