India: 525 children living in a tiger preserve
In the middle of a tiger preserve, eighty miles from medical facilities, in an area frequented by Maoist terrorists, live 525 orphans and children at risk. They have no electricity and live in mud and straw homes. Yet, Central India Christian Mission provides food and education for them in the best way their current resources [...]
India: Rescued from a lifetime of rejection
Neighbors in her rural Madhya Pradesh village of 700 would have nothing to do with Ghansobai. Born with a cleft lip and palate, Ghansobai, 11, was ostracized in her village. Her neighbors blamed her horrible disfigurement on a curse by the gods for sins in a past life. Children were forbidden to play with her. Mothers [...]
India: Cemetery sunrise on Easter
Sakshi, 8, sprinkles flower petals on her brother’s grave on Easter morning in central India. Four-thirty on Easter Sunday morning, the cool pre-dawn air in the cemetery is infused with the sweet smells of incense and candle smoke. The cacophony of morning traffic and the dry heat of 100+ afternoons is still hours away. Stillness [...]
World: The Begging Conundrum
Begging. It makes us nervous. We squirm. We try to look away. We attempt to ignore. But many places I go in the world I can’t ignore those that are begging. My heart screams to help. My head, in frantic fits of logic tells me why helping is a bad idea. While the poverty is [...]
India: A success story for children
“We’ve found babies in the trash dumps.” “We’ve found babies in the train toilets, on the train tracks.” “We’ve found babies at our doorsteps.” “People leave babies at the hospital sometimes.” “In Hindi, the word orphan means ‘a godless child.’ So we call this place a children’s home. Bal Bhavan (the name of the home) [...]
India-Nepal: Four Faiths and a Lot of Questions
Four faiths all leading to the same place? The same end? Can everyone be right? Are there multiple roads to eternity that all join together as they near a place called heaven? Can I do enough good works to merit a place in heaven? What do I really deserve? Is it us vs them…a fight [...]
India-Nepal: Choosing the “right” lenses…at least for me…right now…until next trip!
The combination of lenses I use when I travel is constantly changing. On one trip I will go super light, so light that I, on purpose, don’t look like a pro. Other times I will carry everything from 14mm up to 300 and throw in a tilt shift and an extender just to test airline [...]
India: How can we understand the desperation?
This child is more fortunate than many babies abandoned in India. She and her twin sibling were found in a railway station and immediately rushed to the Mission Hospital run by CICM, Central India Christian Mission. Just two days old in this photo, the twins will become part of the growing family of children given [...]
Rwanda: Portraits Under Pressure
Have you ever felt the almost paralyzing fear of realizing you have 5 minutes to pull off a story-telling, engaging portrait and nothing seems to be working in your favor? There is no time to set up the lights you brought, even though you ditched your mantra of “carry-on luggage only” to bring the extra [...]
Rwanda: Farmers of Mbilima
While in Rwanda, working for Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee in Atlanta, I had the privilege of spending time with a group of coffee farmers that were thrilled with their harvest and excited to be working with the Atlanta based company. Before this trip, I knew little about coffee and only occasionally drank it. [...]
Atlanta: Under the Bridges
Matt Brandon of The Digital Trekker once asked me during an interview if I ever did any humanitarian photographic work in my own backyard, Atlanta. I was stumped. I have traveled days to get to a remote village in many of the 60+ countries I have photographed in. But I have never had an assignment [...]
Home: Drink Coffee. Do Good.
Drink coffee. Do good. This is not just a catchy phrase, but the premise by which Jonathan Golden started Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee Company just north of Atlanta in Roswell. An Anglican priest by vocation, he started a coffee growing business that also fosters healing among warring tribes in Rwanda. Former enemies [...]
Israel: The Art of War
I have only been to Israel once and harbor no pretense of truly understanding the horrors of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in and near Gaza. On a recent trip, I was shown the remains of the more than 6,000 rockets that were launched from Gaza into the Israeli border town of Sderot over [...]
Kenya: Outpouring for Orphan Care
A few days ago I received an email from a friend in Kenya telling of an emergency need for food and hospital care for several orphans. Vivian and I gave some, but knew more would be needed. I decided to share the need via Twitter and Facebook and within hours the immediate emergency need was [...]
Pakistan: Brick-maker Image Overlooked
During the process of looking through our archived images of Pakistan for another grant proposal we are making, I came across this image that I had totally overlooked. I normally mark images with one, two or three stars in the editing phase. This image had none. Yet, it tells so much about the poor laborers [...]
Football: Entrance to the World
Soccer is the world’s game. It is a universal language. But don’t call it soccer. Call it football. Carry a ball with you to almost any part of the world, and once you bring it out you will be surrounded by kids. If you play the game well, you will be given immediate entrance to [...]
Jerusalem: Christian
Tourist traps are anathema to me. I had never wanted to visit Jerusalem because of the envisioned legions of tourist buses crowding the historic sites. I was predisposed to look on cynically as thousands of Christians from all over the world come to the Old City of Jerusalem to “walk where Jesus walked.” And thousands [...]
Jerusalem: Muslim
Part 2. I lay on the floor of the mosque, trying to get a photograph of a man praying with his forehead to the carpet. As I got back on my knees I looked out the door to see a group of Christians carrying a cross down the Via Dolorosa. Such is the proximity of [...]
Jerusalem: Jews
The devotion of believers and tension between faiths is almost palatable as you walk the narrow and congested alleys of the old city in Jerusalem. The Muslim call to prayer is intertwined with the soft whispers of Catholics reciting the rosary as they walk the stations of the cross or Jews praying for the peace [...]
Turkish Republic of N. Cyprus: Imam
Just back from a great trip to Israel and the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. The best part of this type of work is getting to meet so many intriguing people. A lot of stories will be flowing through here in the coming days, I but wanted to share a portrait of an Imam that [...]
Haiti: “I will return”
Dr. Ines Espallargas from Barcelona, Spain, a general practitioner, spoke of her recent time in Haiti with the Christian aid group Manto de Guadalupe: My greatest desire was to be able to doctor and heal, or at least relieve, the physical suffering or raise the morale of all the people I could treat. However, my [...]
Haiti: Fasting and Praying
Worshipers gather daily outside the shell of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption to fast and pray. The cathedral, built in the 1800′s, was destroyed by the January 12th quake that also killed the Archbishop. (Canon 5D2, 24-105mm @24mm , 1/800 sec, f4.5, ISO320) Photo ©Copyright Gary S. Chapman 2010
Haiti: Hell on Earth
Just got back from Haiti. I did not spend much time in Port au Prince, really just passed through on the way to an orphanage way out in the country. The amount of debris and trash left on the streets in the capital is staggering. Months after the quake, many people, even now, consider life [...]
Kenya: Best Gift Ever
When was the last time you were overjoyed to receive a brand new toothbrush as a gift? This young orphan in Kenya responds with genuine delight. Moments like this are a constant reminder to me of how little we really NEED. We want more. We don’t NEED more. Often, we don’t even realize that by [...]