"Grandfather and Grandson" Tsunami Survivors.. Bande Aceh, Indonesia

CAPTION
This man, a grandfather, holds his young grandson on the road to the sea behind what used to be his home. The waves came ashore quickly and swept back to sea, again and again, scraping and stripping the earth of every living thing – growing more powerful with each wave until there was nothing left. We saw each other at the side of the road, and I stopped and asked to photograph him – quietly he shared his story of outrunning "waves as tall as the palm trees" that stand behind him. He was on a scooter when the first wave came ashore, but it soon rushed back out to sea with the birds, the air – drawn silent. He sensed danger, hearing a growing rumble out to sea, and then over his shoulder he could see a new wave building – instinctively he grabbed his boy and literally had to run for their lives. They were very lucky that day to have survived. Nearly a quarter of a million others – did not.

Two weeks after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami drove mercilessly across open ocean to hit the coastlines of some 14 countries, I was initially on the ground in India for Food for the Hungry US, to cover the tragedy and the global response that was being rushed to the region. Straight from the airport to the beach, literally the funeral pyres were still smoldering while women wailed into the offshore winds at the searing pain of losing their babies and complete families – the waves taking dreams, hopes, laughter and life – without a kiss goodbye. It would be my first time in a relief zone – naively thinking India was as bad as it gets. I was wrong.

After 10 days up and down the eastern coastline, I asked to be sent to Indonesia, to Banda Aceh, to begin documenting the carnage at the centre of the greatest natural tragedy on earth. I would spend weeks in the region and return for years that followed. Each and every visit, I would find myself pulled under by the memory of stories I heard, the broken hearted sobbing and images of death from what felt truly like The Apocalypse had been unleashed. 

To share just one moment is the best I can do tonight but – my time in Banda Aceh stole my ability to speak, it reduced me to constant tears having spent far too long without relief in the midst of tortured souls trying to come to grips with having lost their entire world. 

A few flashes of those times tonight – still brings me to my knees.

"Emily - A Tribal Nomad" Meru, Kenya

CAPTION
Emily is a nomadic MERU tribeswoman from the desolate, arid desert lands of northern Kenya. I spent a few days with her family at her humble home, while on assignment to create a "Day in the Life" for The Paradigm Project. In Emily I found a strong, tireless and quietly driven woman who wakes up with the cooling of the earths surface, makes a raw wood fire to warm her daughter and her baby goat, while preparing a meagre meal of crusted break and chai for her son before he goes to school. At dawn she tends her sheep, hauls more wood on her bare back from miles away from home, searches for precious water supplies, tries to save a few garden plants from the scorching sun, and is doing everything she can to make sure her children are getting well schooled. While most of us will never suffer the effects of a drought – an endless numbing drought that has dried up most of the open water sources for cattle and humans to drink for thousands of square miles, at 42, Emily's story of strife is commonplace. 

"Emily's Story" Meru, Kenya
"She shares a daily struggle to survive with women across the globe yet you'll never see her cry. Never see her beg. Never see her complain. Instead she is strong, fiercely determined, full of dignity, yet even with so little for her and her children to eat, will open her humble home and extend her scarred hands to share with you what little she has..."

If you have time read the full story, it will give you a feeling of how one woman lives her life in the developing world - faced with so much hardship yet Emily never gives up.. because every single day demands a fight for survival in Kenya's arid lands, where ongoing drought brings suffering to everyone.

"Survivor-Evelyn's Girl" Jacmel, Haiti

CAPTION
This young girl is one of Evelyn's children photographed over a three week period while on assignment for Suisse based MEDAIR and The Paradigm Project - shortly after the tremors from the 2015 Haitian earthquake calmed down. Like many who escaped the initial impact of such a violent tragedy, Evelyn and her daughter did the best they could. Evelyn held a piece of wood in her hand to protect them as they slept, too dangerous to stay in her damaged home and hearing rumors of a different kind of danger for women and girls if she went to the relief camps living in tents. So they stayed together on a dirty sheet until it was their turn to receive assistance. 

But beyond the initial impact the Haitian earthquake like all tragedies, keeps visiting the survivors in their sleep, in their dreams, hearing voices and replaying images in their head, while guilt becomes a constant companion for never having had a chance to say good bye or asking themselves - why did I survive. The United Nations stated that the loss to those who survived the 2015 Haitian earthquake was enormous with over 1.5 million children under the age of 18 effected by the tragedy - much of it personally experienced. They lost complete families, lost generations of mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, with laughter and dreams exchanged for nightmares, screams and fear. The sights and sounds of such enormous human loss, the emotions felt in losing loved ones, will be forever trapped inside young minds with memories and experiences more dark than not. A survivor yes thankfully - yet forever scarred.

"Evelyn" Jacmel, Haiti

CAPTION
While not everyone survived this immense tragedy, those that did were trying to sort out their lives by asking questions on which way to turn, how to move forward, where to find work and what to do with themselves as they deal with the enormous pain for having lost loved ones underneath the debris. Still more pressing questions remain each day. Where will I sleep. Where can I find something to eat. Is my family safe tonight while they sleep and how do I take care of my babies when I have nothing left to give. Evelyn slept on the dirt with her babies for six weeks, too afraid to sleep inside her humble, red walled single roomed home, with finger sized fissures and cracks form floor to ceiling from the earthquake that took so many of her neighbors lives. In this image, on one morning, she was less concerned about her own life than she was about finding food, any food, and a bit of brown water from the river..for her babies. 

"Pink Gabbra" Torbi, Kenya

CAPTION
In the early dawn hours, the desert can be bitter cold. There's no central heating in the arid lands of northern Kenya, and the wood fire that burned bright at night, smolders to ashen grey in the corner of the hut. This young Kenyan Gabbra woman seeks a bit of warmth from the streaking rays of the morning sun - its' shafts piercing holes through the twig roof of her animal skin draped hut. A nomad, her tribe will soon pull up stakes and drive camels and cows to the next overgrazed piece of grass, and a mud hole - used for drinking water by both man and beast.

"Father and Son" Alta Verapaz, Guatemala

CAPTION
Knowing one day his boy will take his place in the family and in the village, he begins to train him up early, to prepare him, for the duties he must accept in the years ahead in supporting the family. Wood primarily is needed for fires to boil water, to cook meals and in the colder months in the Alta Verapaz, for heat. This means that wood is collected, traditionally the work of women - large pieces like this by men, each and every day of their lives. However the hardships won't end with collecting wood – the toxins absorbed while inhaling the smoke caused by open wood fires located inside the home, will take over 6million lives across the globe - each year. 

Created on assignment for organizations which are engaged and dedicated to implement the clean cookstove initiative, culturally and effectively worldwide, to reduce the fatalities from simply cooking their daily meals. View their work at the United Nations Foundation's Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (UNF-GACC).

"Nelvy" Cochabamba, Bolivia

CAPTION
"Nelvy" A young, sick campesino daughter in the arms of her protective father, living in rural Cochabamba, Bolivia

BACKSTORY
I came across this child while on assignment in Bolivia for Food for The Hungry. She lived a humble life as the daughter of hard working campesinos in one of the campo's very poor farming communities that dot the Bolivian landscape. During a casual visit, while standing in the doorway speaking with her mother and father, I noticed in the far corner of the room behind them, the shape of a small child laying down behind a set of makeshift curtains. 

I was told her name was "Nelvy" and with that they summoned a quiet, little waif of a girl, who came and stood quietly in front of me, silent with eyes like pieces of coal, her fathers arms wrapped protectively around her tiny shoulders. When I asked about her I didn't expect to be told that she didn't have long to live, maybe a year, maybe less...due to a hole in her heart. I was speechless and blurted out "why are you talking about her like this in front of her" softly they said that "she knows." I learned that while there was a doctor willing to perform the surgery they had no money for the nearly $4500 needed for post operative care which for a humble farmer, might as well have been a million dollars. In a breath I had a wave of emotion flood over me, thinking...there was no way on earth I was going to let this little girl die for lack of money. So I changed the photograph from a casual editorial image - to a poignant, face to face photograph that would help to save a young girls life.

After a long flight back to to the States, I stumbled into one of the barns at a nearby Arabian Horse show. They were closing the barns and taking the horses out to trailers, when out of the darkness destiny came knocking, in a woman named "Carol" a horsewoman from Daydream Arabians, who took particular interest in my latest assignment to Bolivia, telling me that she'd been wanting to help in some way but didn't know how. Well, at the beginning of a very long story, I bluntly told Carol that I needed $5,000 to help save a little girls life or simply - she would die. Carol just stared at me. And with that I left the horse barn that night, where I found Carol, and thought little more about our meeting until a week later when a check arrived in the mail for $5,000, with Nelvy's name on it, for her open heart surgery. I'm surprised that this morning in London, years later since that fateful morning in Bolivia, tears still find me with the memory of what Carol's generosity meant. Nelvy would live, and her mother and father, so brave to let their daughter go through major surgery, would enjoy many years with their daughter they believed would be lost. It still resonates with me, personally knowing the names of children who came after Nelvy, from East Africa to The Philippines, Carol helped with those children too, who were vulnerable and simply needed an advocate to stand up for them.

With the help of so many people, including Food for the Hungry's staff in Bolivia, Nelvy had a successful operation and has been running around rural Bolivia for quite a few years, enjoying a full life with her family, and I believe she has children of her own now. She must've had a sense of peace, knowing that she has a strong heart now, to help her live out her dreams and maybe a bit of wonderment, of how strangers found her in the rural wilds of Bolivia that fateful day. Nelvy's story is a truly special story, one that has provided the motivation behind other heart operations around the globe thru the creation of the HEART fund with Food for The Hungry, whereby children in rural communities of the developing world, who are critically ill, may find help. A few poignant images, a woman in a barn, a bit of money and a beating heart in all of us made the difference. When asked to help we simply stepped up and said "yes" when we could easily have said no. We shared a vision for something good for a change and along the way we managed to play a small part in helping to give a little girl, to give Nelvy - back her life. 

"Little Green Dress" Tsunami survivor - Nagapattinam, India

CAPTION 
My arrival at Nagapattinam, the hardest hit area on the east Indian coastline, was met with complete destruction and still smoldering funeral pyres farther down the beach. Amidst women wailing into the offshore wind, and a large swath of politicians, military and police making assessments, I noticed this treasure of a little girl walking towards me wearing a small smile and a pale green party dress. Together we walked to greet her mother as she sat on a broken slab of concrete, debris from what was once their home, crying like so many at the loss of her husband and a cousin, to the waves that struck in the early hours as they slept.

While I took photographs of her mother and brother, standing stoically and silent behind an offering of tea and a ceremoniously wrapped piece of bread laid out on broken cement, the child continued to prance in the sand in the only piece of clothing she had left. Like many children struck by hardship, the naivete of her youth made her oblivious for the time being to the tremendous forces that struck just a couple of days ago. She circled around me laughing and giggling and for a moment I smiled too - helping me to forget the great sadness surrounding me. We motioned our goodbyes, paid my respects to the mother and prepared to walk further down the beach, when she turned and gave me this parting smile, a small gift, then turning once again to quietly stand by her mother's side. 

This would be the first of many photographs over many months while on assignment in India, Nias Island and Indonesia while covering the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami for Food for the Hungry.

"Winter Drought" Gondar, Ethiopian Highlands

CAPTION

Food security problems are common in the barren, windswept hills of Gondar, located due north of Lake Tana, source of the Blue Nile, in the Northern highlands of Ethiopia. The image of this little girl was created in what can be, depending on the rains, a hot zone of malnutrition for Ethiopia. Typically you would think famine or food security issues only play out in the deserts to the south yet at times, this region in the cold north with poor soil and a land that is littered with rocks, makes it hard for farmers to properly plant food for their families. Children work just as hard alongside their parents, gathering grasses, watching over sheep or collecting and stacking piles of cow dung which is used for fuel with a small hand full of Kolo or corn - to sustain them. 

A farmer I visited at the time was rushing to get a second planting and harvest in before winter set in. His large oxen were whipped and whistled in between the rock outcrops, which made up most of his arable land, with his wife-her baby strapped on her back bent over, rooting through the packed earth searching for her reward of the smallest of potatoes. The whole family joined in the twilight harvest with a sense of urgency as dense storm clouds gathered overhead as a perfect match to the human drama playing out before me. The potatoes in the bucket were no larger than golf balls and when asked what he'll do if his planting fails-he said without hesitation "we'll eat the leaves from the trees"...

"He sleeps with angels" Nagapattinam, India

CAPTION
My first morning in India to cover the 2004 Tsunami, a few hours after arrival, I walked the beach where the waves came aground. Funeral pyres were already lit with small groups of people, eyes to the sea, making ceremonial offerings for the loved ones they've lost. I walked past this man and paused a few feet away to wait for Abraham, my interpreter, to catch up with me. Abraham stopped to speak with a few elders when he was looking at me, signaling for me to wait. "That man" he said.. "He lost his wife, his home, his family.. everything to the sea..but right now he tells me that..he sleeps on the beach with his son." It took me a moment to comprehend that this bereft man had just buried his son in the sand, and sprawled there, sleeping with him not wanting to leave his side.

We didn't know what to do - so we stood there just listening to the waves come to shore, silent, choking back tears for such a graphic moment of loss. Fourteen years later, I remember and feel this moment like it was just this morning. Still silent.

"Democratique Republique du Congo" Kitanga Province, Congo

CAPTION

During the production of a short film... "Democratique Republique du Congo" in Kitanga Province, a conflict zone within the DRC, a series of poignant portraits were created to reflect on the hardships endured by its men, women and children - a result of the ongoing armed struggles. Congo is a beautiful land, yet every day, men, women and children struggle to survive.