I was a asked by B&W Photography Magazine to answer a few questions. I guess the story with photographs and interview is going to press soon. My answers are a bit full of myself, a bit too me me me, but I thought I would share them anyway :).
Please keep an eye out for the issue at your local newsstand and buy the mag. The writer David B is a good person, and the magazine does such wonderful work promoting the greatness of photography. We need to support them in their efforets.
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DB:
Can you please write me a short paragraph or two about why you do what you do, and the difference you are making in their lives, and how this makes you feel?
I have always felt that photography was a force for good. That with my pictures I could tell the stories of my subjects and improve their lives. My goal has always been to make photographs that help people.
Before I took even one photograph in the dump I handed out 3 bags of food. After that first trip, the pictures were viewed and the stories heard, donations started. We were able to provide the families with food, medicines, clothing, rubber boots, head lamps, tools, toys and candy.
If you look at poverty and injustice as a whole it is overpowering and you feel helpless, you feel you can do nothing to help. The largeness of the problem seems impossible to fight against. What I try to do is to only face the suffering I see in front of me, to concentrate on that alone. I do not look at the big picture, that is too complex, too difficult to change. I instead try and help the human being I am photographing. Gerry the simple security guard from Canada ain’t changing anything, but he can, with the help of the donators, do small things to make the life that stands in front of his camera a tiny bit better. When I give a lollipop or a toy doll to a child in the dump and they giggle, when I pass a bag of food to a mother and I see the smile and the gratitude in her eyes, when I hand a father a new pair of work boots and he pats me on the shoulder, then all seems good, all seems right to me. My simple philosophy is that you need to do what you can do, you need to help where you can help. If you reach out and assist those around you, then the world becomes in a small way a better place to be. It is a simple straightforward way of thinking, but it works for me.
Why do I do it? I am selfish, I help others for selfish reasons. The greatest feeling I have ever felt, the biggest joy, my highest high, is the smile and a laugh from a young child or the look of gratitude in a mothers or fathers eyes. I help for selfish reasons, I help because it makes me feels so good!
Gerry
