you have to really ponder profession
that you are running into what everyone
else is running away from and it was
incredibly freeing I just let go of fear
and for me it’s just it’s about that
whole connection you know and it was
it’s not always with the camera
it’s humanity I am very excited to be
here thank you for coming to see me this
is actually my second passport and I
obtained my wanderlust in utero my mom
was a flight attendant British flight
attendant for Pan Am and dad was a
research chemist and they met on a
flight in well somewhere overseas and he
fell in love with her legs she fell in
love with his he was a rugby player for
Cambridge I don’t know was the best
basis of a marriage but it it it gave
them a reason to emigrate to the States
they wanted me to have a foothold in
both continents just sort of instigate
my love of travel and it worked but it
was really mr. lay my high school
English teacher that took me aside and
really taught me how to use my first LS
SLR camera and I can remember the first
time he said they were photojournalist
and that you could travel the world
taking pictures and I was 15 years old
and I said that’s what I want to do
that’s what I want to be and I went on
to study photojournalism and I was very
drawn to Asia for whatever reason and I
had this sort of deep-seated
spirituality I was really affected by
Gandhi I wanted to go to India
specifically
and I saved my money to go trouble when
I got out of college I lived with
Bedouin sand a sinai in Egypt I worked
on a kibbutz in Israel and I hitchhiked
into Beirut when they bombed American
Embassy got into all kinds of trouble
there got held in a prison camp so I I
came back to the States
and now this is you know after really
kind of traveling and backpacking for
three years but photographing the whole
time and my mom is now living in San
Diego and I asked I went to this
newspaper and I just said you know can
you look at my work what do you think do
you think I’ve a chance at doing this
for a job and to my surprise they hired
me on the spot and one day I was in the
back of the the newspaper you know back
when we were doing darker rooms and I
was flipping through a magazine and I
saw these beautiful doe-eyed children in
this magazine and I felt like oh my gosh
I’m 24 I’m so old I you know I’m gonna
die at this newspaper will I ever get to
India and I called the photographer and
I told him how much I loved his work and
he said well I’m a UNICEF photographer
forever New York combined show me your
portfolio so I bought a plane ticket I
went out to New York the very next week
I showed him what I was working on in
shooting and he said this is this is
great do you want to go shoot an
assignment in Nepal and I paused three
seconds for dignity and I said yes I
would love to get in the ball and I quit
my job and just thought let’s just see
what happens and I went for this
three-week assignment and I did not
leave Nepal for more than four years and
I just I just felt like I’d come home so
here I am in Nepal and I I was covering
a lot of the political situation there
because they back in the 90s it was a
very big political hot bed and
were you know about to overthrow the
government this is when they actually
did overthrow the government I was
photographing a lot of the
demonstrations and the skirmishes and
this was really heavy stuff I just had
seen a lot of people get shot and I’ve
just been tear-gassed and you have to
really ponder a profession that you are
running into what everyone else is
running away from so I also was given a
really great assignment for UNICEF
photographing for the Convention for
rights to the child and so that was a
lot of my work there I was photographing
for all these aid and humanitarian
organizations photographing all aspects
of children and this is a little girl
that my friend all does amazing she has
almost single-handedly stamped out girls
being sold into bonded labor and Nepal
and what they do is they sell these
girls in the market for sex trafficking
and now there’s this program where they
give a piglet to the families so that
they will sell the piglet at the end of
the year instead of the girl child which
is a sad statement about what a girl
child is worth in Nepal during this time
I lived in Nepal I found there’s a
hundred and twenty thousand Tibetan
refugees living throughout India Nepal
on these 57 different Tibetan
settlements and this is Tibet a new year
in Nepal and they are throwing Zampa
flour up in the air to celebrate the new
year in Kathmandu and this is the same
what they call a stupa where some of
Buddhas remains are supposedly buried in
the middle of this and it’s all seeing
eyes of Buddha and a Lama has died so
they’re lighting one hundred thousand
butter lamps small little butter lamps
all around the stupa and for the new
year they tied new prayer flags and
these prayer flags are very indicative
of the Himalayas their prayers that are
printed on these flags and the prayers
which symbolized earth wind fire the
elements of the earth blow to the wind
and they leave them up to lore all gone
so I went around all over India Nepal
photographing these Tibetans
that style is very interested in
diaspora and they they’re sort of a slow
and steady infiltration of the Chinese
coming into Tibet throughout the 1940s
which culminated on March 10th of 1959
when the Dalai Lama actually fled and
immediately 85,000 to a hundred thousand
Tibetans all followed him and there’s
being a trail continuously coming over
now there’s as I said over 120,000 in
exile and he lives in this place called
Dharamsala India which is in the north
and these are little Tibetan girls
dressed up for Losar they still very
much keep their culture in these exile
settlements and this is a crash these
are little children babies Tibetan
babies and as many of you probably know
in Tibetan Buddhism they believe in
reincarnation now I was going all over
photographing these different high Lamas
and all aspects of their life and I went
to go photograph kala Rinpoche who was
this very old Lama living in Darjeeling
India in the north I got up there it was
pouring rain and I waited and his
caretaker came out and said I’m really
sorry kala Rinpoche which means Lama is
too too ill to see you and I and I left
feeling disappointed because I felt it
not only would I not get to photograph
him but I’d never meet him and sure
enough he died three months later this
is years later I’m now in derm Sala
India and I hear that they have found
the reincarnation of this kala Rinpoche
so I thought okay let’s go meet him so I
go to this boy’s room his mother greets
me at the door and he’s playing game boy
this little video game on his bed
because he might be a high Lama but he’s
still a child and he looked up and he
saw me and he said I remember you you
came to see me it was pouring rain my
caretaker was making Momo’s these
steamed dumplings which he was I was too
ill to see you then but I’ll see you now
and I like okay interesting so it’s
maybe something to this for inclination
thing when the Chinese came in about
6500 tibetan buddhist monasteries were
destroyed and they felt that by killing
the hub they thought that they would
kill the heart of tibet by by killing
the buddhism that is really their sort
of crux of their lot of their life and
this was lhasa
and this shook poori hill was very
important to them in that this is like
where the tibetan school of medicine was
in lhasa in tibet and that chinese came
in and completely destroyed it and put a
TV antenna there and these Tibetans came
back and like made this mural and carved
out this little area where they still
circumambulate which means they still
walk around it spinning their prayer
wheels and here is one of the
monasteries that’s actually rebuilt in
Tibet Lhasa started becoming so taken by
the Chinese that I started moving
further and further afield and became
very over the years more interested in
the Tibetan nomads and how they were
surviving here’s a Tibetan nomads woman
living in her yak hair tent and this is
a beautiful hill it’s just all these
undulating hills covered with these
prayer flags these tall prayer flags
which blow to the wind and here’s a man
with his little baby I just just walking
by and this little baby peeked out this
was actually in the geographic this is
actually the cover of my book because I
felt it was one of those photos that as
I’m taking it and I wouldn’t see this
photo for three months because that’s
how long I was there where you just feel
like oh my gosh I have this photo I mean
this is just so resonating and it’s such
a beautiful feeling and then I got the
photo back
and to me after all these years of
working you know with Tibetans I just
felt like she really encapsulated the
the sadness yet the resiliency and the
dignity of this culture and these people
and she’s only about five years old and
besides the beautiful headdress and and
so I just gonna go through a few of
these photos because I just love their
headgear I mean I just find these people
and I you know go through these remote
areas and I’ve been taken with these
like this frisbee hat and do you know
they just have this incredible sense of
style that is is becoming eradicated
very quickly part of this culture will
not last I believe for another
generation certainly too and they wear
these beautiful waterfall of amber
turquoise coral these are actually her
cheeks you know from the wind there’s no
makeup on her and this boy he admits he
has no idea what his hat says but he
likes wearing it ear muffs rabbit ear
muffs so apart from the fact that this
boy looks like he’s just what the
dentist what’s interesting about him is
that he’s actually Muslim and even
though the Tibetans are really you know
99.9% Buddhist it’s really fascinating
that there’s actually a small
contingency of Tibetan Muslims that when
the Islamic traders came through Tibet
they intermarried and now there’s a few
Muslims that you know believe the Dalai
Lama to be their political leader but
not their spiritual leader and this
woman bless her heart had no idea why I
was taking her photo and what I found
interesting and she was just walking
down the street carrying a bag of cement
on her head and I run out and I’m like
do you sleep in that
and so then one day I’m in this little
town and obviously I’m really into their
dress and their headgear and I see an
orange hat and I’m practically
hyperventilating and I I believe it’s
probably made from that goat hair and
then I saw a few more and they started
looking like little dr. Seuss characters
you know or human q-tips and then I get
out and there’s like this whole ballet
of our jad people at this they’re all
congregated it’s worst mess of all so I
was ecstatically happy
this is Laos and I was in Laos working
on the book on children around the world
his faces of hope and I just felt like
my life was really where I wanted it to
be I just you know every morning before
it opened my eyes I think this is what I
where I want to be what I want to be
doing and how often you get that in life
you know and it’s so interesting because
that’s right when life throws a
curveball I got up early in the morning
I photograph these monks and collecting
arms as they do these Buddhist tera
vaada Buddhist monks and the people give
them offerings for their food and this
almost became the last picture I ever
took I then went and jumped on a bus to
go down from the north to the south from
Long prabang to vang Jian and as you can
see it’s it’s rather rickety and I don’t
think you’re really supposed to have
plastic seats in the middle everyone
seems to be gripping for a reason
because it’s the most potholed Road I’ve
ever been on but we were coming around a
corner and I’ve been on these buses a
million times and you’re like oh that
was so close
and we were coming around a corner I
looked up and I thought wow that was
close and we just got slammed by this
huge logging truck and it was literally
right where I was sitting and it just
sheared the whole bus in half and I was
pinned in this with this logging truck
and this bus and I was actually knocked
unconscious I was pulled off this
burning bus by two men the people around
me were killed and
pull to the side of the road and I woke
up and I had broken my back my pelvis
all my ribs my arm is nearly torn off
most alarming is that I had collapsed
lungs so I really like could not get a
breath and I I had major internal
injuries and the these villagers it’s a
very remote jungle road and these
villagers brought me to their village
and they this young man proceeded to sew
up my arm with nothing more than a
needle and thread
and I mean huge chunks of glass and
metal and I later found out he was not a
doctor he wasn’t even a nurse he was
just using needle and thread and staples
and you know I’m out of my mind with
pain I knew that if I passed out that I
was never going to wake up that I needed
to not go into shock so I’m grabbing
this guy by the collar we’re in the
Golden Triangle for God’s sake do you
have any of that opium you’re all
smoking up here and this guy didn’t
speak English he handed me a washcloth
and you know I’m like now that’s not
gonna cut it so but you know I got
through that and these villagers bless
her her did not leave me for this the
entire time they just stayed with me but
as we got into ten hours it was really
clear that I was not going to get out of
this situation alive and I just I
couldn’t get a breath I could not
breathe any longer so I wrote a note to
my family and I told them how I died and
where I died and I wanted them to know
that I didn’t die alone and in fear that
I was feeling held and that was a real
remarkable experience for me because I
kind of never really knew that about
myself that I was really okay to die
alone on a jungle road in Laos and it
was incredibly freeing I just let go of
fear and I did feel truly held and feel
like I absolutely had this near-death
experience and
interestingly though it just wasn’t my
time right at that point this guy comes
up this guy Allen guy he just happened
to be driving by he was a British aid
worker and he said I’m gonna get you out
of here and he drove me which he
absolutely did not need to do with his
wife van they drove me all the way to
Thailand which was eight hours in the
back of a pickup truck on the most
potholed Road ever and here you can see
I’m not in good shape
I actually flatlined five minutes later
after they took this photo and this is
in Thailand in the hospital and this is
weeks later my arm is trying to heal but
I was three weeks in intensive care in
this hospital in Thailand and I am the
poster child for medevac insurance
because I did not have it and it was
$25,000 to get me home just a little
side note for those of you who travel
but but I wasn’t medivac back to the
States about to San Francisco again
where I lived and given a very grim
prognosis that I was never going to walk
properly again I it was pretty
devastating news for someone that’s an
avid hiker skier kayaker beam to Everest
base camp twice in Tibet Nepal and I lay
staring at a ceiling on a morphine drip
for for many months and then I just
reached a point where I got to get off
these drugs and got off everything and I
remember this doctor coming in my room
and saying you better think about what
you want to do with your life now
because you are never gonna work as a
photographer again and I said really cuz
I plan on climbing Mount Kilimanjaro for
my birthday next year so they sent me to
a psychiatrist saying I was in denial
seriously and I just got rid of all
those doctors and started all over and I
got a new physical therapist and she
still lasts to this day that she
remembers me hobbling into her room
saying you know tell me what I can do
not what I can’t do I think and get back
to kayaking can you you know help me do
that and she’s like well you’re not
there yet but anyway a year and a half
afterwards I was finally able to kayak
Glacier Bay in Alaska which was huge for
me you know I really got to a point
where at least I can get back out in the
great outdoors and then I took me two
years but I made it to the top of
Kilimanjaro okay thank you I’d like to
say it felt really good
but at the time it didn’t thought I was
gonna throw up but but it did it it
really did feel like I’d come back
physically doing something like that and
I cerca me on bloated Mount Kyle ash
into that which the Tibetans believed to
be the center of the universe the
holiest part of the world for Tibetans
is this area in western Tibet this is
where I was on my way to go to when I
got on my bus accident and it really
meant a lot to me this was a number of
years after the accident – to do this
pilgrimage because it was so symbolic of
where I had gone and what I had gone
through and I thought how interesting
that you don’t choose the pilgrimage it
chooses you and what the Tibetans do is
they prostrate as this woman is doing
around this this mountain which is you
know touching their hands to their head
their mouth their heart and fully along
gating themselves to go around this
whole mountain which can take days weeks
or months I did it in like four days
because I did not prostrate I walked and
it was it just had it had a lot of
meaning to me and really thinking about
how this accident had sort of changed my
perspective on things not so much that
it caused me to change my life but it
really confirmed for me that I was on
the right path and what I wanted to
continue doing and that was to bring
empathy and compassion even more so in
my work so with this idea I mean I’ve
done a lot of this as you seen
humanitarian work in the past but
this was covering the tsunami right
after it happened in Sri Lanka and more
than 1200 people were killed on this
train
they were just merely going from one
place to another at Christmas time and
the train was thrown from his tracks and
he still saw the wrapped Christmas
presents and the children’s shoes and
very very sad this is about a cola more
than six thousand people were killed
just in the small town alone because the
the fencing that they had for the
animals prohibited any of the people
from being able to run by this huge wave
of water that came and so I photographed
this woman who’d lost three of her
children to the sea and that was weeping
really profoundly and then she got up
and she threw herself into the ocean to
kill herself and that’s you know when I
put the cameras down and I threw my body
on her and she I held her down until
someone came and helped her but you know
just that the loss the palpable
devastation of seeing something like
that and this little girl she’s lost her
parents this wasn’t a makeshift shelter
I was staying in the Turks and Caicos
photographing when I got a call how soon
can you go to Haiti and there’s just
been an earthquake and so I was out
photographing for a number of things
well you know one was a relief
organization and these are babies
sleeping in a bucket this isn’t a
hospital but you can really see the
progressive prosthetics that these kids
are going to need and then you turn
around see moments like this you know
one of the workers with one of the
children that had had survived and I
find that incredibly touching you know
when you you just see so much hardship
in the world and yet when it’s brought
together in humanity like that and then
more recently this work that I’ve been
doing in Burma but I feel like a lot of
these images are really sort of
celebrating the spirit within all of us
it’s what really bonds us as mankind
as we sort of continue this this journey
this pilgrimage in life and you know
just how similar we are in so many ways
and in what we’re striving for you know
I’m very interested in what’s happening
with Burma and the refugees there
because they have you know very militant
government and it’s such a hot place you
know as an enticing place to travel
right now so a lot of tourists are going
there and it’s important for us to look
deeply at what is where is this money
going and how is it being distributed in
the in the country these tourist dollars
so with my faces of hope organization
I’ve gone on to raise money to bring
tents to Haiti help children and
rehabilitation and after car accidents
in the Middle East send girls to school
in India I’m now working to get a mobile
medical unit for these Burmese refugees
in Thailand this is in Phuket and the
interesting thing about this pocket of
Burmese refugees is Phuket is actually
the most heavily touristed island in the
country and so you have all these people
sunbathing and it’s you know packed in
the hotels and yet these burmese are
just living in absolute squalor this
woman sadly had saved up enough money to
send her daughter back to burma and she
drowned the first week that she got back
so she was just lighting these incense
for her daughter when I met her I asked
these refugees they said look at this
squalor that they live in I’m like how
can you live in this for $8 and you know
to earn $8 a day working so hard on
these fishing boats and in construction
and they said because in our country we
only make two and so I just been working
to try to get this particular area
cleaned up for them and I so I partnered
with NGOs and this is a little school
that they started for the kids
the Burmese kids there because they’re
not even given refugee status so they
don’t even get schools and such and then
just ending on this note of circling
back to covering the tsunami in Sri
Lanka and this is a man who’s bearing
five of his family members and
ironically in this very sand that killed
them
and he he’s reading from the Koran and
so I was taking some photos of this
moment because that’s what I do as a
photographer and then I couldn’t help
myself as sort of a humanitarian just as
a person just to walk over and hold his
hand and just tell him I’m so sorry that
you’ve gone through this and he said
please don’t forget about us and I
thought here we are the two most
unlikely as two people but that’s why I
do what I do because I think it’s
important to not forget so when he
turned to me and said that I I
acknowledge that I would not and so I
greatly appreciate this opportunity to
share all of these stories with you
thank you very much
you
that you are running into what everyone
else is running away from and it was
incredibly freeing I just let go of fear
and for me it’s just it’s about that
whole connection you know and it was
it’s not always with the camera
it’s humanity I am very excited to be
here thank you for coming to see me this
is actually my second passport and I
obtained my wanderlust in utero my mom
was a flight attendant British flight
attendant for Pan Am and dad was a
research chemist and they met on a
flight in well somewhere overseas and he
fell in love with her legs she fell in
love with his he was a rugby player for
Cambridge I don’t know was the best
basis of a marriage but it it it gave
them a reason to emigrate to the States
they wanted me to have a foothold in
both continents just sort of instigate
my love of travel and it worked but it
was really mr. lay my high school
English teacher that took me aside and
really taught me how to use my first LS
SLR camera and I can remember the first
time he said they were photojournalist
and that you could travel the world
taking pictures and I was 15 years old
and I said that’s what I want to do
that’s what I want to be and I went on
to study photojournalism and I was very
drawn to Asia for whatever reason and I
had this sort of deep-seated
spirituality I was really affected by
Gandhi I wanted to go to India
specifically
and I saved my money to go trouble when
I got out of college I lived with
Bedouin sand a sinai in Egypt I worked
on a kibbutz in Israel and I hitchhiked
into Beirut when they bombed American
Embassy got into all kinds of trouble
there got held in a prison camp so I I
came back to the States
and now this is you know after really
kind of traveling and backpacking for
three years but photographing the whole
time and my mom is now living in San
Diego and I asked I went to this
newspaper and I just said you know can
you look at my work what do you think do
you think I’ve a chance at doing this
for a job and to my surprise they hired
me on the spot and one day I was in the
back of the the newspaper you know back
when we were doing darker rooms and I
was flipping through a magazine and I
saw these beautiful doe-eyed children in
this magazine and I felt like oh my gosh
I’m 24 I’m so old I you know I’m gonna
die at this newspaper will I ever get to
India and I called the photographer and
I told him how much I loved his work and
he said well I’m a UNICEF photographer
forever New York combined show me your
portfolio so I bought a plane ticket I
went out to New York the very next week
I showed him what I was working on in
shooting and he said this is this is
great do you want to go shoot an
assignment in Nepal and I paused three
seconds for dignity and I said yes I
would love to get in the ball and I quit
my job and just thought let’s just see
what happens and I went for this
three-week assignment and I did not
leave Nepal for more than four years and
I just I just felt like I’d come home so
here I am in Nepal and I I was covering
a lot of the political situation there
because they back in the 90s it was a
very big political hot bed and
were you know about to overthrow the
government this is when they actually
did overthrow the government I was
photographing a lot of the
demonstrations and the skirmishes and
this was really heavy stuff I just had
seen a lot of people get shot and I’ve
just been tear-gassed and you have to
really ponder a profession that you are
running into what everyone else is
running away from so I also was given a
really great assignment for UNICEF
photographing for the Convention for
rights to the child and so that was a
lot of my work there I was photographing
for all these aid and humanitarian
organizations photographing all aspects
of children and this is a little girl
that my friend all does amazing she has
almost single-handedly stamped out girls
being sold into bonded labor and Nepal
and what they do is they sell these
girls in the market for sex trafficking
and now there’s this program where they
give a piglet to the families so that
they will sell the piglet at the end of
the year instead of the girl child which
is a sad statement about what a girl
child is worth in Nepal during this time
I lived in Nepal I found there’s a
hundred and twenty thousand Tibetan
refugees living throughout India Nepal
on these 57 different Tibetan
settlements and this is Tibet a new year
in Nepal and they are throwing Zampa
flour up in the air to celebrate the new
year in Kathmandu and this is the same
what they call a stupa where some of
Buddhas remains are supposedly buried in
the middle of this and it’s all seeing
eyes of Buddha and a Lama has died so
they’re lighting one hundred thousand
butter lamps small little butter lamps
all around the stupa and for the new
year they tied new prayer flags and
these prayer flags are very indicative
of the Himalayas their prayers that are
printed on these flags and the prayers
which symbolized earth wind fire the
elements of the earth blow to the wind
and they leave them up to lore all gone
so I went around all over India Nepal
photographing these Tibetans
that style is very interested in
diaspora and they they’re sort of a slow
and steady infiltration of the Chinese
coming into Tibet throughout the 1940s
which culminated on March 10th of 1959
when the Dalai Lama actually fled and
immediately 85,000 to a hundred thousand
Tibetans all followed him and there’s
being a trail continuously coming over
now there’s as I said over 120,000 in
exile and he lives in this place called
Dharamsala India which is in the north
and these are little Tibetan girls
dressed up for Losar they still very
much keep their culture in these exile
settlements and this is a crash these
are little children babies Tibetan
babies and as many of you probably know
in Tibetan Buddhism they believe in
reincarnation now I was going all over
photographing these different high Lamas
and all aspects of their life and I went
to go photograph kala Rinpoche who was
this very old Lama living in Darjeeling
India in the north I got up there it was
pouring rain and I waited and his
caretaker came out and said I’m really
sorry kala Rinpoche which means Lama is
too too ill to see you and I and I left
feeling disappointed because I felt it
not only would I not get to photograph
him but I’d never meet him and sure
enough he died three months later this
is years later I’m now in derm Sala
India and I hear that they have found
the reincarnation of this kala Rinpoche
so I thought okay let’s go meet him so I
go to this boy’s room his mother greets
me at the door and he’s playing game boy
this little video game on his bed
because he might be a high Lama but he’s
still a child and he looked up and he
saw me and he said I remember you you
came to see me it was pouring rain my
caretaker was making Momo’s these
steamed dumplings which he was I was too
ill to see you then but I’ll see you now
and I like okay interesting so it’s
maybe something to this for inclination
thing when the Chinese came in about
6500 tibetan buddhist monasteries were
destroyed and they felt that by killing
the hub they thought that they would
kill the heart of tibet by by killing
the buddhism that is really their sort
of crux of their lot of their life and
this was lhasa
and this shook poori hill was very
important to them in that this is like
where the tibetan school of medicine was
in lhasa in tibet and that chinese came
in and completely destroyed it and put a
TV antenna there and these Tibetans came
back and like made this mural and carved
out this little area where they still
circumambulate which means they still
walk around it spinning their prayer
wheels and here is one of the
monasteries that’s actually rebuilt in
Tibet Lhasa started becoming so taken by
the Chinese that I started moving
further and further afield and became
very over the years more interested in
the Tibetan nomads and how they were
surviving here’s a Tibetan nomads woman
living in her yak hair tent and this is
a beautiful hill it’s just all these
undulating hills covered with these
prayer flags these tall prayer flags
which blow to the wind and here’s a man
with his little baby I just just walking
by and this little baby peeked out this
was actually in the geographic this is
actually the cover of my book because I
felt it was one of those photos that as
I’m taking it and I wouldn’t see this
photo for three months because that’s
how long I was there where you just feel
like oh my gosh I have this photo I mean
this is just so resonating and it’s such
a beautiful feeling and then I got the
photo back
and to me after all these years of
working you know with Tibetans I just
felt like she really encapsulated the
the sadness yet the resiliency and the
dignity of this culture and these people
and she’s only about five years old and
besides the beautiful headdress and and
so I just gonna go through a few of
these photos because I just love their
headgear I mean I just find these people
and I you know go through these remote
areas and I’ve been taken with these
like this frisbee hat and do you know
they just have this incredible sense of
style that is is becoming eradicated
very quickly part of this culture will
not last I believe for another
generation certainly too and they wear
these beautiful waterfall of amber
turquoise coral these are actually her
cheeks you know from the wind there’s no
makeup on her and this boy he admits he
has no idea what his hat says but he
likes wearing it ear muffs rabbit ear
muffs so apart from the fact that this
boy looks like he’s just what the
dentist what’s interesting about him is
that he’s actually Muslim and even
though the Tibetans are really you know
99.9% Buddhist it’s really fascinating
that there’s actually a small
contingency of Tibetan Muslims that when
the Islamic traders came through Tibet
they intermarried and now there’s a few
Muslims that you know believe the Dalai
Lama to be their political leader but
not their spiritual leader and this
woman bless her heart had no idea why I
was taking her photo and what I found
interesting and she was just walking
down the street carrying a bag of cement
on her head and I run out and I’m like
do you sleep in that
and so then one day I’m in this little
town and obviously I’m really into their
dress and their headgear and I see an
orange hat and I’m practically
hyperventilating and I I believe it’s
probably made from that goat hair and
then I saw a few more and they started
looking like little dr. Seuss characters
you know or human q-tips and then I get
out and there’s like this whole ballet
of our jad people at this they’re all
congregated it’s worst mess of all so I
was ecstatically happy
this is Laos and I was in Laos working
on the book on children around the world
his faces of hope and I just felt like
my life was really where I wanted it to
be I just you know every morning before
it opened my eyes I think this is what I
where I want to be what I want to be
doing and how often you get that in life
you know and it’s so interesting because
that’s right when life throws a
curveball I got up early in the morning
I photograph these monks and collecting
arms as they do these Buddhist tera
vaada Buddhist monks and the people give
them offerings for their food and this
almost became the last picture I ever
took I then went and jumped on a bus to
go down from the north to the south from
Long prabang to vang Jian and as you can
see it’s it’s rather rickety and I don’t
think you’re really supposed to have
plastic seats in the middle everyone
seems to be gripping for a reason
because it’s the most potholed Road I’ve
ever been on but we were coming around a
corner and I’ve been on these buses a
million times and you’re like oh that
was so close
and we were coming around a corner I
looked up and I thought wow that was
close and we just got slammed by this
huge logging truck and it was literally
right where I was sitting and it just
sheared the whole bus in half and I was
pinned in this with this logging truck
and this bus and I was actually knocked
unconscious I was pulled off this
burning bus by two men the people around
me were killed and
pull to the side of the road and I woke
up and I had broken my back my pelvis
all my ribs my arm is nearly torn off
most alarming is that I had collapsed
lungs so I really like could not get a
breath and I I had major internal
injuries and the these villagers it’s a
very remote jungle road and these
villagers brought me to their village
and they this young man proceeded to sew
up my arm with nothing more than a
needle and thread
and I mean huge chunks of glass and
metal and I later found out he was not a
doctor he wasn’t even a nurse he was
just using needle and thread and staples
and you know I’m out of my mind with
pain I knew that if I passed out that I
was never going to wake up that I needed
to not go into shock so I’m grabbing
this guy by the collar we’re in the
Golden Triangle for God’s sake do you
have any of that opium you’re all
smoking up here and this guy didn’t
speak English he handed me a washcloth
and you know I’m like now that’s not
gonna cut it so but you know I got
through that and these villagers bless
her her did not leave me for this the
entire time they just stayed with me but
as we got into ten hours it was really
clear that I was not going to get out of
this situation alive and I just I
couldn’t get a breath I could not
breathe any longer so I wrote a note to
my family and I told them how I died and
where I died and I wanted them to know
that I didn’t die alone and in fear that
I was feeling held and that was a real
remarkable experience for me because I
kind of never really knew that about
myself that I was really okay to die
alone on a jungle road in Laos and it
was incredibly freeing I just let go of
fear and I did feel truly held and feel
like I absolutely had this near-death
experience and
interestingly though it just wasn’t my
time right at that point this guy comes
up this guy Allen guy he just happened
to be driving by he was a British aid
worker and he said I’m gonna get you out
of here and he drove me which he
absolutely did not need to do with his
wife van they drove me all the way to
Thailand which was eight hours in the
back of a pickup truck on the most
potholed Road ever and here you can see
I’m not in good shape
I actually flatlined five minutes later
after they took this photo and this is
in Thailand in the hospital and this is
weeks later my arm is trying to heal but
I was three weeks in intensive care in
this hospital in Thailand and I am the
poster child for medevac insurance
because I did not have it and it was
$25,000 to get me home just a little
side note for those of you who travel
but but I wasn’t medivac back to the
States about to San Francisco again
where I lived and given a very grim
prognosis that I was never going to walk
properly again I it was pretty
devastating news for someone that’s an
avid hiker skier kayaker beam to Everest
base camp twice in Tibet Nepal and I lay
staring at a ceiling on a morphine drip
for for many months and then I just
reached a point where I got to get off
these drugs and got off everything and I
remember this doctor coming in my room
and saying you better think about what
you want to do with your life now
because you are never gonna work as a
photographer again and I said really cuz
I plan on climbing Mount Kilimanjaro for
my birthday next year so they sent me to
a psychiatrist saying I was in denial
seriously and I just got rid of all
those doctors and started all over and I
got a new physical therapist and she
still lasts to this day that she
remembers me hobbling into her room
saying you know tell me what I can do
not what I can’t do I think and get back
to kayaking can you you know help me do
that and she’s like well you’re not
there yet but anyway a year and a half
afterwards I was finally able to kayak
Glacier Bay in Alaska which was huge for
me you know I really got to a point
where at least I can get back out in the
great outdoors and then I took me two
years but I made it to the top of
Kilimanjaro okay thank you I’d like to
say it felt really good
but at the time it didn’t thought I was
gonna throw up but but it did it it
really did feel like I’d come back
physically doing something like that and
I cerca me on bloated Mount Kyle ash
into that which the Tibetans believed to
be the center of the universe the
holiest part of the world for Tibetans
is this area in western Tibet this is
where I was on my way to go to when I
got on my bus accident and it really
meant a lot to me this was a number of
years after the accident – to do this
pilgrimage because it was so symbolic of
where I had gone and what I had gone
through and I thought how interesting
that you don’t choose the pilgrimage it
chooses you and what the Tibetans do is
they prostrate as this woman is doing
around this this mountain which is you
know touching their hands to their head
their mouth their heart and fully along
gating themselves to go around this
whole mountain which can take days weeks
or months I did it in like four days
because I did not prostrate I walked and
it was it just had it had a lot of
meaning to me and really thinking about
how this accident had sort of changed my
perspective on things not so much that
it caused me to change my life but it
really confirmed for me that I was on
the right path and what I wanted to
continue doing and that was to bring
empathy and compassion even more so in
my work so with this idea I mean I’ve
done a lot of this as you seen
humanitarian work in the past but
this was covering the tsunami right
after it happened in Sri Lanka and more
than 1200 people were killed on this
train
they were just merely going from one
place to another at Christmas time and
the train was thrown from his tracks and
he still saw the wrapped Christmas
presents and the children’s shoes and
very very sad this is about a cola more
than six thousand people were killed
just in the small town alone because the
the fencing that they had for the
animals prohibited any of the people
from being able to run by this huge wave
of water that came and so I photographed
this woman who’d lost three of her
children to the sea and that was weeping
really profoundly and then she got up
and she threw herself into the ocean to
kill herself and that’s you know when I
put the cameras down and I threw my body
on her and she I held her down until
someone came and helped her but you know
just that the loss the palpable
devastation of seeing something like
that and this little girl she’s lost her
parents this wasn’t a makeshift shelter
I was staying in the Turks and Caicos
photographing when I got a call how soon
can you go to Haiti and there’s just
been an earthquake and so I was out
photographing for a number of things
well you know one was a relief
organization and these are babies
sleeping in a bucket this isn’t a
hospital but you can really see the
progressive prosthetics that these kids
are going to need and then you turn
around see moments like this you know
one of the workers with one of the
children that had had survived and I
find that incredibly touching you know
when you you just see so much hardship
in the world and yet when it’s brought
together in humanity like that and then
more recently this work that I’ve been
doing in Burma but I feel like a lot of
these images are really sort of
celebrating the spirit within all of us
it’s what really bonds us as mankind
as we sort of continue this this journey
this pilgrimage in life and you know
just how similar we are in so many ways
and in what we’re striving for you know
I’m very interested in what’s happening
with Burma and the refugees there
because they have you know very militant
government and it’s such a hot place you
know as an enticing place to travel
right now so a lot of tourists are going
there and it’s important for us to look
deeply at what is where is this money
going and how is it being distributed in
the in the country these tourist dollars
so with my faces of hope organization
I’ve gone on to raise money to bring
tents to Haiti help children and
rehabilitation and after car accidents
in the Middle East send girls to school
in India I’m now working to get a mobile
medical unit for these Burmese refugees
in Thailand this is in Phuket and the
interesting thing about this pocket of
Burmese refugees is Phuket is actually
the most heavily touristed island in the
country and so you have all these people
sunbathing and it’s you know packed in
the hotels and yet these burmese are
just living in absolute squalor this
woman sadly had saved up enough money to
send her daughter back to burma and she
drowned the first week that she got back
so she was just lighting these incense
for her daughter when I met her I asked
these refugees they said look at this
squalor that they live in I’m like how
can you live in this for $8 and you know
to earn $8 a day working so hard on
these fishing boats and in construction
and they said because in our country we
only make two and so I just been working
to try to get this particular area
cleaned up for them and I so I partnered
with NGOs and this is a little school
that they started for the kids
the Burmese kids there because they’re
not even given refugee status so they
don’t even get schools and such and then
just ending on this note of circling
back to covering the tsunami in Sri
Lanka and this is a man who’s bearing
five of his family members and
ironically in this very sand that killed
them
and he he’s reading from the Koran and
so I was taking some photos of this
moment because that’s what I do as a
photographer and then I couldn’t help
myself as sort of a humanitarian just as
a person just to walk over and hold his
hand and just tell him I’m so sorry that
you’ve gone through this and he said
please don’t forget about us and I
thought here we are the two most
unlikely as two people but that’s why I
do what I do because I think it’s
important to not forget so when he
turned to me and said that I I
acknowledge that I would not and so I
greatly appreciate this opportunity to
share all of these stories with you
thank you very much
you
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