Tag: poverty

Safety tips for working in less developed countries

I work a lot in the developing world, partly because my wife is from India. Before we met, I was also working a lot in the nether-reaches of the globe because personal projects and paying work took me there. A friend just asked me if I had any tips he could incorporate into his working process as he heads off to Mexico. The challenge for me in writing this blog was not coming up with advice but rather with figuring out how to explain those things that I do almost automatically when I am photographing in places like India, Guatemala, Vietnam or Turkey. Read More

Privatize it all, let God sort it out

Sometimes, when I am blogging, I think that the art is connecting things that initially seem disconnected and pondering them until I can organize disparate threads into a good blog entry. That exact process started when I was recently in Los Angeles for a few days at the start of a long road trip. I kept coming face-to-face with reminders of the ways that privatization is ruining much of our society. Even worse is the thought that as bad as these changes are for someone like me in the middle class, they are much worse for the working poor across this country. They are the people who will really lose when no one (other than God) sorts out the privatization mess we are making. Read More

Rich is better

The line, “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. Rich is better,” has been credited to actress Mae West, comedians Joe E. Lewis and Fanny Brice as well as entertainer Sophie Tucker (and many others.) My own life experience backs this up. A few recent experiences do that even more so. Read More

Akka (the movie)

My daughter and my niece spent the summer of 2010 volunteering at the Parikrma school in Bangalore, India. This short movie explores their experience living and working in India. Read More