"If they could only see...what I see..."

I've created images for development and relief throughout East Africa for nearly 11 seasons now, applying my advertising skills and cultural insight for good, in producing images that will help support programs, to help them keep going and to help keep the money coming in which enables extremely important work to continue. It's a simple reality that without funding it all grinds to a halt which is particularly frustrating to me, it's personal...given that I meet a myriad of human conditions face to face, in tough places and at times I wish that..."if only they could see what I see"...they would be a foot soldier for life in trying to be part of the solution.

However, this project...The Paradigm Project...is very different from any that I've worked on.

Before I left the states on this latest journey, a series of discussions took place on just how to make this new body of work more effective, more strategic and yet equally intimate and to effectively give it a "signature" look and feel to the photography. Different in so many ways, it still came to life like so much of my work...through hard work and by being sensitive to the images playing out in front of me. A very well known photojournalist friend of mine instructed me long ago to "shoot from my gut"...that this will yield my best work...and he was right. It all took shape that hot afternoon in the back lot of a tumble down local hotel whose owner was serving “fresh goat meat and rice” to desert travelers while a usually unseen and typically humble group of Gabbra women...became part of…became partners with me...in raising awareness to the struggles of women in East Africa’s Kenya.

Straight, pure, devoid of manipulation, Richard Avedon’s timeless work in the "American West" project provided a degree of inspiration to me for which I'm grateful. It provided a role model if you will and helped me think through the best way to bring images of these women to life. On reflection this wasn’t the end of our journey…it was simply the beginning...