Everyone, at some time, is bound for home. What awaits there is unknowable; what might be glimpsed, unforeseeable. But the future—ours, theirs, yours—is inevitable. And I promised myself I would not look away when it presented itself. So my homecoming, the last I would have with my mother, was spent at her bedside in a long goodbye that I want to hold on to the only way I know how. See The Waiting.
In attendance. Saskatoon, Canada.
One of the goals of Thomas Witherspoon’s not-for-profit Ears to Our World (ETOW) organization is to deliver self-powered world band receivers to schools and communities in developing regions, for education, disaster relief, and lately, to help communities with visually impaired children. These hand-cranked radios let children and families in areas without much infrastructure hear educational programming, news and health information, along with music and the arts.
This summer I had the opportunity to travel with Thomas to Belize City, where he deployed a few dozen such radios to children participating in a summer camp held each year by the Belize Council for the Visually Impaired (BCVI) in coordination with the Belize Ministry of Education. The council hosts children from all across Belize, with educational activities, arts and crafts, computer training, and being a tropical country, plenty of outdoor activities.
Miracle Malaki, a visually impaired student at the BCVI Summer Camp in Belize City, Belize, receives a self-powered radio from Ears to Our World.
Students attending the BVCI summer camp come from throughout Belize. Their degree of visual impairment varies.
Julian Bustamente, BCVI Summer Camp participant, Belize City, Belize.
Courtney Gillette waits for her name to be called to receive a self-powered radio.
A BCVI summer camp student receives her radio.
Students are encouraged to express themselves through tactile creative exercises.
15 year-old Rowan is a longtime participant of the BVCI summer camp. In July, he scuba dived Belize's famous Blue Hole with his sighted coach.
BCVI Summer Camp attendee Brittany Monterosa receives a self-powered radio.
Ears to Our World founder Thomas Witherspoon demonstrates a self-powered radio at Belize Ministry of Education offices, Belize City.
Sheldon Samuels is a coordinator for Adult and Continuing Education with the Ministry of Education. He spends much of his time traveling among Belize's school districts.
The BCVI summer camps originated in 1997 and have been staged in many different parts of Belize.
Victor Chan makes his way home from the BCVI Summer Camp. Belize City, Belize.
A student listens to the Belize national soccer team play a friendly match against New England on his new self-powered radio.
As photographers, it is sobering to meet people with visual impairments. Our art begins with seeing; it is the very first step in our workflow, if you will, and without vision how can we produce, much less edit or appreciate, our work?
What buoyed me throughout was experiencing the relentless optimism of children, their natural ability to look beyond what we could consider impediments, to grow and expand their world, and simply have fun at being kids.
For Northfrkd.com I had the pleasure of photographing an artist whose work runs a range of mediums, but who always returns to the sea for inspiration. Cindy Pease Roe was heavily influenced by time spent in Northern California boat yards, and since returning to the Northeast has been plying nautical themes in watercolor, oils and intriguingly, in scultpure made from washed up beach plastic.
Hear the artist interview. And see more of the artist's work here.
The artist in her boatyard studio, Greenport NY.
Paul Newman at the Orient Country Store, Orient NY.
David Rittenhouse photographed at Ogilvy & Mather New York, NY
Gaelic football, Breezy Point, Queens NY. June 8, 2013.