Weekly Photo Challenges Archives

October 10, 2014April 9, 2018

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I dream of a future when all girls can go to school

In honor of the amazing news today and International Day of the Girl tomorrow, I am dedicating this post to one amazing young woman who risked her life for her belief that all girls should have the right to go to school. Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban two years ago for her desire to learn was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this morning along with Kailash Satyarthi of India, a campaigner for the end of child labor and freeing children from trafficking.

At 17, Malala is the youngest ever winner of a Nobel Prize. Since the shocking news hit the world that young Malala was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman, Malala has fought tirelessly for the rights of girls worldwide to go to school. After her remarkable recovery in a British hospital, Malala has become a global icon for girl’s rights. To further her work, she co-founded the Malala Fund with her father Ziauddin Yousafzai (an educator and social activist) and Shiza Shahid (a Pakistani social entrepreneur and activist) to amplify, advocate and invest in girl’s education. To read more about the amazing work Malala does around the world for girls, click here.

Congratulations Malala on following your dreams! You are amazing and truly changing the world.

These girls need you and others to stand up for their right to education.

September 26, 2014April 9, 2018

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Nighttime in France

Nighttime is the day’s way of saying goodbye. Reminding us that yet another day of our lives has passed and it is time to rest before a new day begins. I love watching the color of the clouds and sky as night begins to fall over the mountains. It is my favorite time of day and brings me so much peace and reflection.

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky”. –Rabindranath Tagore

Nightfall in Vanoise National Park, Savoie France.

“The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night.” ― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

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September 12, 2014April 13, 2018

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The Meaning of Humanity

Today I have the honor of hosting the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge. When asked to come up with a theme, without skipping a beat I decided upon Humanity. Here is my own answer to the question and challenge below. To see the official WordPress Photo Challenge: Humanity and to respond, please click here.

There is so much conflict and heartbreak in the today’s world: Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine and the raw memories of 9/11 to name a few. Sometimes it makes me wonder what on earth has happened to humanity and compassion for others. Has it all disappeared?

The more I see the world, the more I realize that although people are all different, we are also very much the same. We may speak different languages, have different cultures, religions, values and physical traits, yet we all share common hopes and dreams of love, family and survival.

When I travel, I am inspired to take photographs that show the common humanity of us all. I aim to capture images of everyday people around the world hoping to provoke compassion for others and an understanding of their differences. My favorite photos are the rare ones that capture the raw emotions of others and spark a curiosity about their lives. For me, these images reflect the common humanity the human race shares and creates a connection between us.

Some of my favorite photos of humanity are the ones where I feel as if my photograph is touching their souls like these ones below.

I met these two girls inside an unauthorized slum in the heart of New Delhi. Although their clothing was tattered and torn, their eyes were full of joy, innocence and curiosity about the outside world and a tall, blond-haired blue-eyed woman asking to take their photo. They reminded me of my own children.

I met this woman in southern Ethiopia at Project Mercy, a not-for-profit relief and development agency working to alleviate human suffering and poverty in Ethiopia. Although she could not read or write or speak the same language, her pride at her handiwork was evident.

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September 5, 2014April 13, 2018

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A Life of Adventure

“Today a new sun rises for me; everything lives, everything is animated, everything seems to speak to me of my passion, everything invites me to cherish it”. – Ninon de Lenclos

Looking up at the Tour Eiffel, my most favorite landmarks.

Me and my boy

Sunset over Lake Harriet Minneapolis Minnesota

The highlight of the trip was a boat tour in search of hippos and the island monasteries on Lake Tana.

“Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go”. – T.S. Eliot

This post is my inspiration from the Weekly Photo Challenge: Adventure. To view more entries, click here.

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August 29, 2014April 9, 2018

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A Photographic Dialogue

Can photos talk? Sometimes a single picture can paint a thousand words if you stop and take a moment to look at it. This week’s Photo Challenge by Swiss-based architect and photographer Frédéric Biver of fakeormistake uses two photographs side by side to create a dialogue and tell a story between them that would not exist if the photo was presented alone. It is a fascinating concept that made me reflect deeply on the importance of each individual’s perception of a photo and its meaning.

A dialogue can be created by similarities in shapes, colors or forms. It can also be created by two photos taken from a different angle or perspective. In my case, I tend to snap away at whatever seems to attract my attention at a certain time and place, using the photos together or in a series of photos to create a story and dialogue of that one specific moment in time.

Here are some dialogues I’ve captured from my travels. See if you can find a story from within.

Ethiopia

Location: Project Mercy’s Lie and Wait house for expectant mothers who walk at least two hours on foot to reach the nearest hospital.

Mother

Daughter

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August 22, 2014April 15, 2018

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Frayed Clothes and the Blue Sweater

When I arrived in Ethiopia, it was impossible not to notice the frayed clothing worn by most rural Ethiopians. As an avid reader on global issues and extreme poverty, I couldn’t seem to get the fabulous non-fiction book “The Blue Sweater” by Jacqueline Novogratz out of my head. One of the unforgettable moments in Jacqueline’s life was when she was living in Rwanda and saw a young boy wearing her blue sweater that she had donated eleven years ago to a local American charity. Somehow that sweater with her initials still written clearly inside, made it all the way to Africa and was still being worn despite being tattered and frayed. It made Norogratz, a successful investment banker, think about how our world is interconnected, and it steered her life towards philanthropy.

Driving throughout the rural countryside of Ethiopia where over 90% of Ethiopia’s 90 million people live, frayed clothing is an omnipresent reminder of the high level of poverty in this part of the world. I saw toddlers wearing no bottoms, little boys wearing pink jackets, girls and women in a pell-mell of skirts, tops and dresses, and men wearing worn-out, patched up trousers. Shoes were rarely present especially on children. If shoes were worn, they were either too big, too small or torn.

I thought about my own children, comfortably back at home in Minnesota with more clothing in their closets and drawers than they could possibly wear to the point of wearing them out. The fact that twice a year I make the annual trip to Goodwill or Salvation Army where I unload all the unnecessary clothing that is supposed to go to the local community but like Norogratz’ blue sweater, most likely ends up somewhere in Africa.

Was some little girl out there wearing my daughter’s favorite dress? I am certain she is.

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August 8, 2014April 15, 2018

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The Texture of Injera

On my first night in Addis Ababa, I was introduced to the main staple of Ethiopian food: Injera. Injera is a sponge-like, sourdough bread made from teff that looks like a giant textured pancake and is used to scoop up different types of usually spicy Ethiopian stews called wat. Although I have dined at Ethiopian restaurants before in the States, I was truly looking forward to the real thing in Ethiopia. I find that generally ethnic food is best and spiciest when you have it in the motherland.

Injera is the traditional meal of Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea and is exceedingly healthy as it is full of iron thanks to the teff grain. It is made by combining teff flour with water and the mixture is fermented for several days giving it its sourdough base. Once the mixture has completed this process, it is baked on a large clay plate called a mittad over a hot fire and formed into a spongy, big pancake.

Injera up close. You can see its spongy texture.

When you dine at a traditional Ethiopian restaurant or home, the first thing the waitress or host does is brings over a large bowl of warm water and soap to the guests to wash your hands. Since Ethiopian food is shared and everyone eats from the same big plate, having clean hands and using only your right hand while eating is proper etiquette.

The injera is spread out on a large platter with a few pieces ready for to grab.

Then the various wats (either vegetarian or meat spicy stews) are poured on top of the injera one at a time.

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St. George Cathedral Addis Ababa Ethiopia

July 11, 2014April 15, 2018

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Ethiopia’s Enchanting St. George Cathedral

Tucked away in the heart of the Piazza, the old Italian district of Addis Ababa, lies the enchanting St. George Cathedral, one of Addis’ most beloved treasures. The St. George Cathedral was commissioned by Emperor Menelik II to commemorate his extraordinary defeat of the Italians who fought to take over Ethiopia in 1896. The victory marked a huge success for Ethiopia. The nation was able to retain their sovereignty and today remains one of the few countries in Africa that has never been colonized.

The church was designed by Greek, Armenian and Indian artists and completed in 1911 named in the honor of St. George, the patron saint of Ethiopia, whose relic was actually carried in the 1896 battle against the Italians in Adwa.

Today, St. George cathedral and its museum are important places for Orthodox Christians and tourists alike to visit. While the outside of the cathedral is rather striking in its neoclassical, octagon-shaped structure, the inside is a true delight of brilliant stained-glass windows, colorful religious paintings and carpets. The museum next door holds some of the ancient relics of the church where the Empress Zewditu and Emperor Haile Selaisse were crowned.

The glorious St. George cathedral’s neoclassical design is shaped in an octagon that covers the grounds.

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June 7, 2014April 9, 2018

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A Room of one’s own in Marseille’s Vieux Port

Marseille. The oldest city in all of France renown for le Vieux Port and its fisherman has recently become the culture capital of Europe and it shows. Restaurants and cafes dot the Vieux Port affording gorgeous views of the Notre Dame de la Garde that overlooks the city.

Our hotel, the Residence du Vieux Port was the perfect place to base ourselves for our stay in Marseille. Strategically located along the Vieux Port, we were walking distance to restaurants, nightlife and shopping along La Canebière, the historic street in the old quarter of Marseille leading to the Vieux Port. But the best part of all about our hotel was the view off the balcony.

Try a room with a view like ours located along the boardwalk of the Vieux Port for watching the sun set and morning strolls to admire the fisherman selling the daily catch. A gem of a city that has obviously found its place in European culture.

The view from our room was beautiful at any time of day…

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May 30, 2014April 14, 2018

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A Snapshot of India

Sometimes it is true that a picture can paint a thousand words. This week’s photo challenge: A Split-Second Story, inspired me to dig deep throughout my vast archive of photographs, each one telling a story of a certain place and time. In my opinion, there is no place on earth that a simple photo can tell so much about a place than India.

India, one of the most populous countries on the earth, is full of color, contradiction, glory and pain. It is a place of wonder, sorrow, fear and hope. India bursts with humanity on every street or corner you pass. You can see it all there – poverty, wealth, good, bad, happy, sad, beauty and tragedy.

Behind the beautiful, lavish parts of India always lies the most abject poverty imaginable. Nothing can prepare you for the stark reality of desperation, misery and despair of walking through a real live slum in the heart of India’s capital. Sometimes the most severe poverty is hidden behind the walls and within the confines of a slum. Other times, it stares right back at you like a hard slap across your face. You try to look away, and ignore the creeping, uncomfortable nagging guilt. But you can’t.

Dignity

Woman leaving the newly constructed toilet compound thanks to WaterAid.

Irony

Women living on the street, outside the walls of the American Embassy near Vivekananda Slums in Delhi, India.

In the background of the lush green, beautiful grounds of the American Embassy lies the Vivekananda Camp, one of many unauthorized slums that surround every single part of Delhi. I visited this slum as part of a tour with WaterAid, a global NGO that provides safe drinking water and sanitation to areas around the world that do not have access to it.

The stark contrast between the neighboring American Embassy and the Vivekananda Slum were almost too hard to morally comprehend. These two places represent the immense contradictions and inequalities that can be found all throughout Delhi and India as a whole. One of the greatest inequalities ever seen anywhere in the world is right there staring into your face, making it impossible to not feel deeply distraught.

In the Vivekananda Camp, a slum of approximately 500 households, there is no running water, no sewer lines and people live in absolute dire circumstances. Thanks to WaterAid, improvements to sanitation have been made by the building of a Community Toilet Complex (CTC), a compound containing 20 toilets for women, 20 for men and a few for children as well as a couple of showers, providing some sort of dignity in a place where dignity hardly exists.

When I saw the old woman leaving the Community Toilet Complex, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was moving slowly, at a snail’s pace, with the help of an old wooden cane. She was heading back into the deep confines of the dirty, dingy slum, to her home. I watched her gait with wonder and hope. She had to be in her eighties and most likely spent almost all her life without a proper toilet. Finally after all these years she had the one thing every human being on this earth is entitled to: Dignity. It brought tears to my eyes for the simple things we take for granted.

Less than a third of people ( 772 million people) have access to sanitation in India, and 90 million people in India do not have access to safe water per WaterAid. Over 186,000 children under five die from diarrhea every year. With 17% of the world’s population (over a billion people), the water crisis in India is only getting worse and is becoming life or death for millions of people.

-WaterAid

This post was inspired by the Weekly Photo Challenge: Split-Second Story. To view more entries, click here.

Note: Right after I posted this today I saw the following tragic press release from WaterAid. Lack of toilets reportedly linked to murder of Uttar Pradesh girls . Via @WaterAidAmerica

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May 24, 2014April 13, 2018

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The Rhythm and Twist of Cuban Rumba

Cuba’s rich culture and heritage is a melting pot of mixed ancestry and race. As the Spanish came to colonize Cuba, they brought in over a million slaves from Africa to work on the plantations starting in the 16th century until the abolition of slavery in 1886. During those years, African slaves were coerced to assimilate as much as possible into Spanish Cuban society. However, they fortunately had rather creative ways at retaining their own unique culture and identity through their religion Santeria, music, and dance. One of the benefits of the Cuban revolution was the creation of a more equal society. Although racism still exists a little bit it is much less prevalent than in other parts of the world.

Trinidad, one of the most beautiful colonial towns in all of Cuba, has a strong Afro-Cuban culture. One of the highlights of our visit to Trinidad was a live show of Afro-Cuban music and dancing at the Palenque de los Congoes Reales in the heart of Colonial Trinidad. Over tangy mojitos, we enjoyed a live performance of rumba dance to traditional Afro-Cuban music.

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May 16, 2014February 10, 2019

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Colon Cemetery: Havana’s Work of Art

When I saw our itinerary for our “people-to-people” cultural tour of Cuba (one of the only legal ways to visit Cuba as an American), the one event out of all that I was the least excited about was the visit to a cemetery. To me, visiting cemeteries are rather morbid and oftentimes depressing. Unless of course you are at the famous Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, who wants to see a bunch of grave stones while you are happily enjoying a vacation?

Our morning visit to the famous Colon Cemetery or Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón as it is called in Spanish, proved that not only was I completely wrong but that cemeteries can be actually quite a beautiful place loaded with gorgeous architecture, flowers, history and art. If you have to be buried, then there isn’t a more beautiful place than the Colon Cemetery in the Vedado neighborhood of Havana.

Founded in 1871 as the prosperous Spanish colony began expanding its architectural works into new posh neighborhoods and theaters, train stations, markets, hotels and parks, the Colon Cemetery was built on top of the existing Espada Cemetery and named after Christopher Columbus, the Spaniard who “discovered” Cuba. The Colon Cemetery was based on a project designed by Calixto Aureliano de Loire y Cardoso, a Spanish architect who lived in Cuba. Sadly, he died only two years after starting the project and was one of the first people buried in the cemetery.

The beautiful church at Colon Cemetery in Havana.

The Colon Cemetery is known as the third most important cemeteries in the world based on its glorious architecture and history. In Latin America, it is the second most important cemetery after La Recoleta in Buenos Aires that I have also seen. Both are equally beautiful yet in drastically different ways.