Having been stirred by the stark images captured by Sebastiao Salgado and other great photographers who have worked around suffering people, I was inspired to travel to and photograph in Africa. Over time I searched in my mind, through friends and on the internet for ways I could make myself useful in the battle against the grinding misery of life on the continent. I had no luck in finding the right fit until an Anglican priest in Savannah put me in touch with Louise Mehl who lives in Kampala, Uganda where she coordinates the work of the Ireland based relief organization Fields Of Life.

A brief email correspondence with Louise led to my trip to Uganda in the fall of 2006. Louise graciously allowed me, camera in hand, to shadow her while she made her rounds to the area orphanages, schools, churches and poverty stricken streets of Kosovo, one of Kampala's nightmarish slums. 

My two days at a clinic where a pioneering Ugandan doctor treats young people with appalling defects of the limbs were both despairing and uplifting. The quiet courage of the children with severe club feet and deformities of the hands and toes humbled me. Because of the success of the doctor's unique methods, children and their families from all over Uganda and neighboring countries trek long distances for treatment there.

In the middle of my three week stay, I joined a handful of photographers from the United States, Canada, England, Germany, and Spain on a trip to Rakai, a rural region of Uganda near the Tanzanian border. The small town of Kyotera is ringed by a network of mud hut, thatch roof hamlets where families survive on small plots of land growing bananas, beans and cassavas. Each member of the group stayed with one family for three days photographing the daily lives of grandparents, parents and children. A tight sense of community prevails there where extended families overlap and intertwine. Their broad smiles and chatter belie the impoverished life in the villages - a life made worse by the scourge of AIDS. In my family both the mother and the father had died of the disease leaving six children to be raised by the grandparents with support from aunts, uncles and cousins who live along the same dirt path. 

I am blessed that I was able to put my skills as a photographer to work in Uganda.

At the Gym – Photographs taken at the Kampala Boxing Club.
Clinic – Images of the children’s orthopedic facility.
Kosovo – Scenes from the Kampala slum.
Rakai – Life in the rural hamlet.
Feet & Hands – During my weeks reviewing the images I captured in Uganda, I noticed embedded in the work a recurring theme which I had not intended while I was in the field. A compilation of images focusing on extremities proves that one can make discoveries in one’s own creation. Or is it really one’s own?