Tonya Burch: A Search For Peace

In a rough and violent neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, Tonya Burch, 45, walks tirelessly in search of information to lead her to her son's murderer. Deontae Smith, 19, was shot and killed by an unknown shooter at an unsanctioned block party on August 1, 2009. Tonya has distributed and posted thousands of fliers, three billboards, and has offered a reward for information. The harsh neighborhood in which the homicide happened in remains mute, but Ms. Burch continues to press on.

Human Rights

On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Surviving The Drought

The 2009 drought in Kenya has had a devastating effect on pastoralists. Hundreds of thousands of cattle died and with them a way of life that had provided families a livelihood from the land. This essay was crafted by duckrabbit during a photofilm workshop at the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi August, 2010.

Chosen Ones

In China, children with albinism face a bleak future. Often abandoned and ostracized, most will never be educated, marry or find a job in their country. Adoption offers hope for a chosen few.

The Cripplers

Introducing Hampton Roads' quadriplegic rugby team, the East Coast Cripplers. They fly down the court. They get knocked out of their chairs. They are athletes.  Photography by Preston Gannaway.

Stand By Me

From the award-winning documentary, Playing For Change: Peace Through Music, comes the first of many "songs around the world" being released independently. Featured is a cover of the Ben E. King classic by multinational musicians adding their part to the song as it travelled the globe.

Against The Odds

Rachel Hersh (age 13) is a student at Episcopal School of Dallas, where she was introduced to the Spirit of Uganda during their 2008 performance at Dallas Children's Theater. Touched by the children's stories and wowed by their spirited moves, Rachel decided to help Empower African Children by making a video for her bat mitzvah project.

So she enlisted the help of fellow Episcopal School of Dallas student William Malouf as cameraman and co-director and the two set off (along with their families) for Uganda. In five days, Rachel and William filmed, interviewed, and learned about the lives of these children. Created by children for children, it inspires viewers to believe that the students supported by Empower African Children will succeed, against the odds.

By bringing Empower African Children's story to more people, Rachel hopes to help raise funds for Empower African Children's future school. To support her effort, you can make a donation in her honor at EmpowerAfricanChildren.org. 

One Block: A New Orleans Neighborhood Rebuilds

"There were some wonderful people on the block and I became invested in them almost immediately" says Anderson as he discusses how his relationship with his subjects shaped the work. Anderson goes on to discuss the effect that limiting himself to photographing the rebuilding process of one specific block had on his process. Anderson introduces and tells the stories of key images from the project and the people depicted in them.

Using portraiture, still lifes, and abstract images, Dave Anderson reveals the evolution of both the street and its houses as residents rebuilt. His images are gathered in One Block, a monograph published by Aperture, and remind us how determination, resilience, and the bonds of community help us to endure.

Documenting The Life Of 20-Somethings

What does it feel like to live through your 20s in the 2010s? The New York Times Magazine asked 13 young photographers to capture the identity of their generation using iPhones. They brought back photos of friends, family members, strangers and themselves. See each photographer’s work, organized by row, here.  Photo below by Jen Davis.

Poor Doesn't Necessarily Mean You're Miserable

Watch a photoessay on Reginald Beckford, part of the Portraits of Poverty project.

The Summers Of Louisville

Advocates for the homeless believe the failing economy, rising unemployment and foreclosure cirsis are causing more two-parent families to seek out assistance from local shelters.  Many of the newly homeless are families in which one or both parents lost a job or were low-wage workers living paycheck to paycheck before a crisis hit.

Kentucky produces some of our nation's most povern people, and the Summers of Louisville are no exception. But their strong family values keep their heads above any challenge that seven people in a single cramped room might face. And that is one thing money could never buy.

Voices Of Giving

Click here to view 5 stories of givers produced by Dana Romanoff.

Living With Cerebral Palsy

Christopher Capozziello is a freelance photographer from Hamden, Connecticut. His work focuses on documenting both life around him, and stories that are outside of his own experiences. He believes that there is a redemptive quality to photography; that it can take the unpleasant or repulsive and make it beautiful, not by misleading anyone, but by allowing the viewer to stop and take a deeper look at the subject. As a photojournalist, his method of making pictures is not something new or incredibly deep – it is, simply, to tell the truth.  Christopher introduces Living With Cerebral Palsy with the following narrative.

In most cases, photojournalists are encouraged to use their cameras to explore experiences outside of their own life, in order to understand the world around them. This body of work is really different for me, in that I used my camera as a tool to investigate issues in my own life, as I started to make pictures of my brother Nick. Over the course of years, one image lead to another, and they became a way for me to really process and deal with the realities of having a twin live with cerebral palsy, while I lead a rather normal life. As my brother’s story has changed, and grown, and developed, so have my pictures of him. Looking through my camera has brought me a step back, enabling me to really watch and listen, to learn and perhaps have a better grasp on what is happening in his life. The suffering he has experienced has raised all sorts of questions for me. The question we are most prone to ask when hardship strikes – why me? – makes no sense. That question presupposes that pain, disease, and death are distributed according to moral merit. They are not.  

Through Positive Eyes

Through Positive Eyes gives photographic voice to people living with HIV in major cities around the world. It is based on the belief that HIV-positive people should pick up their own cameras and make their own artistic statements. In doing so, they create powerful tools for combating stigma, which is one of the most formidable barriers in reducing the spread of AIDS today.

Giving Kolkata's Homeless Kids A Chance

The Hope Foundation reaches out to the city's 250,000 street children.  Photographs by Maciej Dakowicz / NEED Magazine.

The Kimbangist Symphony Orchestra

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country utterly destroyed by war, pillage and corruption the mere existence of The Kimbangist Symphony Orchestra seems like a miracle. Founded in 1994 the orchestra consists of about 80 instrumentalists and a chorus of about 60 members. Most have paid for instruments out of their own pockets, others rely on Albert Matubanza who taught himself how to build string instruments using wood from the local market and cable wire to replace broken strings. Scores of Händel’s “Messiah”, Verdi’s “Nabucco” or Mozart’s “Requiem” are often copied by hand. The orchestra is committed to popularizing classical music in their country.

Watch the story by Marcus Bleasdale here.

Stand Strong For Me

When Bucky Hall decided to stop his drug habit and move his family back to the land on which he was raised, he did so with almost no means to support himself, but the motivation to make a better life for his wife and children. Now, with his wife, Christie, and their two sons, Michael and Aaron, he's begun to put back the pieces of his life. Squatting in a small camper above Carbondale, Ohio, with no electricity or water, on the very land on which he was raised, Bucky and Christie try to make life as normal as possible for their boys while worrying about and figuring out how to obtain the land to which they've returned; a land that carries as many memories as it does troubles.

Down And Out In Portland

Dignity Village for the economically challenged in the Pacific Northwest.

Christ Child House

The boys at Christ Child House, a sort of modern-day orphanage on Detroit's west side, represent just a sliver of Michigan's foster care system and its more than 6,000 legal orphans. As they wait to be reunified with their own families or find new lives with adoptive parents, the boys grow up together sharing tears and tantrums, giggles and hugs, uncertain futures and some surprisingly happy endings.

Kingsley's Crossing

In the developed world, illegal immigration is a hotly debated political issue. From the eyes of the world's very poor, it is an excruciating personal decision, made to make life a little bit better for one's self and one's family.

Kingsley is 23 years old, and lives in a two-room house with his parents and seven siblings in a West African coastal village in Cameroon. He is raised with an image of Europe as a kind of promised land: if he can only get there, life for himself and his family will improve.

Photojournalist Olivier Jobard introduces us to Kingsley as he makes the difficult decision to embark on his "mission," and then accompanies him, documenting his perilous journey. Step by step, across desert and ocean, we come to see immigration through one man's eyes, and learn the rewards, and the costs, of such a dream.