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TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-09-07
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2PQGHnLmys
good morning and %HESITATION thank you for having me here %HESITATION and %HESITATION you know fiat disturb a few days ago I was there talking to a friend %HESITATION will coffee and a she asked me how long have I been %HESITATION for doing photography and I disguised my head a bit and %HESITATION gonna go back in time and the navy I I realize it's been like about
thirty three yes %HESITATION it's a long time and the journey has been pretty long and that's one of the first picture that I did maybe about thirty or thirty one years ago %HESITATION this is still one of my favorite pictures of you know then %HESITATION I was %HESITATION interviews to photography %HESITATION the camera and the film I thought to be the greatest enablers for visual expression
you know Oflag creativity are it's because I could draw and I still can't draw you know that's why from the camera was in a very %HESITATION to I am the dark room baby made up prince of what we saw it in the scene like a magical boy and the magical violin very you know that I could go on June busy majors that right in my head
on to people and I I still feel %HESITATION the bathroom is the magic of are that's how photography began for me and that's that's one of the first picture that up ya so it is okay up that's neither one of the first picture that I shot %HESITATION you know in the end in the in the eighties mid eighties and late eighties the different Oliver I'm who
I %HESITATION said that Tottenham for photography is like induction of life %HESITATION yes it is if he's up for me to the reduction of life they are subject who will be days but it's a person or a %HESITATION unknown and landscape where %HESITATION if it's a pin object %HESITATION it's always so are always the divinity for us for photographers to as we go out and meet
people itself %HESITATION %HESITATION you know we're looking at our own %HESITATION I don't go Aidid the and that that's what of photography is all about so %HESITATION I completely agree with of of %HESITATION so %HESITATION thought processes are so few years ago I was %HESITATION of you know presented I presented myself of this %HESITATION and a dainty cannot be presented herself in front of me are
in C. Lunca and %HESITATION she a name is manically and she was a suicide bomber of the NPT she was in captivity and I was there with the the ad V. eight %HESITATION conflict a legend this guy John Goodman who was who was reported from Venus fox if the word on conflicts to do a profile on this suicide bomb but of %HESITATION a fifty a few
minutes with a bomb but it took about six months to set this interview up and up I'm David they finally sometime in two thousand seven early two thousands R. as he spoke to her as I photographed her and as I %HESITATION you know %HESITATION understood her life %HESITATION she said one thing are two to me antigen she said that I have a good deed for this
interview and for you to photograph me because I thought this would help me save my life and that they do one film that was a big responsibility thrust upon and on Jan because of lack of and in the same %HESITATION that was %HESITATION my maneki in her set are in the same trip are in the same %HESITATION assignment we've been to Vegas box of Sri Lanka
of it convicts or conflict was an agent this I made this young lady called up Janke thumb be worked on them in a place called Walker David the battle had just ended the internally displaced people she was one of them had just come back to her house and shit on a V. from %HESITATION when that when that what had begun and the you know we've been
to her house see how things where and this is how it will this was a house and %HESITATION and they issue was with the sister looking at trying to salvage things she was quiet on through and I was photographing you know and she does that laden photograph or a negative in the hand of something of a memory that is left behind by the soldiers who had
been evicted hops you know I'm just imagining of a going back into our house they've inches lost almost everything up then I met some of people you know like the gentleman over here and this little young go so this gentleman was looking for his daughter who had gone missing for seventy this young girl was looking for her father who had gone missing %HESITATION by the time
the kid never seen that you would like to use old and I think and she she still isn't sure about nineteen or so for seventeen are all audio's a family have been looking for and she's grown up enough she was looking for and this is one image from the from the %HESITATION %HESITATION assignment with the Kalashnikov or they get forty seven which I think symbolizes more
for us for conflicts of most potent symbol I just photographic and showed it to you before that this trip I have been to Chicago gained to photograph the immediate aftermath of Saddam and %HESITATION you know I it was it was a into the great tragedy and I have been photographing people's lives after the tragedy I made this fisherman in golf who had lost everything and this
young little baby enough refugee camp and this %HESITATION lady with the heart doctor now in the house which was the only this five remain everything had gone most of it Anderson thirty first of December two thousand four are as the year was ending of the shooting a picture in her house you know and the what happens of what's what's what's all of them keep telling me
that are gonna be the stories that you do the photographs that you take the whole villa change of our lives we'll bring our hope to us been changed to eyes and better lives and that's a very big responsibility of the key things of any big responsibility thrust up photo journalist we really don't know ideally going over that that'll happen sometimes it may happen sometimes it may
not but the responsibilities amazing and some sometimes a daunting you know so how does one go perfect that no of knowing that you look me in fact them on me knocking back then was like it may not of but sometimes you know people like and again I know this is another as story made I've into what he sought to photograph the later after a month off
%HESITATION supersite conducted them and %HESITATION into this lady had name is the bomb London she was living this was I think sometime in two thousand or two thousand one and she was living %HESITATION %HESITATION Aqaba fifteen to peace but the and that is that all the money that she had and %HESITATION husband was %HESITATION in home appealed by the service Aikman and up the issue was
trying to make ends meet she still called me inside and she was a kind of upset that because you don't have anything to offer me no I said I didn't want to and I just wanted to know a story and again she too thought the book was going to help like this lady who had helped or hurt Dr %HESITATION they know from %HESITATION from are people
who are trying to %HESITATION trying to soon levy and the might of the compensation money that they got begin at that's had that %HESITATION and so I was super cyclone was also %HESITATION you know happy to post my pictures hoping that nearly had to change their lives but a unfortunately we don't know %HESITATION that it that happens or not and sometimes it's not just the disaster
I also get to shoot pictures like these of people such as Michael Jackson whom I had it sounds to photographing was in India and a very close quarters so if a dog of a boost to all his assignments all these different kinds of book and what do you do how do you balance yourself and how do you make sure that you don't go completely insane you
know at the end of %HESITATION your %HESITATION photographic assignments %HESITATION this is a picture that I photograph during the so not just after the tsunami is that I think you're the kind of we did have to keep telling ourselves that %HESITATION you know %HESITATION keep telling ourselves that up up V. are baiting witness and yet honestly trying to tell us stories the world hoping that it
it may impact but it may not but we see that we keep doing our job and the benefit that we have to develop for the journalists have to give up because then I know you have to become governor political die not sets to make eye to keep doing of work as honestly became so are that is the kind of abuse in I've led to talk about
the project that it has kind of define me %HESITATION kind of a turning point that came in my life %HESITATION sometime in the mid nineties %HESITATION and then actually took place sometime in two thousand a the seed of the act had started many years ago and made it out eighties actually when I took a train to daily for meat something a photographer this and show them
my work %HESITATION I make a lady in that scene that men from my angle of her baby sometimes some and not for who was going to pull apart to see her father who was ailing have mother had died in the guest judge Judy and she was going to signify the and %HESITATION you know I asked a good talking to her and %HESITATION I asked if they
had bought any compensation she said that she didn't get compensation shoes are very poor family of ten thousand apiece and ten thousand was a big money those gifts and up but you said that up bunches hours the will convey the people who despise the money had taken five thousand a piece of the pie so it kind of made very deeply impacted me even at the very
early stage of my life and up in a kind of those going on that that John was going on and I I wanting what kind of society we had already become by that time so much later this story was I don't know late two oh but I feel different things in my life one this meeting people who were making great %HESITATION contributions to society against person
at all and David I talked BR rule mortars are heroes so project called unsung began you know that was in the mid %HESITATION the two thousand and two thousand four it's gonna started looking on this project what unsung to tell the stories of unsung heroes of India people who have contributed to society against it puts out parts who ought to be outlawed martyrs the books are
the most public published in two thousand seven which featured the stories of nine people you know of that some of them here but %HESITATION it's monks division not the Shenoy who is addicted duh architectural heritage of course to Kanata in the heritage because that is built of ms a chip on offense who makes the issues and then the doctor Montieth I mean in the time of
the global warming by making the issue is he has kind of worked a mac that a simple method to reverse that and provide water for the people George put it could feel who was of a former priest from a Jesuit priest who though human rights advocates human rights lawyer fights %HESITATION for the human rights of the poor they're using Judy shitty our house not munsu she
has been able to set up an organization and he's but the fun and the fundamental a chronic and of our constitutional rights the pool most in demand of bang the low end around I fit into Nepal is one of the greatest %HESITATION remains for us officer the funnest offices of you have ever seen who kind of transform not gonna national park from porches about having to
purchase too you know hell and heaven I'm in months and Lakshman sing a flop would you and I just don who transformed his out drought prone village into a water rich visits you know in this village of confident off in the evening because their wives have been gone by but so and there were a million trees and %HESITATION Ilonggo %HESITATION numb some longer who transformed his
village into it can and then on the for the independent village I realized on his vision of a rock concert AJ and train seven hundred out published POWs and franchise leaders %HESITATION in the in the last seven years this is the Sebastian in mystery who was a vegetable seller and you know then husband died of gastroenteritis and sequent efforts because she put effort treatment she took
a while on his deathbed saying that you know that she wouldn't let anyone else suffer the V. she did and with a twenty the next twenty years she saved twenty thousand opens to build that hype and start a hospital but humanity hospital so isn't vision over ten thousand square feet and you know has had thousands of hundreds and thousands of people Nicoletta this is a tourist
in one go who is %HESITATION %HESITATION %HESITATION set up in a school in the in the set and the district of oil reserves are really Boondocks beyond everything and it's a mining that and %HESITATION she has been out she started school under my who what three and a two day I think by now should of educating both of your forty thousand people I absolutely nominal costs
and it's a free of cost because there's not three things don't have value not enough so she does something that even a nominal and initiate given the gift of education so the book are on unsung ago was published in two thousand seven eight helped raise over ninety lots of the causes of these heroes it sort of a six and a half thousand copies are became a
case study and I am bang the low and it also transformed the lights of people who died in a big vote to me saying that it kind of and I had them do away with their cynicism it showed them what real love he's you know and that it also had them find meaning in their own lives and %HESITATION one thing that I have learned from this
whole project is that %HESITATION you don't know what to everybody at work on his she does have in common is that the you know speak their mind they think this begin Monday see what there would be thing and do what they would get sick twenty four seven three sixty it's a very difficult and it's a very courageous thing to do see what to believe in and
I don't say whatever you want to but see speak constantly say whatever you believe in and do what you see all the time all the time without any letter you know that's I think a it's a great assign a fertile market and on the th and have you know that's up to the first book he a no kind of medieval and %HESITATION some people came forward
and told me what it can to another you know so I said you know it's very difficult to to %HESITATION and raise money for the on this project and %HESITATION %HESITATION some to you know individuals a philanthropist came forward to fund a second bowl and beat him up for the number one recently %HESITATION and that too has chronicled the lives of %HESITATION seven more heroes and
several writers and photographers have contributed not just my work you know of several others as bad to give you a quick glimpse of it is not a hundred who was an organic farmer who lives in the outskirts of Bangor look up who who's network maybe about fifty a hundred horse but he is on some the what you base it on with what the book hunt going