Since graduating from Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University I have used the art of photography to visit 54 countries and produce visual narratives.
My photographs from these distinctive worlds have been published in: National Geographic, Time, Rolling Stone, People, Audubon, The New York Times, Paris Match, Stern and Geo. I added text to these stories and published seventeen photographic monographs including Seal Journey, Governor: In the Company of Ann Richards, One More Elephant, Senator: In the Company of Connie Mack, Mayor: In the Company of Norm Rice, Adelina’s Whales, An Elephant in the Backyard, and Growing Peace. With Candlewick Press I have published four books in The Traveling Photographer Series, The Story of Silk: From Worm Spit to Woven Scarves, The Mysteries of Angkor Wat, Exploring Cambodia’s Ancient Temple, The Life of Rice: From Seedling to Supper, and Breakfast in The Rainforest: The Story of Uganda’s Mountain Gorillas (with an introduction by Leonardo DiCaprio).
As a result of my unique set of location shooting skills I was called upon by international wildlife protection agencies to document wild areas and I traveled to Sub-Saharan Africa eleven times. Often, this work focused on poaching and the illegal wildlife trade, but I also photographed poor villagers struggling to feed their families and survive staggering environmental pressures. On my journeys, I met other photographers working on stories about hunger, the onslaught of AIDS, or the frequent brutal civil wars that plague African nations.
During this time, it struck me that most of the photographic images coming out of Africa were overwhelmingly bleak and desperate, if not all together hopeless. I have tried to show another side of Africa and after four visits to Uganda, Abbeville Press published the book, Abayudaya: The Jews of Uganda, which was followed by a traveling exhibition and the release of a Music CD by Smithsonian Folkways that was nominated for a GRAMMY award. This project has evolved into the ongoing story, Delicious Peace, which follows a group of Muslim, Christian and Jewish Ugandan farmers who work together in a cooperative based on religious tolerance and interfaith harmony. The music, photos and video of these farmers have also just been released as a Music CD on Smithsonian Folkways.
Closer to home I worked with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the architect Frank Gehry, as I documented the design and construction of MIT’s Stata Center Building. Together with commentary by Gehry, this story is told in the book, Building Stata, published by the MIT Press and the children’s book, Construction Zone.
I am currently competing work on, The Last Rhino, The story of the last male northern white rhino on earth.
