“Expressive photographers sometimes like to claim that photographs are “visual thinking that does not require any words.” Indeed the old guard still write very little about their photographs. It seems to me they are saying 1/125 of a second is enough to convey meaningful depth to any given scenario. I never understood that. That is probably why i am not a photographer …
In a shoot last month with Danwatch where I was photographing people who work in a very hazardous industry, this woman came out of her small shack and stared at me. I thought at first perhaps reproachfully. She had probably seen that the DanWatch team were interviewing workers.
I tried to defuse the situation by saying “May I take a photograph?”
She agreed. And asked “Don’t you want to hear my story too?” The widow proceeded to tell me a desperate story of life after the death of her husband two years ago, and how difficult it has been to care for her kids without any support. She told me “No woman has known grief like me.”
I will never meet her again. I will never know how her story unfolds. But I took a snapshot of her in 1/50 of a second.”
According to the AIDS Ride founder Dan Pallotta we have learned that charity is only valuable if the cost for administration is kept at a minimum. But what if administration and investments are what makes the money grow and thus raising even more money for the good cause?
https://embed-ssl.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_about_charity_is_dead_wrong.html
The former Turkmen all-powerful leader Niyazov had a 40-foot-high gold-plated statue of himself build, which rotated to follow the sun. This is the kind of cliché we know from the world of corruption but we rarely hear how the large international banks and shell companies enables these interesting buys. Global Witness found Charmian Gooch elaborates.
https://embed-ssl.ted.com/talks/charmian_gooch_meet_global_corruption_s_hidden_players.html
Guess along when Hans Rosling quizzes the audience about the state of the planet. With wit and data, the Swedish professor of international health Hans Rosling and his son Ola display how the media provides us with an overly pessimistic world view. Moreover, he makes a lot of jokes about Swedes.
https://embed-ssl.ted.com/talks/hans_and_ola_rosling_how_not_to_be_ignorant_about_the_world.html
Dame Ellen McArthur tells her captivating story about her she set sails around the world and how it suddenly made her aware of the limited resources of nature. The talk is both entertaining and informative.
https://embed-ssl.ted.com/talks/dame_ellen_macarthur_the_surprising_thing_i_learned_sailing_solo_around_the_world.html
Did you know that in 2010 there were 27 million slaves in the world? And that the price of a human goes all the way down to five dollars? Kevin Bales is the co-founder of the organisation Free the slaves and here presents a proposal for how we fight modern slavery.
https://embed-ssl.ted.com/talks/kevin_bales_how_to_combat_modern_slavery.html
Do you also feel a Western guilt when you glance at your iPhone that a hard working Chinese built but does not have the money to buy? Stop and listen to what the workers have to say.
https://embed-ssl.ted.com/talks/leslie_t_chang_the_voices_of_china_s_workers.html
Any self-help book will tell you that you cannot buy happiness. But that is only because they do not know what to buy. Michael Norton is a professor of business administration and marketing at Harvard Business School and unfolds his research that shows how people who spend money on charity are happier than those who do not.
https://embed-ssl.ted.com/talks/michael_norton_how_to_buy_happiness.html