India & IGVP

I am so excited to have an amazing opportunity to travel to India with some folks from the International Guild of Visual Peacemakers in March.  Leaving my babies and hubby will be hard but I also think I need this time and I'm so grateful to Bibis who are coming to help and J who is so supportive and really sacrificing to enable me to go!  Many of you have asked about this trip and I thought I would post this video that beautifully explains what IGVP is all about.

Since starting to study images and pursue photography I am really passionate about creating images that speak to people about time, place, and people.  Capturing images makes me appreciate even more the beauty of all of God's creation.  But simply documenting is not enough.  I want to stay sensitive to what is different, even to what is unjust, but to not allow that to become the only story my images tell.  Living in another culture made me realize how easy it is to tell one story of a people and I so badly wanted people to see the beauty and pain intermingled in the culture of Zanzibar (and everywhere).  People and cultures are complex but at the core we are all similar, people created in God's image searching for meaning and feeling our way through this life.

One of the cofounders of IGVP; Mario Mattei shared what a visual peacemaker is in saying, "They do not stop at wishing they could make a difference. They pick up their cameras and take action. Amidst shocking news and images that fuel mistrust and misunderstanding, Visual Peacemakers seek to illuminate beauty and hope through visual media that speaks of our common humanity." I am now a IGVP member and you can see my photo stories and galleries here.

I feel so blessed to get to travel to such a beautiful place with talented photographers and attempt to create images that fit in this vision of sharing our common humanity.  Watch Hawa Images for more coming soon and thank you to everyone who is supporting and encouraging me to pursue this passion.
EEK! India y'all!!!