Of all the amazing things I’ve witnessed over the past 30 years, the most powerful experience I’ve ever seen is watching a blind child open their eyes and see their mother for the very first time.
The first time I saw it I almost fell down on the ground.
When we started WonderWork and began to help provide tens of thousands of surgeries that gave blind children and adults their eyesight back, I knew I have to find a way to show people this incredible transformation.
I believed that photos and videos were the best way to tell our story.
The best way to raise awareness about the tragedy of what they call the “needlessly blind”: the 20 million children and adults who remain blind solely because they can afford a surgery that cost as little as $25 and takes as little as five minutes.
I also hoped it would help us earn the support and trust of donors which, as a startup charity we desperately needed.
A good friend of mine, Pam Huling, came to me and said I have the perfect person to tell your story.
“My friend Brent Stirton is the best photographer in the world, a famous, world-renowned and decorated photojournalist AND an incredible humanitarian.” She told me. “I know that when he hears what you are trying to do, he is going to want to help.”
I thought she might be exaggerating a tiny bit when she said her friend was the best photographer in the world.
So, I did some research on her friend Brent.
Brent Stirton is a South African photographer who has done a ton of documentary work.
He is National Geographic’s favorite photographer and you’ve also seen his pictures in GEO, Le Figaro, Le Monde, Vanity Fair, Newsweek, Time, The New York Times Magazine, The UK Sunday Times Magazine and many other major magazine and newspapers.
He’s worked for WWF, CNN, the Ford, Clinton and Gates Foundations, the Nike Foundation, the World Economic Forum and Human Rights Watch.
Brent needs a small stadium, for all the awards he has won one over the years including 12 awards from World Press Photo, 13 awards from The Pictures of the Year International contest, multiple awards from the Overseas Press Club, The Webbys, The Association of International Broadcasters, the HIPA Awards, the Frontline Club, the Deadline Club, Days Japan, China International Photo Awards, the Lead Awards Germany, Graphis, Communication Arts, American Photography, American Photo, the American Society of Publication Designers, the London Association of Photographers and multiple Lucie Awards including International photographer of the Year.
Brent was recognized by the United Nations for his work on the Environment and HIV/AIDS. He won the Visa D’or at the Visa Pour L’ image Festival in France, the National Magazine Award for his work in the Democratic Republic of Congo for National Geographic Magazine, the National Geographic Magazine Photographer's Photographer Award. Brent received a Peabody Award for his work with Human Rights Watch and he was named Wildlife Photojournalist of the Year three years in a row by the Natural History Museum of the UK.
Pam was right. Brent is the best photographer in the world. And just as she promised, she brought him to our office for a meeting.
To be honest, I thought chances were slim he would help us. We didn’t have any money and we were just a startup charity no one had ever heard of.
But I was thrilled to meet him, and I gave him my best pitch about our mission to restore the eyesight of 20 million blind children and adults.
He just sat there quietly as I went through my presentation and asked no questions and made no comments. But after I was done, he simply nodded his head and quietly said, “Let’s do this.”
I felt like we had just won the lottery. And we had.
With extensive support from Pam and her award-winning production company, Blue Chalk, Brent and his talented cinematographer Robert Wilson agreed to work for free for us and travel to Calcutta, India for a month of shooting both photos and videos.
We had identified a pair of sisters, Anita and Sonja in India who had both been born blind. They were scheduled for surgery in a few months at one of our partner hospitals south of Calcutta. Brent and Robert were going to go two weeks before surgery and start shooting, and then continue through surgery and afterward when their bandages came off and hopefully, they could see their mother for the very first time.
Under very difficult circumstances, including shooting day after day in a very remote, rural village in a jungle while it was 100 degrees with 99.99 % humidity, Brent and Robert captured the amazing transformation that both Anita and Sonja went through as they had their eyesight restored. They brought back a treasure of unbelievable photos and video.
I was lucky enough to be there when the surgeon took Anita’s bandages off and she started saying, “Mommy I can see! I can see!”
Her mom cried – and so did we.
When we hired Brent, we thought we were only going to get amazing photos. But he and Robert, with the exceptionally talented team at Blue Chalk, created a video like no other.
It was called First Sight: Sonia and Anita.
After it was named video of the month by National Geographic, First Sight went viral. Millions and millions of people watched it and shared it around the world. We received donations from 92 countries. And it one of the most popular videos on the Nat Geo website for more than a year.
Between the video and the photos, Brent Stirton, Robert Wilson, Pam Huling and the team at Blue Chalk helped us raise millions of dollars in donations. And they helped us acquire more than 100,000 new donors.
Most importantly, they helped us get 200,000 blind children and adults their eyesight back.
After the tremendous success of this initial project, Brent and Robert returned to India to shoot some of our other patients who are suffering with clubfoot, severe burns and blindness. These photos and videos continued to help us raise lots of money and awareness which in turn funded many more surgeries. Checkout these amazing videos …
When I was in India with Brent Stirton, he told me a crazy story about how he was hired by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt to photograph their newborn baby. Brent has to climb into the trunk of a car to sneak him into the hospital so that none of the paparazzi could see him.
It made me think of how much money Brent could be making every year if you wanted to. Instead of working for free for charities like us and so many other worthwhile causes, Brent could be raking it in and living the high life. Instead of sleeping on dirt floors in huts in India and risking his life shooting in places like Syria, Russia, and the Congo.
Like many of the other heroes on my list, Brent isn’t motivated by money.
He doesn’t want to make money – he wants to make a difference.
And he has made a difference, again and again and again and again.
Through so many worthy organizations, programs and good causes that he is helped over the years with his time and talent.
I will always be grateful that we were one of them.
