2nd Annual Help for Orphans Benefit
On Thursday, after interning at Annies, I hopped on the Amtrak to Philadelphia to donate my time to provide a bit of atmosphere coverage of the 2nd Annual Help for Orphans benefit.
The purpose of the event was to raise funds for Help for Orphans international.
A couple of celebrity attendees – Rudy Reyes off HBO’s Generation Kill.
Celebrity DJ Chris Masterson
The event included a mini fashion presentation by ‘S V E T by Aleksandra’.
Some atmosphere of the girls getting ready backstage.
The girls wait to take their positions.
Anastasia doing a little bit of improvised performing. She’s got a great personality.
And to end of, me with the Help for Orphans girls – Isabella on the left and Sarah on the right. Isabella went to Haiti with me on my second trip there. Sarah is the founder of Help for Orphans. Both are dear friends. You can help their projects by following the link below and making a donation to Help for Orphans.
Links:
‘Unite Brighton’ Exhibition for Haiti Orphans
Felix MCing exhibition to benefit Future of Haiti Orphanage
Come to Brighton’s seafront Umi Hotel at 3pm on the 26th of June for the grand finale of the exhibition of work inspired by and produced during the relief efforts in Haiti. If you are not in the UK, view the tearsheet instead.
Felix will be MCing this event and amongst others will share some of my experiences working with the children orphaned by the earthquake in Haiti. Felix photographed all the individual orphans and provided all imagery to help The Future of Haiti orphanage gain sponsors – the orphanage is a project close to his heart. See Felix’s slideshow from his work with the orphanage by clicking here.
Several of Felix’s pieces from Haiti are on display among work by other UK artists. There’ll be live music, wine, snacks and great conversation to look forward to. Felix will be in the UK for just over 48 hours to host this event before going onto his next project.
Event:
‘Unite Brighton’ exhibition in aid of the Future of Haiti Orphanage
Location:
Umi Hotel Brighton, 64 King’s Road, Brighton, BN1 1NA
Time:
3pm, 26th of June 2010
Exhibiting Artists:
Felix Kunze
Sophie Sheinwald
Mandeep Birdy
Flora Pettitt
Guiseppi Santmaria
Angela Huang
Steve Yeates
50% of the sales of all art will go directly to the orphanage.
A giant ‘Unite Brighton’ piggybank will be on show at reception so all visitors can donate as they want, along with ‘I Helped Haiti’ T-shirts which will be for sale, all profits going to the orphanage.
Event organized and directed by Mandeep Birdy in association with Umi Hotel Brighton, ‘Unite Brighton’ and the Mayor of Brighton & Hove as well as other sponsors. Exhibition open until 30 June 2010. Pieces will be available via www.felixkunze.com – Felix is available for media interviews.
The Future of Haiti – Help Haitian Orphans
My recent trip to Haiti was all about documenting the amazing work at the Future of Haiti Orphanage. Future of Haiti was set up shortly after the earthquake when it became apparent that there were 100s of kids roaming the streets with no one feeding them, no medical attention and no shelter.
Their work really moved me and to communicate what they have achieved and what is needed to further support this project, I put together another one of my slide-shows. This one is about 15 minutes and gives a lot of information about the lives of Haitian orphans. I appreciate the time you take to have a look through this. Feel free to link here, link to the video or embed it in your own site. I am keen to spread awareness of this amazing project.
The Future of Haiti – Help Haitian Orphans from felix kunze on Vimeo.
To sponsor a child or donate to the orphanage, please visit www.thefutureofhaiti.org – any amount helps
To see the first slideshow, go here
More Haiti images are on my Haiti preview post
To keep up to date on my work in Haiti and other socially responsible projects, join me on facebook, follow me on twitter, subscribe to the blog or get in touch by commenting below. Oh and don’t forget to go check out the rest of my work.
Haiti, Los Angeles & Celebrities – The Kerri Kasem Podcast
My recent trip to Haiti was concluded by a trip to LA to do a shoot with the beautiful ladies of the Kerri Kasem Podcast and to speak about my photography and work in Haiti.
We ended up recording two shows, the first was to talk about our fantastic Malibu shoot (watch this space for photos from that) and photography in general. We talked about everything from Poison Oak to Annie Leibovitz and Patti Smith. I even managed to throw in a bit of talk about my favorite subject – philosophy of photography.
Listen to it by clicking here – I think we’ll manage to make you giggle.
The second podcast was a little more serious. We got a bunch of people together that had been to Haiti and done great work out there. We had beautiful Cassandra Hepburn (from Tarantino’s ‘Hell Ride’), the fascinating Josh Hawkins who worked tirelessly to help in the Miami University Field Hospital and Jack Osborne, son of Ozzy and Sharon. He went to Haiti with Sean Penn’s group and is just a really cool down to earth adrenaline junkie. We chatted about what needed to be done to ensure the future of Haiti, what YOU can do right now to help prepare Haiti for the inevitable rainy season and the diseases it will bring and we told stories about our experiences in Haiti. A few tears were shed but we hope we communicated some of the optimism of the situation and the actions that can be taken by every one of us to help. I talked also about my work with Help for Orphans and the amazing Future of Haiti orphanage, both of which readers of this blog will be hearing more about.
To listen to the Haiti podcast, click here.
L-R Josh Hawkins, Cassandra Hepburn, Felix Kunze, Kerri Kasem, Jack Osborne
If you listen to the Haiti show, you can hear the moment when I took this picture.
If you liked this, why not check out the overview of my first Haiti trip on the blog.
Haiti Preview
I’ve just returned from Haiti on my second trip. I was there working with Help for Orphans International. I spent a lot of time at the Future of Haiti Orphanage which is where most of these images are from.
While I get all the images ready, I thought I’d provide a little preview here; incaptioned images just as a teaser. Keep connected on twitter, facebook or subscribe to the blog feed to keep updated on my images from Haiti and what’s happening with the orphans.
Haiti news – Guest spot on the Kerri Kasem Podcast
While in Haiti I had the great fortune of meeting the amazing Kerri Kasem, US radio personality extraordinaire.
She was there to do her bit to help. She stayed in a tent, she did what everyone else did and she got into all the stuff that celebrities usually stay away from. She helped deliver a baby, she was helping in the hospitals down in Haiti on the day she arrived. She basically just did the normal thing, ditched western conveniences and helped save lives.
I leave on my second trip to Haiti tomorrow. I’ll be working with thefutureofhaiti.org and helpfororphans.org and will do what I can to help both through photography and as a general citizen. We are heading into the Dominican Republic tomorrow to load of a truck with some supplies for the orphans and then we are driving into Haiti and straight to one of the Orphanages. I’ll also be covering some other areas, orphans isn’t the only area I’m concentrating on, but like last time, I’ll be concentrating on the good being done by the numerous volunteer organizations out there. To me, that’s what Haiti is about. It’s not about the death, it’s about the massive worldwide response and the light that is now being shone on a country that had major problems before the earthquake brought it into the foreground of the world’s attention.
When I come back from Haiti in just over a week, I’ll be making a quick stopover with some friends in Florida and then I’m flying straight to LA to be a guest on Kerri’s awesome podcast. I will share my experiences in Haiti and the work that’s being done with the orphans and in other areas to help the people of Haiti.
I’ll let you all know when the show is up, it’s usually about an hour long and I strongly suggest subscribing to her podcast, today’s podcast, mentioning my work in Haiti, is here:
Haiti – An overview
One of the biggest hurdles we photographers face is the ability or indecision of how to accurately present our work. There’s so much that goes into each photograph, so many facets to each situation and so many stories. I recently gave a couple of slide-show presentations of my work in Haiti. I had just over 100 slides picked out to tell a bit of a story. The situation in Haiti is too complex to try communicate it in a short preview of images.
Having thought long and hard about how to adequately represent my work in Haiti, I went with Thorsten Overgaard’s suggestion of turning the slide-show presentations I’ve done in person into a voice annotated slideshow and put it on my website.
I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed creating these images. Watch this in full screen if you can.
Haiti – an Overview from felix kunze on Vimeo.
A voice-annotated slide-show of photographs by Photographer Felix Kunze who travelled to Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake – work shows a variety of areas including the atmosphere in Haiti, living conditions of locals as well as work being done with orphans.
Felix concentrated on the good being done in Haiti, rather than taking photographs of death and despair, there is a lot of good coming out of Haiti.
A voice-annotated slide-show of photographs by Photographer Felix Kunze who travelled to Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake – work shows a variety of areas including the atmosphere in Haiti, living conditions of locals as well as work being done with orphans.
Felix concentrated on the good being done in Haiti, rather than taking photographs of death and despair, there is a lot of good coming out of Haiti.
Felix is leaving tomorrow (1st of March) to go on his second Haiti trip. To follow along, follow on twitter at www.twitter.com/felixkunze
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There’s a digest of the images used in the slideshow, but without captions here: http://www.felixkunze.com/cache/haiti-overview-images/
To see further posts from me regarding Haiti, click here. Be sure to check back on the blog as more content will be added from my Haiti trips.
To give, please consider donating to the orphanage I was working with: TheFutureOfHaiti.org or to help internally displaced persons survive the rainy season, go to Shelterbox.org Another fantastic organization that is also working with the Future of Haiti Orphanage is Helpfororphans.org
Anything you give will help.
The Future Of Haiti
Before I left to Haiti, I promised that I would try to show the good work being done by volunteers and relief works on the ground in Haiti.
One such project was an orphanage I came across in my first couple of days in Haiti. It had been established after the earthquake, not far from Port-Au-Prince International airport. It houses over 100 children, provides basic shelter, sanitation and medical as well as education the children in Creole, French and English as well as other basic subjects. Food and water are also provided, which for some of these children is the first time they have been fed properly. The plan for the orphanage is to get each child sponsored for life, so they can be continually supported in a fashion that will enable them to live a full life, with a decent education, nourishment and happiness. The children are the future of Haiti. Helping the kids of Haiti is a long-term investment.
For me as a photographer, being part of this orphanage project was probably the most important project I could undertake on this trip. While there are lots of important actions being taken to save people’s lives in the short term and to provide immediate relief, long term actions are vital and any support of the future of this beautiful country is vital.
I took a day out of photographing all other relief efforts and took portraits of over 100 children in the orphanage. I did a portrait of each orphan and then a photo of each with a plaque showing their name and age. The purpose is to use the images on the web to help each child get sponsored. If you want to help Haiti recover from the horror of the last month, give what you can to help an orphan live a full, healthy life. These kids are absolutely amazing. Read my descriptions under the photos below for some heart-warming stories of the utter beauty and humanity evident in each and every child.
More information and more of my photos are available at the link below. Please give what you can:
TheFutureOfHaiti.org
The orphans line up to wash their hands before eating lunch.
Orphans being given their daily lunch. These kids line up like the best behaved of all British people. There's nothing quite as moving as seeing a child that has lived in a malnourished state develop physically from day to day. This is what is happening every day at the orphanage, and it's as simple as giving each kid lunch, dinner and some clean water to drink.
The kids are provided with clean drinking water, but are charged with keeping their own cups or bottles so they can keep the water as provisions have been made for locally sourced water to be purified and drunk by the kids.
An orphan drinks water in a rare spot shaded by the sun.
The orphanage is working in coordination with a variety of organizations including medical teams that provide basic medical needs, vaccinations and other relief. The effect is always immediate, kids who've had very basic medical issues are now doing a lot better.
They are also working with HelpTheOrphans.org who help support the orphans.
Local projects include showing these children soccer skills. With good nutrition, the orphans have a real chance to excel at sports projects. Malnourishment is a problem as bones of malnourished children break easily, particularly during sports.
The children are provided with a basic education, some of them for the first time. A lot of kids wish more than anything to be able to go to school and attain an education - a guarantee that they can make it in the future.
A sampling of the orphan portraits I shot:
I'll end this blog post with a somewhat tragic story that has a happy ending. This particular kid, Amateur, came to the orphanage on the day I was doing the shoot. He had been on the street for an undetermined time, without anyone to look after him. He had injuries to front and the back of his head and no-one knows how these were inflicted. He was afraid of physical contact with any adults or other kids. It was obvious he had been abused in some fashion. He did not know his own age, a fact that hit me hard. This child will never know how old he is, he will never know his birthday and most of all he will never again have parents. He was probably the 60th orphan I had photographed on the day, but when he couldn't name his age, I was truly affected. I took a break and had to wipe my eyes, something had gotten into them. He is now safe and well, being fed and relearning what it means to trust other human beings.
Again, if you want to help go to TheFutureOfHaiti.org – any donation will help.
If you are interested in other Haiti news, why not subscribe to this blog.
Haiti Day 1
Documenting relief efforts in Haiti
You’ve no doubt heard of the situation of the earthquake that has devastated large swathes of Haiti.
I’ve put this all over twitter and facebook, but I’ve just booked my flight to New York as I’ve been asked to come document relief efforts in relief. There are efforts being coordinated in NYC that I’ll be photographing as well as following a team of volunteers and medical personnel to Haiti. I will be in Haiti for about a week. Aid flights are sporadic and I don’t want to assume that I can get on the first one out. A medically trained person has priority, as do many other’s more skilled than I. My trip to New York has been set up under my own steam, I will have assistance to get out to Haiti once I am there. Accommodation will likely be in tents outside, on a camping mat and sleeping bag, all of which will be in my luggage.
While there are lot of news photographers out there, I will be concentrating on showing stories, showing how the relief work is helping the people of Haiti. There’s a lot of good being done in the area. People’s lives are being rebuilt and medical assistance is getting through to some areas. The best efforts of all the international relief cannot bring food and water to areas that are desperately inaccessible but that’s no reason not to try.
I’ve heard about a team of film-makers following a doctor around Haiti as part of some documentary footage being filmed – I am not going to be involved in anything like that. I want to come back with images that show the hope and the grace that results form someone being helped put their life back in order, similar to what I did in India.
If you have any questions, feel free to email me. I’ll have intermittent access. My work is going up to various organisations that I’m working with I’ll also be putting some stuff on twitter and facebook. To follow me on twitter go to www.twitter.com/felixkunze
My ultimate goal is to help bring the good side of what is now happening in Haiti out, to show people that there is hope, and through this encourage more people to give, more people to do something and help put the situation into perspective.
I am looking for further funding too, there’s always more I can bring to the area. We need supplies of all sorts. But even if you can’t help this trip directly, please give to the red cross or any other reputable organization in your area that is doing something to help.
Stay tuned for more.