One thing that we feel very strongly about is that we need to give back, to share our skills with others. We feel so blessed to be able to do the work that we do and to live the life of privilege that we do. By privilege we don’t mean that we live in a giant mansion or that we have oodles of fancy things. We feel privileged just to live in a beautiful city where we are free to do what we want, to have a roof over our heads, to have the love of our family and friends and to be able to look after our basic needs without worry.

That is why we work with the Tiny Light Foundation locally. We also have been lucky enough to be able to donate our photgraphy overseas. Roger went on a trip to Northern Thailand in 2007, photographing hill tribesmen for a small NGO. In 2008 we went to Cambodia and visited a few different orphanages around Phnom Penh taking pictures to help NGOs with their fundraising efforts. The photo above is one that we took of an adorable little girl in an orphanage in Phnom Penh. We have it hanging up in our studio as a reminder to us to give back.

In February we are going back to South East Asia to visit Vietnam. The trip is a vacation for us, however we still wanted to find an NGO that we could work with while we were over there. We thought about going back to Phnom Penh to revisit the orphanages however we realized that we would like to help some new people. We were about to start searching for an NGO when we received an email from our dear friend, Craig, in Tokyo who we are going to visit at the end of the trip. He told us that he has a friend who is working with families who lost everything in the tsunami last year, taking pictures for them to help them rebuild their family photo albums. Craig asked us if we would like to participate in the Photohoku Project and without any hesitation we said yes. Craig is very kindly trying to coordinate our 4 days in Japan with the Photohoku Project. It will be an unforgettable experience for us for sure. The thing is, we’ve found that when we give to others, we are always blown away by how much we receive back.