When my daughter Erin, and I were planning our 99-day adventure around the world, we built in some buffer time, between our scheduled times with our subjects.  We needed flexibility, in the event things didn’t go perfectly according to plan, which had a high probability, considering the scope of our trip. Ultimately we had very few glitches and that buffer time gave us the opportunity to get more involved with the culture we were.  It also gave us time to shoot still images.

We spent 5 days in Moscow.  It was June and the days were long.  One Saturday, everywhere we went, there were weddings.  It was amazing because each bride and groom seemed to have his or her own style – everything from a pirate theme to pure “glam”.

Click here to see other still images from our journey.

This photograph was taken when my daughter Erin and I were filming in a

small hill tribe village in the northern mountains of Thailand.  We were following Dr. David Mar Naw, as he trekked through the villages, a “one man band”, dispensing medical care and building latrines for Burmese refugees.  Some of them had never seen a doctor before. This lady was waiting to have her tooth pulled.

It was painful to watch as the doctor pulled this woman’s tooth, without anything to ease her pain. She was stoic and barely winced. Perhaps she was thinking about the relief she would have, after the tooth was removed.

These people humbled me, in fact I was humbled by all the people we met, along our journey around the world.  I will be forever grateful for that journey.  It opened my eyes to so many things and I am a better person because of it.

This is just one story that makes up the film, Opening Our Eyes, a documentary about the “power of one” and “making a difference” in the the world.

Most folks don’t realize that when Erin and I went around the world in pursuit of people creating positive change – we weren’t just shooting a movie – we also shot over 5000 still images.

When we planned our itinerary, traveling and shooting on six continents in the summer of 2010, we built in some  “free time” to see the sights.  It also acted as a buffer in case things didn’t go according to plan.  As it happened, everything did go according to plan and we had some wonderful down time in Moscow, Istanbul, Bangkok, Melbourne and Sydney, Australia and India.  We shot still images in all of these destinations in addition to the stills that we shot on the movie set, and ended up with a nice archive.

I’ve been editing this archive over the last year and am going to make them available for prints.  You can see the first gallery of images, and there will be more to follow over the next few months.  A print would make a beautiful Christmas gift for someone special.  If you order before Dec. 17^th – the prints will arrive before Christmas.

Happy Holiday.

Tom and I will be headed out tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn.  We’re bound for Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with our daughter Erin, her boyfriend Bryan and his family.  For me, it’s also a welcome road trip and a journey home to my birthplace. It’s funny how things have a way of coming full circle.  I was born in Chicago and left to head “East” with my parents and family when I was a young child.  But for someone like me, who has moved more than a dozen times in my lifetime – Chicago feels like home.  It’s where my roots are.

I’ve been a bit of a “rolling stone” over the years, but I’m also extremely grateful that I have been able to share many of life’s incredible experiences and travels with Erin and my husband Tom.  It’s been a gift,  to be able to combine my passions with my career and family.  This Thanksgiving I am mindful of my blessings and am most grateful for what I have.

One of the things I am most proud of is the creation of the film, Opening Our Eyes, that I made in collaboration with my daughter.  The journey in and of itself was rewarding, but I have found that sharing it  has not only inspired and motivated others to create positive change, it has also enriched my own life.

If you would like to see the film or share it with others over the holidays, we are now offering it online.  We are also offering a Thanksgiving special.

Click here and use the coupon code “THANKSGIVING2013”.

The journey is over and the memories have begun to fade.  But the legacy lives on in the film my daughter and I created, when we set out some 3 years ago seeking individuals who were making our world a better place. And indeed, we found many people – ordinary people who were doing extraordinary things. And every one of these people had one thing in common – they had found their purpose in helping others.  The more they gave – the more they got back in return.  But none of them “gave” with the idea of getting something in return. It wasn’t about getting money, favors, recognition, or other ego related pursuits, it was about caring for their “fellow man”.

I think that the biggest reward for me in making this film, was sharing that experience with my daughter.  She was fortunate to have been born and raised in a beautiful and privileged part of the world and I wanted her to have a greater global perspective.  It’s almost impossible to “care” for your “fellow man” when if you don’t have an understanding of who they really are.  We all hear about conflict and our “differences” that seem to keep our world divided, but for many of us it’s too distant and outside our consciousness and the confines of our own daily reality.

The truth is the world seems like it’s gotten a whole lot smaller since I was my daughter’s age.  It’s amazing how technology has connected us all.  What’s even more amazing is the “reach” each one of us has. It’s not very difficult for “one person” to get their message out these days – globally – and instantaneously.  Think of the power in that.  I realized that first hand with this film and how it has connected people all over the world. I am grateful that I live in an age, when I am able to use my craft, to spread the message about the power each one of us has in making a positive difference in our world – the  “power of one”.

But it starts with each one of us, in our own communities and with the people we have relationships with.  We can all be a little more thoughtful of how we treat the people we know – that is if we can get outside our own egos. It may be as simple as stopping ourselves before we say something, or do something that could affect someone negatively and ask, “how would I feel if I was on the receiving end?” It’s the little things that we all do and say, that can affect someone, either positively or negatively and that in turn goes on to affect more people and it starts to ripple through “community” and beyond.

I think we all need a reminder from time to time that it serves no purpose to dismiss or treat anyone with disregard, anger or contempt. It only serves to make us bitter inside.  I have learned that lesson more than once in my life. The older I get, the more I realize that I’d rather harbor thoughts of love, kindness and forgiveness than hold onto negative ones.  Ultimately, life’s too short to focus on the negative.

We each have our own perspective and we each get to choose the lens we see “life” through. I choose a lens of love, respect and caring.  I haven’t always chosen that lens and no doubt there will be times in my life, going forward, when I will falter and start seeing life through the wrong lens.  Please, let me know when I do.

For those of you who have been asking when Opening Our Eyes will be available – it has been released on DVD and VOD.

Gail at the Pyramids – 19 years old

We had friends over this past weekend, and we started talking about technology and the impact it’s had on our career, photography and life in general.  I was talking about traveling and how much different it is now in regards to ease of communication and staying connected.

When I backpacked around the world, as a solo 19-year-old woman in the early 70’s, I pretty much left most communication with my family and friends behind.  In a year’s time, I probably only called home 3 times and it was a lengthy and expensive process, going to a call center and waiting until an operator could put your call through to the other side of the world.  And there wasn’t any Internet or email or cells phones and texting.  When I left home for that yearlong sabbatical, I was really going out on a limb as far as disconnecting from the world I knew.

I’m always asked, “Were you scared?”  I suppose I was afraid at times, when I thought about what I was doing and what could go wrong.  But most of the time, I was too much in awe of what I was experiencing.  I was very tuned in though, to my surroundings and I quickly developed a sixth sense about people, determining if they were good or bad.  Those instincts stay with me to this day and have managed to keep me safe in my travels.

I could not have imagined what the future would bring to my life in terms of technology.  The world we live in now is far different than it was some 40 years ago.  We are more aware – of other cultures, world politics and global news.  You would think that would help in bridging the gap of understanding between different cultures.  I think it has in many ways, but we have a long way to go.

Our fears keep most of us from “daring” to do something different, especially if our life seems to be working.  Usually, it takes a big change in our lives for us to muster up the courage to face the unknown.  And when we do venture outside our norm, we are almost always glad we did and wonder why we had hesitated for so long.

I’ve been lucky.  I had parents who encouraged me to take some risks.  When I was hesitant about doing something, my dad used to say to me “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” and when I couldn’t come up with any really horrible potential scenario, I’d take the plunge and face my fears.

I wonder, what’s in store for me now? The future hasn’t been written yet and the choices are mine to make.  Is it scary?  Only if I imagine it that way.  The story isn’t over yet.

In some ways we have never been more connected than we are right now – at this juncture in the timeline of mankind.  In other ways we have never been more disconnected and detached.  When I embarked on a 99 journey around the world almost 3 years ago to date, I suppose in some ways I was looking to get more connected with what was happening globally, in a real sense.  These days, it’s too easy to fall into a cyber world, where most of our connections are intangible. Call me old fashioned, but I feel the need to connect with people in real terms. When I returned from my journey, I had not only connected with people from all around the world, I had connected with myself and what part I was meant to play in the timeline of life.

As the years have ticked away, I have tried to remain true to myself, especially in how I apply that to my craft and my career.  This past weekend I had an assignment for Kiwanis Magazine.  The assignment was to photograph volunteers from the local Kiwanis and Ki Clubs, repairing a home at the NJ shore that had been damaged by Hurricane Sandy.  I had not been down to the shore since Sandy, but I knew this area had been the hardest hit in the state.  While much of the debris has been taken away, there’s an empty and desolate presence especially in the poorer towns that had no money to rebuild.

The task on hand for the volunteers that day, and there had to be about 30 people who showed up, was to install new sheet rock and insulation, put in a new bathroom and do general clean up of the property.  It was a modest home in a very modest neighborhood of houses that had been salvaged amongst the ones abandoned.  The first thing that hit me was in fact – this is someone’s home.  As much as I was there to photograph the volunteers, my eye was drawn to the personal effects of the owners, pushed up into the corners of damaged rooms along with their Easter decorations in rooms they were living in.  Life must go on.

The day was filled with positive energy. Kids were painting, raking, cleaning storm drains while older tradesmen were working with other volunteers and teaching them their craft. And at the end of the day, everyone walked away tired, but feeling really good about the contribution they had made.  I’m sure some of these kids had to do some kind of community service as part of their school mandates, but could I tell that every one of them got a lot more out of the experience than just school credits. I know I got a lot more out of it than a paycheck and some photographs in a magazine.

After the chores had been done and I had gotten the photographs that I needed, I took a drive with my husband along the ocean road.  It was a new landscape, changed by a hurricane that hit hard.  But I felt hopeful and humbled once again about the power that’s in all of us to make a difference.

I ran into someone over the weekend who I had not seen in many years.  We had been good friends, but we had drifted apart, over some disagreements, that neither of us could even remember. I’m sure those disagreements seemed important at the time, but now they just seemed trivial.  We both realized that we had let our egos get in the way of our friendship and instead of trying to heal the hurts that had severed our friendship – we put more angst, anger and sadness in its place.

I started thinking about the kids that I met at the Oasis Youth Network

Sir Richard Branson making breakfast sandwiches at the Oasis Youth Network, Sydney, Australia

in Sydney, Australia, when Erin and I were there, shooting this segment of Opening Our Eyes.  One young man was telling his story of growing up in a broken home, with parents who were drug addicts and gamblers.  He talked about stealing money for his lunch when he was a kid, and never having clean clothes to wear to school.  He talked about getting into a life of drugs and crime and eventually being sent to jail, away from his children and everything that was good in his life.  And then he talked about how Oasis had given him his life back and how Paul Moulds in particular had given him a “second chance”.

When we interviewed Paul Moulds for our film, he made a comment that still resonates with me to this day, almost two years later.  In talking about kids who grew up in homes like the one this young man described, or worse yet, kids who were homeless and trying to scrape out some kind of life on the streets, he said:  “we try to help these young people by training them and finding them a job – but who is going to be willing to hire them when they have no address, no education and no record of employment?” He went on to say that no matter, how much pain some of these kids had grown up with or how many wrong decisions they had made in their lives, that he still believed in giving them second chances.  I remember thinking at the time that the world needed more people like Paul – people who believed in giving others, a second chance.

We all say and do stupid things in our lives and in the process, we end up hurting ourselves and the people we truly care about.  We’ve given into our “precious egos” when we behave like that.  Ultimately, many of us come to realize that we only bring more pain in our lives, by continuing to hold onto the hurts from the past, instead of letting go of our egos, and giving someone who may have done us wrong – a second chance.  I think sometimes in our efforts to protect ourselves from being hurt by others, we bring more pain to our lives by shutting the door on second chances.

Jackson Browne writes, “It seems easier sometimes to change the past”. Unfortunately, we can’t change the past, but we don’t need to keep holding onto it.  While it’s not easy to give someone a second chance, it feels so much better to leave the door open to possibilities. Imagine what the world would be like if we all thought like Paul Moulds, and thought that everyone deserves a second chance.

Chris Guillebeau wrote in his blog today “When I became an optimist after years of seeing the glass half-full, it was largely a practical choice. I just realized I was tired (literally) of putting my energy toward negative thoughts. It was draining and decapacitating. I vowed to put my energy toward positive thoughts, and ignore anything else as much as possible.” I can’t wait to meet Chris next week at his World Domination Summit in Portland, OR. In fact I can’t wait to meet all the people who attend this conference and think the same way Chris does.

Chris went on to say “Embrace the WOW. When someone does something interesting, appreciate it for what it is. Stop judging or discounting their achievements.” That sentence really resonated with me because there are days when I feel that no matter how much I have accomplished in my career and in my life, there are people who try to marginalize my achievements.

When I start to feel frustrated by people like that, I remind myself of what Ronni Kahn of Oz Harvest told me on a July day in Sydney, Australia “Don’t do something for the recognition – do it for the sake of doing.” Ronni was one of the many inspirational people my daughter Erin and I interviewed, on our trip around the world in the summer of 2010, during the making of our documentary, Opening Our Eyes.

I think back on all the travel logistics I needed to coordinate – our itinerary would have made one of the best travel agents panic – let alone figuring out how to do it using airline miles and hotel rewards. I also needed to think about the gear we would need to shoot both stills and video, that would fit into 2 backpacks. And I needed to make sure we had the necessary visas and vaccinations.

When we got back, I had over 5000 images and 150 hours of film to edit. Within two very long, bleak winter months in early 2011, I managed to lay down an initial rough cut of 3 hours of interviews. While I was doing the rough edit, I was also running a crowd funding campaign on Kickstarter to get funds to pay for a professional editor. I knew that would ultimately make all the difference in the world as far as how the film was cut – and it did.

It will be a year, next month since we screened our first “sneak preview” at the State Theatre in Traverse City, MI. Since that time, we’ve been honored at film festivals receiving awards for Best Documentary, Best Humanitarian Documentary and Best Trailer. But that stuff is for the ego and while it was sweet to receive those awards, the biggest reward for me, was the “journey” itself. I don’t mean just the trip itself, but all that I learned along the way. That’s the part that’s hard to explain, especially to the people who seem to “judge and discount” the achievements of others.

Like Chris Guillebeau, I made a decision some years ago to put my energy toward positive thoughts, and ignore everything else as much as possible. I need to remind myself of that every day and walk away from the things and the people who don’t bring value to my life. Life’s too short for that. When I keep that in mind, I stay on purpose and that’s when the good stuff happens.

“The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.” 

- John Ruskin

At one of the film festivals I recently attended, I had a wonderful conversation with a young filmmaker.  I told him that if I had known that I would still be involved with this film, more than 2 years after I conceived of the idea – I probably never would have started it.  He laughed and even though he was probably 20 or 30 years younger than I, he spoke from a place of wisdom beyond his years – no doubt an old soul – at least in spirit. He told me “You never really “finish” a film – you just get to a point where you are ready to let go. “

Am I ready to let go?  I ask myself that question daily.  I should be screaming an emphatic “yes” for every logical and practical reason.  It has consumed me from the very start, in every way imaginable, and on one very real level, I can and need to “let go” and move on.  But on another, much deeper level – I’m not ready to move on because this “thing” that I started so long ago, is, and always has been, more than a film.  It has become a “shift” – a shift in my point of view, my perspective, beliefs, and values. In fact it as caused a “shift” in just about every area of my life.

This film was never meant to be something that I created for fame and fortune.  Any fool knows that making a documentary is hardly a way to make money. It has been a drain financially from the beginning.  As far as fame – well I’ve had my moments to shine and I’ve had some wins but I’ve had far more losses and rejections that have kept me humble and I’m grateful for the recognition when it comes.  So, why is it that I’m still not quite ready to let go?  Every time I begin to feel overwhelmed by frustration and want to close the door on this “thing”, I remind myself of why I started this folly.  I felt that there was an absence and longing in our culture for hope. I felt there was a need for a “shift” in attitude. I truly believe that this film and other films like it can make a difference by getting people to think.

Every time I have attended a screening of this film, I can see that for those 76 minutes that I have the attention of the audience – I really have them – I’ve touched them – I’ve gotten them to think. I’m usually buoyed by the audience’s reaction and remarks and I feel hopeful that “change” can happen – change for the betterment of the planet and mankind.  There is always one person who comes up to me or writes me and tells me that I’ve “moved” them in some way, and they thank me for making this movie.  How do I let go of something that has the power to move people?  I don’t think I can.

My goal all along has been to create a positive shift in attitude.  I can’t abandon that just when it’s starting to grow.  Instead, I am planning to make this website, much more than a website about the film.  My vision is that it will become a place where liked minded people can interact with one another and create a greater global shift.  I can’t be the lone voice, and I don’t think I have the heart to do that.  The virtual world can be a lonely world without interaction – too lonely for me. I thrive on connections and the strength that comes from them. I have a feeling that I’m not the only one that craves connectivity on some level. This website will grow slowly in that direction over the coming months.  I am working with a web guru to execute what I envision as far as making the website a “community”.  I suspect that building the web interface will be the easy part of the process.  Getting people to interact and share with one another will take more doing. I’ll need everyone’s help on that part.  That’s the only way it will work – and grow.

There have been some who have questioned the wisdom of my folly and others who’ve dismissed the idea entirely. There are some who tell me to move on – that the journey is over.  Literally speaking, the journey is over, in terms of the making of this movie but the journey was just the beginning as far as what this movie was meant to do.  I’m not ready to abandon that notion just yet.