John M. Setzler, Jr.

Our guest speaker was David Johnson, who is the founder of Silent Images. Silent Images is a non-profit organization that travels to regions of the world where persecution and oppression is rampant for the purpose of providing photographic images to raise money for the indigenous people of the areas.

David’s photography, however, is not what I expected to see. I’m used to seeing images of death and chaos that surrounds the concept of genocide. We have all seen these images. The sensationalism… the shock factor… the normal stuff tossed before us by the drive-by media on a daily basis. David’s photography takes a very different approach, while telling the same story. Most of the images I saw tonight were more upbeat and positive for the purpose of showing hope, promise, and the possibilities of correcting the situation at hand rather than showing death and destruction, which tend to represent the too late scenario.

David also published a book called “Voices of Sudan” containing imagery and accounts of his travels into the Darfur region. I purchased one of these from him at our meeting tonight. !00% of the profits from this book go to help Sudan. These books can be purchased from Amazon.com (click the book picture) or from your local Barnes and Noble or Borders bookstores. The photo at the top of this post shows how profits from the book sales benefit the people. Sales of this book have funded the installation of three wells (at a cost of nearly $15,000 each) to one of the refugee camps in southern Sudan.

After attending this lecture and browsing this book, I think I, as a photographer, have found an organization that I can proudly contribute to in the future.