On my last day in Cape Town, South Africa my alarm chimed at 5 AM. For me, being up at such an early hour would usually mean a trip to the airport to visit my clients in D.C. or Boston, but today was different - in the best possible way. Today was the day that I would meet and interview the esteemed Bishop Tutu.

It was a huge honor to share space with Bishop Tutu, who is an inspiring and beloved religious figure. He has a powerful charisma and infectious sense of humor that is matched only by his intelligence and genuine caring for other human beings.

The scope of achievements Bishop Tutu has accomplished during his lifetime are too numerous to mention, however I wanted to briefly touch on a couple of the most notable roles he’s played:

• He is the recipient of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to the liberation struggle in 1978, when he became the first black secretary of the South African Council of Churches. As a dynamic leader of this council, Desmond Tutu’s goal was for “a democratic and just society without racial segregation.”

• Following the 1976 Soweto protests, during which Hector Peterson F.E.T. School’s namesake was killed, there was a country-wide uprising against apartheid. It’s from this point on that Bishop Tutu became a supporter of the economic boycott of his country, which played a significant part in dismantling the apartheid regime.

• As the moral conscience of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, the former President of South Africa, described Tutu as “sometimes strident, often tender, never afraid and seldom without humor. Desmond Tutu’s voice will always be the voice of the voiceless.”

Our meeting with Bishop Tutu began with a private service at the St. Georges Cathedral, which is located in the central business district in Cape Town. Being Anglican, but perhaps not attending church as much as I should, it was interesting to compare and contrast the services from my native home of Australia. The service was relatively informal and the advent of humor was somewhat refreshing compared with the more traditional services I am accustomed to.

While you might think that it would be intimidating to meet Bishop Tutu, I found him to be very down to earth and approachable. After the church service, we headed to his favorite local cafe for breakfast and a well-earned coffee. It was then onto the interview.

I will always remember Tutu’s accessibility and willingness to be a part of the cause to help raise awareness of the Bridges to Understanding charity. He responded to my questions with insight that demonstrated a solid understanding of the issues with education and impoverished communities within South Africa.

At the conclusion of the interview, Bishop Tutu, who is somewhat shorter than I am, leaned up and whispered in my ear, “Now, I must go. Thank you for helping South Africa.”

With a wave from his bodyguard to signal the need to continue moving, we said our goodbyes and he walked off to his waiting vehicle.

 

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Prince Harry is rapidly becoming my favourite member of the Royal Family to photograph.  It all started a few weeks ago during a trip the young Royal made to Cardiff – the first full day of official engagements he has made.  His natural manner and ‘court jester’ approach certainly wooed the Welsh crowd and made for a great set of pictures.

So, it was with a sense of excitement I set off on my first trip to Lesotho to photograph two days of the Prince working with his charity Sentebale (meaning ‘Forget-me-not’) in some of the more deprived areas of the mountainous African principality.  Sentebale was founded by Prince Seeiso from the Lesotho Royal family and Harry in response to the plight of the neediest of Lesotho’s people - its orphans and vulnerable children.  

Lesotho is a country in desperate need of help, many of the adults have been wiped out by HIV/AIDS leaving a generation of over 380,000 orphans struggling to fend for themselves. With only a couple of days work and no pools there was a fairly relaxed approach to this trip. However this didn’t last very long as many of the press realised that there was no wireless in the hotel and none in the nearby town.  With no way to send pictures, a trip across the border to

South Africa would be the only was of getting their images out (a good hour away after taking into account the busy border crossing).  Luckily this would be one of the first occasions my satellite phone would actually not just be a dead weight in my bag and I could file from location giving me a head start on some of the other photographers!

During the first night’s briefing, Harry sat at the back listening intently to the head of Sentebale, Harper Brown, explain the ethos behind the charity to a group of jetlagged journalists and photographers.  Afterwards, in the hotel bar, it was a relaxed evening with a beer, talking about the up-coming couple of days. 

The next couple of days were fairly chaotic – we photographed Harry helping build a school for physically and mentally disabled children as well as taking part in a football match with the charity ‘Kick for Life’ run by an inspirational character called Pete Fleming. The charity runs HIV testing days using football as a means to communicate and bring children to the testing centres.  The story of Kick for Life and the history behind the charity was fascinating and it amazed me that someone with such obvious entrepreneurial skills would dedicate himself solely to such selfless work.  

A few weeks before I was due to leave for Lesotho I got in contact with Sentebale and arranged for them to take me around a few of the projects the charity was working on – I figured it would be a good opportunity to go into a bit more depth on the story with some images that would compliment the set I would take of Harry.

Harper Brown was kind enough to try and organise a trip for me up into the mountains to see some of the more affected children (unfortunately the helicopter had to turn around due to bad weather) as well as a trip to visit an orphanage of 124 children run by an awe inspiring woman, Sister Giselle.  Sister Giselle gave me a tour of the orphanage which Sentebale helps support.  A bakery and chicken coop help make it a project that works towards sustaining itself and the classrooms ensure the children receive the best possible education, it was a great example of the work the charity is doing. I also visited street children who rely on the help of projects Sentebale supports, the sub zero temperatures at night make Lesotho an inhospitable place for the homeless.  Using the images I photographed and audio of some of the orphans singing I was able to record material for a multimedia piece which the Getty Images Multimedia team have subsequently put together.

Despite a 24-hour delay getting home and the inevitable African bug, the trip produced some memorable images and certainly showed the passion Prince Harry feels for his work in this tiny African country.  With his recent tour of duty in Afghanistan and the professionalism and flair he has adopted towards his royal duties he certainly seems to be shaking off the image of the ‘Playboy Prince’.

I spent the past two weeks in New Orleans working on stories leading up to the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on August 29. Coming down here always brings back memories of those dreadful days and every time I pass over the bridge leading into the Lower Ninth Ward I can’t help but think of the first time I crossed and gazed down at the colossal deluge.

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I returned to the projects a number of times and was pleased to see that more units have been re-opened, allowing some of the city’s poor to return home to affordable housing. I was joined by our new multimedia staff photographer Rick Gershon and we teamed up on pieces on a church functioning out of a tent in Mississippi, a couple still living without electricity or gas in the Lower Ninth and a short piece on the projects.

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I visited an elementary school in the Lower Ninth which finally re-opened and made a number of trips to the levees to document the slow rebuilding process.

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The Big Easy is back to about 65 percent of its pre-Katrina population. Tens of thousands are still living in trailers and the levees are not up to the point where they could protect against another Katrina-sized storm. Crime is a huge problem and the city is set to have one of the highest murder rates in the country again this year. To someone visiting for the first time, it remains a deeply shocking experience to pass through the still-devastated areas of the city.

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However, New Orleans is slowly but surely pulling itself up by its bootstraps, as many people have come to the conclusion that the government will never be coming to the rescue.

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Tonight I participated in the group slideshow “Eyes on Katrina” by SeenUnseen which was projected onto the levee wall in the Lower Ninth Ward. The show was curated by Jake Price and Jamie Wellford and featured work by a number of photographers including Stanley Greene, Brenda Ann Kenneally, Alan Chin, Yunghi Kim, Andy Levin and Anthony Suau, just to name a few. The turnout was low due to rain, but we were happy to be able to pull it off. The photo on the levee wall was taken by Kadir van Lohuizen.

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I rode in a Bradley again the other day, for the first time in a few years.  Bradleys are a rather old-fashioned Army armoured troop carrier; they have treads on them and look like small tanks.  They are increasingly getting supplanted around here by newer, roomier, and sleeker Stryker transport vehicles, which get around better in urban terrain.  Nonetheless, hundreds of Bradleys still grind and roar around Iraq every day, each containing up to seven or eight soldiers, riding uncomfortably inside. 

The sealed-off cabin of a Bradley on a summer day in Iraq is almost unbearably hot; within moments of the huge back hatch swinging shut, you’re covered in a sheen of sweat.  At least mine wasn’t crowded; only two soldiers, an Iraqi translator, and me.  One of the soldiers across from me was an energetic young man from near Missoula, Specialist Winn. 

Talking is nearly impossible in the roar of a moving Bradley, but the impossible didn’t stop Winn, who managed during our ride to shout out to me all about his life in Montana: his fondness of the mountains, for horses and hunting, and his many guns, each of which he described to me in detail.  (He politely asked about mine and was greatly surprised that I owned no guns at all). 

Conversation drifted over to the newly-installed automatic fire extinguishers in the Bradleys - apparently soldiers often have survived the initial blast of roadside bombs, only to burn to death inside.  “They’re great for putting out the fires, but they suck up all the oxygen, so we gotta get out quick if we get hit or we’ll suffocate,” Winn shouted.  He motioned next to me. “You know how to open the escape door on a Bradley?”

I looked down and noticed for the first time a small round door was carved into the larger hatch.  A heavy metal release lever was next to my elbow.“Actually, no,” I yelled.  “Just pull this?”“Yeah, but it sticks sometimes.” His sweaty brow furrowed as he considered some options.  “Tell you what,” he said, finally, “if we get hit, look over to me.  If I’m still alive, move over and I’ll open it.” “Good idea,” I said. “Will do.” But there were no explosions this day, and our escape plan went unused.  It was a long day, though, and finally around sunset the convoy arrived back at the main base and dropped me off, some distance from my tent.  As I walked back I saw other Bradleys lumbering back from or heading to patrols, some navigating fields full of dusty desert powder four inches thick, like the surface of the Moon.  When they crossed these they seemed to be almost floating as they parted the dust, like tiny iron ships, sailing across sandy seas. 

I spent the better part of last week documenting the few hundred Katrina refugees who have recently been allowed to return to the B.W. Cooper housing project in New Orleans. B.W. Cooper, or Calliope as it is popularly known, originally housed over 1,000 families yet now remains more than 80 percent empty. Nearly two years after Hurricane Katrina struck, some 10,000 former residents of the New Orleans housing projects have not been able to return home. Many of the projects have not been repaired following the storm, while others that appear to be habitable are sealed. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) plans to tear down four of the major New Orleans housing projects and replace them with mixed income developments.

Affordable housing has become difficult to find in New Orleans as rents are significantly higher than before the hurricane struck. The projects were notoriously ruthless places plagued by gang warfare and drug abuse. Yet they were also a place that families called home for generations. Residents say the projects were a viable place to live for low income residents in the center of a great American city. Activists and many residents believe the HUD plan is simply a way to prevent poor urban African-Americans from returning to the city. Yet there is no doubt that the projects need improving, one way or another.

The place is usually teeming with some kind of activity, especially among the children and teenagers. There is no playground, so the kids often make do with makeshift games like practicing flips on mattresses or shooting hoops on the two beat up basketball courts. Many of the apartments remain closed, so you’ll see a boarded up apartment on the first floor with a family living in the apartment above. Some apartments remain unsealed with broken windows or ravaged by fire.

The lovely people in Calliope, while initially skeptical of my motives, have become increasingly welcoming and friendly. While their situations are far from ideal, many are delighted to be back in the place they call home among family and friends they’ve known all their lives. I feel privileged to be able to explore a side of New Orleans most people never get to see.