© Clint Brewer

I have seen so much of our world over the years but each new trip brings more understanding that there is so much left to see, experience and understand. As a Photographer i am drawn to the creative, the inspiring, the moments in life that can draw people out of their shells and reveal their true character. But when i come into contact with something that is not pretty, happy or easy to swallow my attitude towards how i react has changed.  I don’t want to pass it off and let someone else deal with it because it is not my area of expertise; i am now incapable of wanting to do something about it.

The problem with being an artist is that many times, a painting, film or photograph doesn’t actually help someone. It can paint a picture of reality but if no one sees it then what is the point. It can be skewed so that people see the depravity of the world, or it can show the hope and redemption that awaits. I don’t want to be an artist who makes images of depravity, who shows the worst of the world in the most beautiful of ways. Have i done this before? Absolutely. But those are not the images i am proud of, the images that tell the true stories. If I come to believe that just showing poverty and pain will lead to any sort of change, i am dead wrong and quite frankly, wasting my time.

As artists and creatives our responsibility is to use our abilities to tell a story that moves the viewer, a story that transcends the moment the image was taken and shares the potential for joy, love and life.

I am in the planning stages of a documentary with friend that will focus on the rampant issue of Sex Trafficking, specifically in Nicaragua. Throughout the past year we have both been exposed to this issue in recent trips to Central America and have come to the conclusion that we must act and use our gifts to tell a story. Not a story of pain and despair, though these feelings may come, but of the hope and redemption that can come transcend through these horrible circumstances. [Read more...]