A trip I’ll never forget

It’s difficult to describe how impactful this trip was. I was invited to help lead a mission trip with Youth With A Mission to Tanzania. I had been working as a freelance photographer in Dallas for about 2 years and before that - a missionary with YWAM Tyler, TX. I’m not quite sure what compelled me to go other than - that I wanted to go to Africa. I had never been, also this would be a great opportunity to see what it would look like to use photography as a tool to bring awareness to missions and what God is doing. At first I did wonder if I would get distracted by my camera or if I’d struggle with the tension of like what am I supposed to be doing in this moment? Like not wanting to put a photo op moment before talking to someone or being sensitive to not exposing people in their vulnerability. Thankfully I had some amazing people in Tanzania that were very open to questions and helpful in navigating whenever those situations did arise.

I didn’t take my film camera with me so all these were shot on a Sony a7iii camera with a 24-70mm 2.8 lens. I don’t love carrying hefty cameras around (even though it is a mirrorless). Now I have a Fuji x100v and I can definitely see myself taking that instead if I were to go on a trip like this again. May have to get creative not having a zoom lens but I think it’ll work!

There’s so much to be said in terms of why this trip - how the people I met and the things I saw and experienced impacted me; but I’d like to focus on how there was like an added element of my experience - my camera. It was like another language (non-verbal) added to the mix that mirrored back to me what I felt and even maybe what the subject was feeling as well. Some of the people I had the honor of taking photos of had never seen a digital image of themselves and that made me feel like… I’m so honored, and also, what do I do with that?

A photo can just be a good photo, but to me - these photos tell a story - and that’s what impacts me the most.