Edit: Today is August 30, 2007 and it is being reported all the remaining hostages have been freed. Thank you for your prayers.
Because this is my business blog and mostly about photography and weddings, I’ve held back on writing a post about something that is happening in the world right now that is affecting me. A friend of Rebekah and mine, who we knew from our time in Central Asia is currently one of 21 hostages kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Her name is Lim Hyun Ju and she is a nurse. She went to Afghanistan a little over 3 years ago to serve at a hospital and do missionary work. 2 of the hostages have already been killed and the Taliban are threatening to kill more unless their demands are met. It is a very difficult political and human situation with none of the answers being easy. Would you pray for the safe release of the remaining hostages, wisdom of the leaders to make the right decisions and also for the suffering people of war torn Afghanistan. Thank you and God bless.
If you would like to read more about this situation from a local pastor here in Seattle, Click Here.
A picture of our friend Lim Hyun Ju
A picture of Rebekah with three other aid workers, including Hyun Ju on the left. Picture taken in Afghanistan in 2004.
A picture of Afghan people waiting for medicine being prepared by Rebekah
Thanks for your time…
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CW11 (aka KSTW Channel 11) had a promotion going on a few weeks ago for people to send in pictures from a Mariners game they’ve attended this year. My wife and I attended the Toronto Blue Jays vs Seattle Mariners game so I sent in a picture of my wife standing outside Safeco Stadium after the game to see what would happen. The picture was taken with our little $120 Fuji camera so it wasn’t anything special, but we won 2 tickets to the Seattle Mariners vs Anaheim Angels series that is happening right now! It was for the 1st game in the series and Seattle won 2-0. Ichiro hit a triple that was awesome and JJ Putz was pretty outstanding. Rebekah’s favorite though, and I dont know why, is Miguel Batista. She thinks he looks good.
We sat in the first row of the KSTW 11 Suite with the other winners and had a blast. The Mariners Moose even came by to take pictures with the kids! Thanks CW11!
Photographers: Todd & Rebekah Kim
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What was I doing on 07/07/07? Of course I was shooting a wedding! So were a million other wedding photographers. My friend and photography mentor Dawn Davis’ husband, Bob Davis from Lastoria Foto, was busy shooting one too! Whose? You may have heard of Tony Parker (NBA San Antonio Spurs star) and Eva Longoria (star of Desperate Housewives)! Those two celebrities were wed at Saint-Germain-l’Auxerroix church in Paris and Bob Davis was one of the official wedding photographers! Dawn’s been updating their blog so you can check out what she says at www.lastoriafoto.info.
Here’s a picture of Bob Davis (far right) at work (Photo by Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters):
This is what the unofficial photographers aka paparazzi have to do (Photo by Benoit Tessier/Reuters):
As for me, I was happy photographing some celebrities of my own here in Bellevue.
We’ll do a full post about their amazing wedding in the near future, but I just have to share this last picture!
This is Aria (flower girl and niece of Alice) and Enby (8 year old flower pup) as they entered during the processional. SOOO CUTE!
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A reporter from the Seattle PI (Post-Intelligencer) named Claudia Rowe called me up last week after seeing Alice and Kevin’s engagement pictures on our blog. She was writing an article about July 7, 2007 weddings and wanted to feature Alice and Kevin. I thought she wanted to use some of our own engagement pictures, but she had one of her own photographers go out and take pictures of Kevin and Alice at the church they are getting married at on July 7. You can see two of the pictures they took in the article. Claudia asked me a few questions too, but I guess my answers weren’t that interesting =) since they didn’t appear in the Seattle PI article.
You can view pictures from Alice and Kevin’s wedding in Bellevue by clicking HERE.
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The title “Born into Brothels” (2003) is a bit misleading because this Academy Award-winning documentary about the children of India, living in Calcutta’s red light district, spends less time going deep into the lives of these prostitute children born into the brothels of the red light district and more time on what the documentary maker is able to achieve by giving eight children film cameras to shoot with. I wanted to have more information about each child, the history of their families, the history of the brothels, how these problems started and explore solutions.
Now that I’ve said that, I can still say I think every person should see this documentary and learn from it. It will touch and maybe break your heart. It may make you hopeless and hopeful all at the same time. What is award winning are the children and their hope for life. It does seem to me that the filmmakers, Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman, selected the smartest and most clever children to be the stars. They are beautiful, full of life and amazing little children with a lot of talent stuck in miserable conditions. They live in utter filth and extreme conditions without too much fear or complaint, yet their emotions are so real and normal, just like children in America or anywhere else in the world. For example, towards the latter part of the documentary the children have to be tested for HIV as a requirement to apply for boarding school. We get to see the children act like children and squirm in fear just like any child would when they are about to receive shots. On the other hand, we see the children subject to death, all kinds of verbal abuse, inhumane living conditions and living around sex and drugs as a normal daily occurrence.
Do these children have a chance? Who can help them?
The children and their pictures.
Update on the Kids of Calcutta.
