In 1996, a mysterious program called Anonymous Was a Woman began giving $25,000 with no questions asked to 10 underrecognized female artists over the age of 40. Now, 22 years and $5.5 million later, the anonymous benefactor behind the program has finally stepped forward: she's 77-year-old photographer Susan Unterberg.
"If you have someone that you think is the one," the comedian Bill Murray once said, "don’t just sort of think in your ordinary mind, 'Okay, let's make a date. Let's plan this and make a party and get married.' Take that person and travel around the world."
If you were to ask me about a specific time in my life when photography made a significant impact, I would say the fall of 2011. For my birthday, my husband surprised me by taking me out for lunch at a tiny burger dive, and then stopping in at the local art museum. He’s not exactly an “art-lover” per say, so I was a little confused by the move... until he explained what they were showing.
Over the course of his 40+ year business career, Brian Hampton took the lead as CEO of 5 successful companies. Through it all, however, he had a passion for photography that never waned. And so, now that he's retired from the business world and has time to spend pursuing that passion, he's turned what was once a hobby into an incredibly successful wildlife photography career -- as long as you don't equate making money with success.
Photography, at its essence, tells a story. And even though the majority of the "photography" we see today tells the story of how we went to Pinkberry yesterday or what city we happen to be in at the moment, powerful photography is still very much alive because there are plenty of powerful stories. 100Cameras, like so many charities, relies on photography to tell the powerful stories of underprivileged children; only, unlike the rest, they don't put the children in front of the camera, they put them behind it.
The concept is simple. 100cameras staff members travel to countries armed with cameras. They partner with a local organization serving children in the community. For the next few weeks, they teach the children how to take photographs. Then they set those children free to capture their world and post the photos online.
For the kids, sharing their life with the rest of the world is a reward in itself, but 100cameras goes one step further. The photographs are available for sale, and 100% of the profits go back to the children's organizations.
Photography enthusiast and retired physicist Milo Shott of Oxford, England has found a way use his love for cameras to raise boatloads of money for the poverty-fighting charity Oxfam: camera repair. 11 years ago, Shott noticed some workers at an Oxfam store throwing out an old piece of camera equipment. After saving it from the trash, he fixed it up and helped the store sell it for £270.