Barak Bruerd

1st Award Photo

Posted on September 11, 2009 by Barak in Africa, Asia | No Comments

Lutito

Posted on February 24, 2009 by Barak in Asia | No Comments

Not quite sure if we want to extract anything metaphorical from this photo… deserts, parched earth, wasteland, etc are never imagery you generally pair up with relationships, marriage, etc.  But we were eating lunch on this salt-flat in Marsabit and I shot this wide-angle of Kellie and Jeremy.  Pretty sweet if I do say so myself.

Road to Manhood

Posted on September 04, 2008 by Barak in Asia | No Comments

Two brothers driving the family sheep to a nearby spring.  Although it’s easy to gloss over the simplicity of this story, it depicts something truly remarkable.  How many of us would allow an 8 and 10 year old wander miles from home unaccompanied?  How many of us would allow them to be in charge of a major portion of our family’s assets?  Livestock represent the entirety of a pastoralist’s wealth; it’s the only possession they have that is of material value.  And so on the shoulders’ of these two boys rests the family’s investments from which they will trade, buy food, pay for school, purchase clothing, medicine and anything else required for basic survival.  The journey to manhood begins early and is shouldered with an ease most of us in the West can barely comprehend.  I turned away to climb into my air conditioned Land Rover and grab a bottle of ice-cold water from the cooler.  They walked the rest of the way to the oasis and drank from a spring polluted by the feet of thousands of dusty animals.  It’s an injustice of immeasurable proportions.

Water Wheeling

Posted on August 20, 2008 by Barak in Asia | No Comments

Big Rig

Posted on February 01, 2008 by Barak in Asia | No Comments

Drilling for water in a pigmy village in Central Africa Republic

Drilling for Hope

Posted on May 09, 2007 by Barak in Asia | No Comments

A portable well drilling device set up at a school in central Kenya

Black Hmong Girl

Posted on December 12, 2006 by Barak in Asia | No Comments

Traveling through Sapa, Vietnam I came spent some time with an adorable girl from a Hmong village who was selling jewelry to the plethora of tourists that decend upon these mountains each year.

Moto-Taxi

Posted on December 07, 2006 by Barak in Asia | No Comments

A quick self-portrait from the back of a motor scooter taxi in Cambodia

No Inhibition

Posted on December 04, 2006 by Barak in Asia | No Comments

A little girl in Veil Thom scarfing noodles at community celebration

Genocide

Posted on November 14, 2006 by Barak in Asia | No Comments

Cambodian Genocide