Jack Picone
Jack Picone is an editorial and documentary photographer based in Bangkok, Thailand.
He holds a MVA, (High Dist.) from Griffith University in Australia.
He has over two decades of experience working in scores of countries, including some of the world’s most dangerous places: Israel, Angola, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Soviet Central Asia and Former Yugoslavia.
His clients have included, German Geo, Stern, De Spiegel, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, L'Express, Granta, Colors Magazine and many others.
Jack is the recipient of some of photography’s most prestigious awards in photojournalism including, The World Press Awards, Photographer of The Year Award (POY) and the Fifty Crows Grant for social documentary photography. Jack’s most recent awards include a UNESCO Documentary Award for 2006 and 1st Place in the PX3 Prix De La Photographie Paris Awards 2009.
His work has been exhibited and projected several times at the prestigious Visa d’ Or Reportage Festival in France.
Jack works on global assignments and is the founder of The Jack Picone Photography Workshops, a series of regular photojournalism workshops tutored by world-renowned photographers focusing on the Asian region.
He holds a MVA, (High Dist.) from Griffith University in Australia.
He has over two decades of experience working in scores of countries, including some of the world’s most dangerous places: Israel, Angola, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Soviet Central Asia and Former Yugoslavia.
His clients have included, German Geo, Stern, De Spiegel, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, L'Express, Granta, Colors Magazine and many others.
Jack is the recipient of some of photography’s most prestigious awards in photojournalism including, The World Press Awards, Photographer of The Year Award (POY) and the Fifty Crows Grant for social documentary photography. Jack’s most recent awards include a UNESCO Documentary Award for 2006 and 1st Place in the PX3 Prix De La Photographie Paris Awards 2009.
His work has been exhibited and projected several times at the prestigious Visa d’ Or Reportage Festival in France.
Jack works on global assignments and is the founder of The Jack Picone Photography Workshops, a series of regular photojournalism workshops tutored by world-renowned photographers focusing on the Asian region.
In 2003 Jack Picone won the FiftyCrows IFDP award for his photo essay that looked at the AIDS epidemic in Thailand. The intention of his images was to give a voice to the courage and compassion of HIV-infected people who face social ostracism and stigmatization. For over a decade, Picone has been involved with photographing people and communities with AIDS as part of a London-based project called “Positive Lives.”
Wendell Phillips
Wendell Phillips is based in Vancouver, and started his career as a staff news photographer in Manitoba, Canada. He was voted Canada's News Photographer of the Year in 1988. He documents environmental stories, social issues, international development images for numerous agencies that include United Nations Canadian International Development Agency and the Canadian Red Cross. His images have been featured by hundreds of publications and networks to include the South China Morning Post, McLean 's Magazine, Time magazine, Los Angeles Times, London Times, Toronto Star, Photo Life Magazine, National Post, Globe and Mail, and BBC World News.
He covered stories in war zones, and produced documentaries in Africa, the Indian subcontinent, South East Asia, Latin America and Europe. He also raised funds for human development agencies, food banks, HIV AIDS, Cancer research and women's shelters.
He covered stories in war zones, and produced documentaries in Africa, the Indian subcontinent, South East Asia, Latin America and Europe. He also raised funds for human development agencies, food banks, HIV AIDS, Cancer research and women's shelters.
Wat Prabat Namphu
Alongkot Dikkapanyo, 54, head monk of Wat Phra Baht Nam Phu Buddhist temple. He is responsible for initiating the caring of AIDS patients that have been rejected from their family and are too poor to go elsewhere. This is the temple where they come to die.
The temple, which is built at the foot of a small mountain in Lopburi, 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of Bangkok, is home to 550 patients, including 140 children.
Its founder is Alongkot Dikkapanyo, a 54-year-old Buddhist monk, who left a promising career in engineering at the ministry of agriculture at the age of 26 to become a monk. The idea of turning a temple into an AIDS hospice started in 1990 when two young HIV-positive men came to Wat Phra Baht Nam Phu, which means in Thai "the temple of Buddha's footprints." They asked Alongkot if they could stay. "Nobody wanted to look after them," Alongkot recalls
Two years later, he took in eight more HIV-positive Thais -- seven men and a woman in their 20s and 30s -- who had been rejected by their families, and turned his temple into an eight-bed AIDS hospice.
"I cannot control the world, but I can help and protect AIDS patients. That's my work," the round-faced monk says. But after opening the hospice, people refused to offer him alms and stopped visiting the temple.
"In the first three years, nobody came to my temple. I received threats. I understood that people were afraid of infection. Even other monks said a temple should be a place for monks, not for AIDS patients."
Some families left patients at the temple and never saw them again. But many patients came by themselves, even with their children, saying they had no other places to go. No place, no money, no work, no food. At the hospice, men and women are in equal number. Most men got HIV from prostitutes, while many women were infected from their boyfriends and husbands. Around 10 to 15 patients die each month, and the temple, which has its own incinerator, and has cremated more than 10,000 bodies since 1992.
Even after death, most families don't come to pick up the ashes. Alongkot has put thousands of white cotton bags containing bones and ashes of AIDS patients around a brown Buddha statue at the temple. "I tell my patients not to worry about anything and not to feel sad because I don't want them to die in loneliness. I want them to die peacefully."
We thank our King, King Bhumibol Adulyadej for the Thai Royal Families financial support and we are thankful for the support of the Thai Government
This groups aim is to make everyone aware of the temple and its work being done. Our long term goal is to seek a way and means of arranging donations. Please invite your friends to join. Thank you. Buddha bless
Its founder is Alongkot Dikkapanyo, a 54-year-old Buddhist monk, who left a promising career in engineering at the ministry of agriculture at the age of 26 to become a monk. The idea of turning a temple into an AIDS hospice started in 1990 when two young HIV-positive men came to Wat Phra Baht Nam Phu, which means in Thai "the temple of Buddha's footprints." They asked Alongkot if they could stay. "Nobody wanted to look after them," Alongkot recalls
Two years later, he took in eight more HIV-positive Thais -- seven men and a woman in their 20s and 30s -- who had been rejected by their families, and turned his temple into an eight-bed AIDS hospice.
"I cannot control the world, but I can help and protect AIDS patients. That's my work," the round-faced monk says. But after opening the hospice, people refused to offer him alms and stopped visiting the temple.
"In the first three years, nobody came to my temple. I received threats. I understood that people were afraid of infection. Even other monks said a temple should be a place for monks, not for AIDS patients."
Some families left patients at the temple and never saw them again. But many patients came by themselves, even with their children, saying they had no other places to go. No place, no money, no work, no food. At the hospice, men and women are in equal number. Most men got HIV from prostitutes, while many women were infected from their boyfriends and husbands. Around 10 to 15 patients die each month, and the temple, which has its own incinerator, and has cremated more than 10,000 bodies since 1992.
Even after death, most families don't come to pick up the ashes. Alongkot has put thousands of white cotton bags containing bones and ashes of AIDS patients around a brown Buddha statue at the temple. "I tell my patients not to worry about anything and not to feel sad because I don't want them to die in loneliness. I want them to die peacefully."
We thank our King, King Bhumibol Adulyadej for the Thai Royal Families financial support and we are thankful for the support of the Thai Government
This groups aim is to make everyone aware of the temple and its work being done. Our long term goal is to seek a way and means of arranging donations. Please invite your friends to join. Thank you. Buddha bless