*My photo in NEED Magazine blog. June 2009

*It means the world to me that one of my photographs appears in NEED Magazine's grass roots campaign "Screw the Man - Save the World" where they're using powerful imagery to help encourage readership & subscriptions, thereby helping to eliminate corporate ("the Man") advertising altogether. This image was made in April 2006 while on a volunteer mission with Operation Smile in Amman, Jordan treating 100 Iraqi children from Baghdad with facial deformaties. For the last ten years I've tirelessly volunteered my time in documenting missions with Operation Smile all over the world, and needless to say, this was a very emotional mission for me to be a part of... -cg.

More info on the campaign, NEED Magazine & Operation Smile here:
stm-stw.blogspot.com/
www.needmagazine.com/
www.operationsmile.org/

*(Original Caption) AMMAN, JORDAN. An Iraqi mother watches as doctors and support staff with Operation Smile treat her child at the Jameel Tatonji Hospital in Amman, Jordan on Monday, April 24, 2006. An Operation Smile team of international medical volunteers were in Jordan from April 20-29 providing free medical evaluations and reconstructive surgery to Iraqi children suffering with facial deformities. This marked the third mission during which Operation Smile medical volunteers have worked in Amman to treat children from Iraq. Operation Smile Jordan, in cooperation with the Ministry of Health and the Jordanian Society for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, has organized missions providing surgeries to more than 700 Jordanian and Iraqi children since 2000. Operation Smile of Norfolk, VA has provided free facial reconstructive surgery to children and young adults in 30 countries the last 24 years. © Chet Gordon for Operation Smile.

*"The Greatest Story Never Told (Sold)..."

Personal Work. NGO volunteerism. Self-assigned projects. Whatever you want to call these initiatives that we photojournalists undertake throughout our careers, I wanted to again look at one of my ongoing projects that I'd previously posted to the website last year, and figured it was now time to post it here as well. In combination with my longstanding volunteerism with clients Operation Smile and Americares, as well as a few personal trips back to Africa, this is a piece I put together to highlight some of those images. Working anywhere in Africa means the world to me - so hopefully this piece w/ audio will give you a brief idea of my love affair with the continent. -cg.


*(Use the arrow at the bottom left of the player or click the image to start the slideshow. Enable full screen viewing by clicking the 4-way arrow icon above the credits button at lower right of the player. Remember to turn up your speaker volume as well.)

Volunteer plastic surgeon in Thailand. Nov. 2007

I put this multimedia piece together on volunteer plastic surgeon Dr. Rafael Gottenger in Mae Sot, Thailand, during Operation Smile's 25th. Anniversary World Journey of Smiles in November:



*(click the arrow to start the slideshow.)

*More from Mae Sot General Hospital. Mae Sot, Thailand. Wednesday Nov. 14, 2007.

Emotional day today here on the mission. We're winding down a bit. Here are a few images.
-Chet.
"Go early. Stay late. Get the uniform dirty..."

*Operating theatre. Mae Sot General Hospital. Mae Sot, Thailand. Nov. 12 - 16, 2007.

*Working now during surgery week in the Mae Sot General Hospital. Week of Nov. 12 - 16, 2007. It is a joy to work in this first class facility, with A/C in the OR's, and all the anemities of a westernized hospital. Plenty of chow in the staff breakroom with of course Thai cuisine. I've worked in some very extreme situations, and it's sometimes been a challenge. During the week, I'll try a few different things photographically and photojournalistically. Also want to do a bit of audio recording for a SoundSlides presentation on Dr. Rafael Gottenger, a Venezuelan plastic surgeon whom I worked with ten years on Operation Smile's World Journey of Hope. He's given me complete access in his OR during surgery, as all the Op Smile surgeons have during a mission. *(Try that back in the States.) Followed the first child he operated on yesterday, so that'll be a nice piece on one child's journey through screening, surgery and recovery in these first days. This is why we've traveled to the mission, as there are feelings, emotions, sounds and special moments that make it all worth while for all us that put so much into volunteering for Operation Smile. -CG.
Here are a few images from the first two days here in operating rooms and wards:


Anesthesiologist Dee Bambrough of Utah prepares his equipment in an operating room at Mae Sot General Hospital in Mae Sot, Thailand on Sunday, November 11, 2007. Surgery begins tomorrow. © Chet Gordon for Operation Smile

Surgery days:

In Mae Sot, Thailand. Nov. 9, 2007

Made it to Mae Sot. Here are a few images and thoughts from screening day at the Mae Sot Hospital. Speaking with a translator, center, and a Thai photographer, right, during patient screening at Mae Sot Hospital as part of Operation Smile's World Journey of Smiles, in northern Thailand on Wednesday, November 9, 2007. Gordon, a longtime volunteer with Operation Smile is in northern Thailand to document the organization's international mission. Operation Smile is the Norfolk, VA based medical organization that performs free cleft lip and palate facial corrective surgery to young adults worldwide.

The Picture Story.

Domestic violence. St. Genevieve, MO. 1991.
*this is the story that started it all for me. -cg.


Late nights with the Seaside Heights, NJ Police. August, 1993

Nothing means more to me than investing the time to document a story. The whole process of researching, making initial connections with a subject, and finally beginning the processes of actual shooting and editing can usually lead to something magical. Doesn't matter if it's in Ethiopia, South America, or Kenya working for a client, onboard the Trans-Siberian Railway on a personal self-assigned trip across Russia, or around the corner documenting an HIV/AIDS advocate on another self-assigned project I'm currently working on. With the improvements of digital image editing software and web-based slide-show applications like SoundSlides, final projects are easily shared with worldwide viewers via the web. As a photographer with a strong passion for observing the everyday and the "everyman", I really gravitate toward telling simple and concise stories that bring the viewer "inside..." When I attended the Missouri Photo WorkShop way back in 1991, that one week challenging master class changed my philosophies on documentary photojournalism. The class structure and faculty did everything as advertised - it made photographers think. It taught me how to spend all the time I needed to get close to a subject and gain their trust. Something I will continue to do in my personal as well as professional work.

-cg.
"Go early. Stay late. Get the uniform dirty..."

here are images from a few of my favorite picture stories, with links back to the stories:


AMMAN, JORDAN. An Iraqi mother watches as doctors and support staff with Operation Smile treat her child at the Jameel Tatonji Hospital in Amman, Jordan on Monday, April 24, 2006. An Operation Smile team of international medical volunteers were in Jordan from April 20-29 providing free medical evaluations and reconstructive surgery to Iraqi children suffering with facial deformities. This marked the third mission during which Operation Smile medical volunteers have worked in Amman to treat children from Iraq. Operation Smile Jordan, in cooperation with the Ministry of Health and the Jordanian Society for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, has organized missions providing surgeries to more than 700 Jordanian and Iraqi children since 2000. Operation Smile of Norfolk, VA has provided free facial reconstructive surgery to children and young adults in 30 countries the last 24 years. © Chet Gordon / THE IMAGE WORKS
www.flickr.com/photos/chetgordon/sets/72157594265485556/


ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA. An orthopedic patient tries on new orthopedic shoes and leg brace received from the charity Cheshire Services Ethiopia at the Black Lion Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Thursday, December 1, 2005. © Chet Gordon / THE IMAGE WORKS
www.flickr.com/photos/chetgordon/sets/72157594266402166/
www.chetgordon.com/group_details.asp?group_number=014&offset=0


IRKUTSK, SIBERIA. RUSSIAN FEDERATION. Train passengers onboard the Trans-Siberian Railway buy omul fish and other food products sold by villagers from the Lake Baikal region near Irkutsk, Siberia on Thursday afternoon, June 16, 2005. Lake Baikal is famous for it's tasty omul fish. © Chet Gordon / www.chetgordon.com
www.flickr.com/photos/chetgordon/sets/72157594334755206/
www.chetgordon.com/search.asp?searchfield=trans-sib&Submit=search
www.fotogblog.com/2005/06/chet-gordon-trans-siberian.htm

My take on location lighting. Big & small...

*or the importance of knowing how to light. Period.

I'm old school. Brought up in the business shooting chromes, printing B/W on deadline, and finally years of scanning C-41 negs to transmit, before fully embracing digital systems. I truly believe that working photographers, especially editorial photographers, should know how to light. Even if it's not required (or expected) while on assignment or by a client, one should know how to drag in all the clamps, cables, power-packs, flash heads, stands, wires, Pocket-Wizard or other radio remote triggering systems, umbrellas, softboxes, grids, scrims, gobos, underpaid & overworked assistant(s), and all the other cumbersome & overpriced gadgets, gizmos, & whizz-bang toys we love to pack up & take on location. There's basically no end to the possibilities...

OK, this is gonna be fun...

The team jokester took his seat in front of me during headshots for the Rye HS Boys Varsity Football team's program during "Hell-Week" at Rye High School on Wednesday, August 24, 2005. (I used three portable Nikon SB's triggered by Pocket Wizards; one in the umbrella to my left, one clamped to the bottom of the subject's folding chair pointed at the background to "wash out" the seamless paper background taped to the stone wall, and one about 3 ft. high on a stand to the far right with a Stofen Dome. Camera was a Nikon D-1X with a Nikkor AF-S f/2.8 28mm - 70mm) Photographed in the shade beginning around 8AM before practice.

"A good lighter will always get work..." heard at a Jon Falk 'Adventures in Location Lighting Workshop' years ago.


*Working in a South African hospital operating room last year, I needed to put up another strobe where I couldn't attach a clamp along a bare wall and didn't have time to scour the hospital ward for an IV stand to attach a clamp, so I did the obvious. Don't try this at home with duct tape - Use Gaffer's tape, as it won't rip the paint off your or anbody else's walls... -cg.

I'll be adding samples & techniques of my images lit on location here, both big & small. Everything from small table-top set-ups, to temporarily installing four studio strobes in a college gymnasuim for a week long basketball tournament.

Here's a few recent favorites:




You can check out some of my recent work that's lit on location here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chetgordon/sets/72157594382635984/

Check back often. Door prizes to be given.

-cg.
"Go early. Stay late. Get the uniform dirty..."