As I've said before, one of the things that drives me to photograph is the goal of helping viewers connect with subjects...of allowing viewers to understand a bit of what it's like to be the person in the photograph. By doing that, I hope to reduce the empathy deficit we seem to have in our global civilization today.
This 10 minute YouTube video by author and political advisor Jeremy Rifkin of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) presents an encouraging viewpoint: that we are "soft-wired" by cultural evolution to empathize. He goes on to say that new media technology is giving our global society new ways to connect and empathize, and may in fact be one of the keys to keeping us from destroying our planet.
Scientific proof: using new media to tell the stories of individuals in difficult conditions helps save the world!
