Foto’s Blog: Photo Diplomacy is priceless and ageless
Phodographers Brittany and Austin Lane in Marrakech, Morocco, 2013
The teacher wrote Dog Meets World in Arabic and then gifted us the chalkboard.
They two entire classes and their teacher posed in the courtyard, shouting “shokran, skokran, thank you, thank you!”
Discovering Morocco with your dad and grown children is special enough. Adding an afternoon of photo diplomacy, interacting with local Moroccans, visiting a boys orphan home, sharing laughs, practicing Take and Give photography and connecting our cultures….is priceless.
Donald Fuhrman, dad and grandfather of DMW co-founders, immersed himself in the moment and ran the printer. The resident boys got a big kick out of Foto the stuffed dog, watching the process and trying to guess his age. One boy suggested 106 years old. At 82 he is the oldest phoDOGrapher on record! Morocco is the 44th country where Dog Meets World has been practiced. Most boys shook their heads no, when asked if they had a picture of themselves! What did Donald think of the experience?….”amazing to witness unbridled joy!”.
Foto’s Blog: The best guide ever in Zanzibar
Phodographer Simai Mkadam outside of Stonetown, Zanzibar with Mark Schwartz and Carolyn Lane
One of the easiest entree to a Dog Meets World experience is to email or ask at your hotel. Hotel staff are familiar with local guides and locales/schools/orphanages where kids are bereft of personal photos. The staff at Emerson Spice Hotel introduced us to Simai Mkadam. In his respectful manner he made arrangements for a visit to an orphanage outside the tourist-laden Stone Town. Prior to our arrival he sought interest and permission for us to come and photo the children. Simai is a remarkable young man as his KV Tours also runs KV Academy, an afterschool program to teach underprivileged kids computer skills and English. In Simai’s words he explained the technique to make them (the students) happy with their own photo. The children ranged from age 3 to 15. Teaching the little ones to sing and sign the Itzy Bitzy Spider was a joy. Please take note of the dearth of teaching materials in the classroom.
Our guide with KV Tours and a few of the adorable children from the orphanage.
Foto’s Blog: Exposure for DMW at the Calcutta Marathon!
Phodographer Chinmoy Majumdar in Calcutta, India, 2013
Veteran phoDOGrapher Chinmoy Majumdar, seen above, participated in Calcutta marathon and in his eloquent words:
I brought along the mascot of Dog Meets World to share the idea of photo diplomacy and how it helps our underprivileged children by giving their childhood memories back. The concept of photo diplomacy attracted our city communities much as it is a concept which involves human sentiment. It was memorable and wonderful morning as I had taken 10 kilometer dream run and expressed a photo diplomacy speech to various participants. I was able to help my city communities understand about the need of diplomacy in this way. A well known Indian actor, Jisshu Sengupta, participated and helped me to promote the concept of diplomacy. I was able to let our city communities understand the cause we are fighting for and people were having very positive attitude towards Dog Meets World as a vehicle to share human sentiment and exchange love and affirmation.
Popular Bengali film star Jisshu Sengupta, seen above, posed with Foto!
What a great day for Foto to join the event to help give underprivileged girls a fair chance to pursue their dreams!
Remembering Jazz
Christmas day this year was bittersweet for us as our family dog of 15 years, Jazz died. You know her better as the inspiration for the Dog Meets World mascot, little Foto, who helps fetch photos for children in need around the world.
We often joked that Jazz felt like she was a human being. At the dog park she rarely interacted with other dogs, preferring instead to stay close to us. Losing her felt like losing a close personal friend, a confidant, someone who had seen you through a lot of different life stages.
For a humble dog, a pet, Jazz, aka Foto, had a pretty special life. She’s always was puppy-like, in her energy and her sweet face. Just a few weeks ago someone thought she was a couple months old, at 15 years! When she was a few years old she won a silly little contest that made her “the champion pooch” of our little town Ponte Vedra. She even had a crown. One time she was in a photo with a supermodel. Im still waiting on my turn for that one.
It wasn’t until 2008, when my mom was searching for a new initiative, that Jazz became the mascot of Dog Meets World, almost accidentally. My mom had been traveling the globe every few months, always bringing with her a stuffed facsimile of our dog. She would send me these dispatches with “Jazz” propped in front of world landmarks from Macchu Picchu to Angkor Wat,
Everywhere she went with this little stuffed animal, people reacted positively. Parents and kids alike wanted to pose with the stuffed pup in the photo. Combined with my mother’s love for children, and sincere care for the photographs she has gathered her whole life, the seed of the idea for Dog Meets World was born.
Dog Meets World has always been about person-to-person diplomacy, the idea that breaking down the barrier between traveler and local would, overtime, make a smaller world with less division. Taking and giving a photo is such a small act, but the process around it is unique in its brief but impactful nature. It is somehow both tender and caring – to stop and appreciate a stranger.
But sometimes we found breaking the cultural barrier presented too great an awkward obstacle. That’s where the stuffed animal came into the picture, no pun intended. It served a dual purpose of breaking the ice, providing a posing buddy and uniting all the photographs with a memorable and meaningful symbol. Under the front paws are a heart and a peace sign.
When Jazz, aka Foto died, someone sent us an email, reading “how many other dogs have been memorialized all over the world, she is a truly special pup.” The symbol that our little cock-a-poo came to represent, is a genuine love and appreciation for all the people in all the world. She “visited” over 40 countries and will forever adorn the smiling photographs of over 10,000 children from some of most difficult places to grow up. Every day she showed us affection and unconditional love, and it is our hope that that feeling has been spread in some tiny way in an order of magnitude greater.
Thank you, precious dog, for providing us with tangible joy for as long as you were in our lives. It is through the little canine toy Foto that we will continue to give tangible joy to those less fortunate.
Hug your pups and kids close for us this season. Enjoy some of our favorite photos below.
Love, the Dog Meets World family.
XOXOXOXO
Foto’s Blog: The Power of One
Dog Meets World is about human dignity and the power of one. The intention is that the photograph fulfills a basic human need for acknowledgment and recognition. Kids of the world light up our future.
Volunteer phoDOGraphers used Foto to fetch photos in (left to right) Costa Rica, Haiti, Jordan, Cambodia, Panama and Uganda. Thanks to all our phoDOGraphers!