Category Archives: Jon Witsell Photographic Arts

New Gallery: Through the Infirmary

I’ve been working on some past projects that didn’t make it onto the website. Here is one from the Xamtai Hospital and health centers, in and around Xamtai, Laos. I was photographing on a project with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders for the Americans). Link to portfolios here.

Also posted in Beauty In Simple Things, Color Photography Tagged , , |

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Photo of Newsletter

Also posted in Newsletter

JWPA On National Public Radio Website!

I woke up the other morning to find an email from a good friend of mine, Nathaniel. He sent me a nice little surprise: an article on America’s National Public Radio (NPR) about the man, Manophet, that was the impetus for the creation of the school in Laos, The Lone Buffalo Foundation, where I volunteer.

See the article The Lone Buffalo Cleared Unexploded Bombs And Boosted Needy Kids here.

The sad thing is in the main photo of Manophet: he’s climbing out of a bomb crater—and I knew exactly where he was. I had visited the same area last year for the Plain of Jars Project. It is an area called Ban Kai (ban=village).

I shot two short videos there, Visiting The Plain Of Scars Part #1 & #2:







While I was looking at the photo of Manophet, the first verse of Tom Waits’ song Hell Broke Luce popped into my head:

I had a good home but I left
I had a good home but I left, right, left
That big fucking bomb made me deaf, deaf
A Humvee mechanic put his Kevlar on wrong
I guarantee you’ll meet up with a suicide bomb
Hell broke luce
Hell broke luce

Hell, indeed.

Also posted in Travel, Videos Tagged , |

New Gallery: Portraits Of Médecins Sans Frontières Staff In Laos

For three months during the beginning of 2013 I was with a team from Médecins Sans Frontières* and photographed in the hospitals and health centers in the Houaphan Province in north-eastern Laos. What most people don’t know about MSF is that they aren’t just staffed by doctors and nurses. They bring in all types of specialists in order to carry out their mission.

photo Médecins Sans Frontières

Jon! Come have some tea with Mohan and me…

What I’m quite upset about was that I did not get the chance to photograph the national staff: our Lao and Hmong counterparts for which the project would have never begun. All together an amazingly talented team and truly a special group of people.

See the new gallery here.

*That’s Doctors Without Borders for the American readers.

Portraits Of Médecins Sans Frontières Staff In Laos.

Also posted in Black and White Photography, Humanitarian Photography, Portraiture Tagged |