Renée Byer, Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist and staff photographer for the Sacramento Bee, gave a presentation today at the University of Nevada, Reno campus about a new book her work appears in, “Living on a Dollar a Day: The Lives and Faces of the World’s Poor.”
“I think of myself as a journalist who chooses the art of photography to bring awareness to the world,” said Byer opening her presentation. “Art is a powerful means of expression, but combined with journalism it has the ability to bring awareness to issues that can elevate understanding and compassion. It’s the basic reality of what I do.”
The slide presentation that followed manifested her quote’s meaning in photographs of impoverished children and families and their stories from around the globe. Mixes of passion, color and sad melancholy are all present in these masterpieces of photography that both intrigue and horrify simultaneously; this book was written to raise awareness of the plights of impoverished people around the globe, and her pictures certainly accomplish that.
Byer had past experiences in poverty stricken nations prior to working on “Living On a Dollar a Day.” In one of her experiences in Mali, she was impacted by an African chief talking to his tribe when he said, “Those that don’t work, don’t eat.”
“That was sort of the catalyst for me to really want to dig further into this story,” she said. “So when the author, Tom Nazario, was seeking a photo journalist I was really passionate about wanting to do this story”
During her presentation, she talked about her experiences working on the project and her travels through Ghana, Romania, India, Bangladesh and Thailand. Byer went into each country equipped with a variety of photography equipment, editing equipment and a small team of people that helped her get the stories she wanted.
“Living On a Dollar a Day” was authored by Thomas Nazario, the founder and president of The Forgotten International, a nonprofit organization that works to alleviate poverty around the world. Together, Byer and Nazario combined their skills to produce a high quality, hard-back book that details the struggles of impoverished people around the world using stories and photographs.
“Living On a Dollar a Day” can be purchased online or in most local bookstores.
