H.O.P.E CAMBODIA
Happiness. Obstinacy. Purpose. Education.
A 20-Year Documentary Photography Journey — 2007 / 2027
Do You Recognize These Children? 🇰đź‡
H.O.P.E Cambodia — A 20-Year Journey (2007 / 2027)
Scroll down to browse hundreds of photographs taken across villages, orphanages, street schools, and hospitals in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh in 2007. New selections are posted every week. If you recognize anyone — or if you ARE one of these children — fill out the form at the bottom of this page. Help us find them.
THE STORY
In 2007, I was a photographer based in Bangkok. I had just completed a major project for Philippe Starck's resort in Thailand — the kind of work where everything is designed, lit, and controlled. Then Mitch Weber, Director of Ogilvy Action Bangkok, proposed something entirely different: "Come to Cambodia. There are children you need to meet."
We spent weeks traveling through Siem Reap and Phnom Penh — villages, orphanages, street schools, hospitals. I worked alongside Geraldine Cox and her team at Sunrise Cambodia — an organisation founded in 1993 that has cared for over a thousand vulnerable children across three decades. But the photographs extend far beyond Sunrise's walls. I documented children everywhere I went — in the streets, in classrooms, in markets, in rice fields, on dusty roads.
I photographed hundreds of children. Not their suffering — their joy. A boy gripping a microphone like he was about to change the world. Girls waving through fences with smiles that needed no translation. Children running barefoot through dusty schoolyards with a freedom that luxury resorts will never manufacture.
The series received an Honorable Mention at the International Photography Awards 2007. We had planned a charity calendar — with proceeds going to the Siem Reap hospital and local schools. Then a competing agency in Singapore blocked the commercial release.
The images went dormant. For 19 years.
THE PROJECT
H.O.P.E is a transmedia documentary project spanning photography, publishing, film, public installations, community health, and education.
The acronym captures the essence of the work:
Happiness — the joy radiating from every child's face, despite everything. Obstinacy — the stubbornness of a photographer who kept these images for 19 years and returns to complete the circle. Purpose — the conviction that art must serve people, not markets. Education — the concrete, measurable legacy that organisations like Sunrise Cambodia deliver every single day.
The project includes temporal diptych exhibitions (2007 vs 2027), a bilingual educational book in Khmer and English illustrated by Cambodian artists, large-format photographic installations on building facades, a feature-length documentary, and community health campaigns. A pioneering circular economy model is also in development — decommissioned installation materials will be transformed into goods by local artisans and sewing schools, creating sustainable value from art.
A portion of the funds generated by H.O.P.E will support community programmes and partner organisations in Cambodia. The exact structure is being established with our partners to ensure maximum, transparent impact.
THE RETURN
Those children are now young adults in their mid-twenties. Some have university degrees. Some have their own families. Some have left Cambodia entirely. Sunrise itself has evolved profoundly — from an orphanage model to a sustainable community development organisation, under the leadership of Tracey Shelton since 2022.
In 2027, the 20th anniversary, I am returning to Cambodia to find the children I photographed. To sit with them. To listen to their stories. And to create diptychs — their portrait from 2007 alongside a new portrait in 2027. The same face. Two decades of life.
Most photographers document crisis and move on. This is a 20-year commitment. That's not a project. That's a life choice.
WHY NOW — AND HOW YOU CAN HELP
Longitudinal documentary photography is extraordinarily rare. The temporal gap — 20 years between the first and second encounter — places this work in the territory of Nicholas Nixon's Brown Sisters or Steve McCurry's return to find the Afghan Girl. But with a critical difference: this project doesn't just document time. It aims to return value to its subjects and their communities.
The project has already been submitted to the Alexia Foundation Professional Vision Grant and the PhMuseum Grant (February 2026). Angkor Photo Festival in Siem Reap is a target venue for the premiere. Institutional and production partners are being assembled now.
📸 BROWSE THE PHOTOGRAPHS
Below you will find galleries of photographs taken in 2007 across Siem Reap and Phnom Penh — in villages, orphanages, street schools, hospitals, and open roads.
These children were photographed in groups of two, four, five, sometimes thirty. New selections are posted every week.
Look carefully. You might recognize a face. A place. A smile.
If you do — or if YOU are one of these children — scroll to the bottom and fill out the contact form. Every identification brings us one step closer to completing the circle.
👇 Scroll down to see the galleries 👇
H.O.P.E RECONNECT — GALLERY ONE
Siem Reap, Cambodia, 2007 — First selection of photographs. Hundreds of children and families members documented across villages, schools, and orphanages. Do you recognize anyone? Scroll, look, and help us find them.