I’ve spent much of the last twenty years living in traumatized communities around the world while doing the work of my family foundation. I’ve worked as an American in Afghanistan, a white person in Rwanda, and a Jew in Palestine. I met the people featured in my photographs during those travels.

The most transcendent moments have come when I least expected them — from sharing in the joys and frustrations of ordinary people’s everyday lives. These photographs were born out of those everyday moments. Lives born of hardship, photographs born of journey, human connection born out of respect for our common dignity, and an open mind and heart about “the other.”

My motivation in bringing these images together is not for you to feel bad for these people; they do not want our pity. My hope is that by zooming into the details of their lives, viewers will feel their presence and be inspired by their sacrifices. By also creating an “eyeball-to-eyeball exchange,” I hope audiences feel both confronted and reassured. The world may be screwed up, but before we can really help fix it, we must first fix ourselves.

Whether it is a virus, the environment, or the way we treat one another, hopefully we understand how radically interconnected we are. We need to find our way back to each other and to ourselves. Everyone has to connect their own dots. I hope my work, in some small way, helps you to connect yours.