I think a year of foreign service where you're paying $500 a month to volunteer is probably the exact opposite."He had a degree in journalism but, beyond some amateur stuff, had never picked up a camera with professional intent. Within months, though, he had swapped 1,500sq ft of luxury loft for a tiny cabin shared with two others, and signed up for 12 months as the official photojournalist on one of the world's only two nongovernmental hospital ships.There wasn't much time for culture shock. Within a couple of days, the first screening was underway, and Harrison was faced with 5,000 prospective patients, standing patiently in a line some of them had joined three days earlier to be sure of a place. He set up a photo station, and asked each patient to have his/her portrait taken No matter how deformed You'd think that they'd want to hide, not pose. But no patient has yet refused.This could of course be attributed to their desperate need for surgery.
His clients included MTV, VH1, Cosmopolitan, Universal Records and Nike His life was spent at parties. He had a loft, a grand piano, a supermodel girlfriend and a drug habit And then he cracked. "I didn't overdose, I just hit bottom." He went travelling up to New England for a while He rediscovered the Christian faith of his youth He found God, then he found Mercy Ships "I had a chance to see my life for what it was I decided to do the exact opposite. Everything was free, from the cataract operation that can restore sight in 20 minutes, to the longest most complicated maxillofacial reconstruction. And everything was photographed and recorded by Scott Harrison, Mercy Ships' resident photojournalist.During his eight months on Anastasis, Harrison took 51,000 photographs.
After four months in Benin and three months in Liberia, he decided to turn 108 of them into an exhibit, in his home town of New York, to raise money and awareness. The show opened the day after Hurricane Katrina - the worst possible timing - but a gala still raised $90,000, probably because Harrison is an expert: for years, the 29-year-old was one of New York's foremost event organisers. As usual, the Mercy Ships volunteers organised screening days, where thousands of people with facial or skeletal deformities, orthopaedic problems; cataracts, for example, or club feet were assessed The ones who could be helped were scheduled for surgery. Cleft lips and palates, which most westerners have never seen in their untreated form, because our medicine is so developed that surgeons can already repair cleft lip and palate in 8 week-old babies, and they're talking about doing it in the womb Alongside each disfigured face was a healed and smiling one It was an irresistible before and after.