How Does Chip Duncan get Those Amazing Photographs? A Meditation on Enough to Go Around

On the countdown to our event with Chip Duncan, the photographer behind Enough to Go Around: Searching for Hope in Afghanistan, Pakistan & Darfur, the question came to me—how does Duncan get those amazing photographs? I know he’s always travelling. When it came to setting up his event, we had a delay because he was in Haiti, taking photographs that would no doubt be used to help raise money for organizations like Save the Children and Relief International.

I could ask Mr. Duncan, but why not go another route? Folks who attend Tuesday’s event (February 23rd, 7 PM) will be able to hear it straight from him. So I went to Jennifer Buffett, longtime Milwaukeean turned New Yorker), who wrote the foreword for the book.

“My experience of Chip is that he has incredibly good taste in friends and makes them wherever he goes. He has quite a fan base of wonderful, substantive and talented friends here in the Manhattan and I include myself in that list. So I have no doubt when he traveled to the places in the book, he made friends young and old regardless of something as trivial as a language difference. He has the drive, passion, heart and fearlessness that I see mainly in people who do International Development work; he also has incredible integrity and altruism that I find, unfortunately, rare. He is humble and pure in his connection to spirit. He is a fantastic writer. He expects a lot from himself and sees the best in people (it may be cliché, but it's true!) Chip makes his home wherever he is and is "present" with people and there for his friends.”

That’s a combination of rare talents. I’m sold. How about you? Come see Duncan and his photographs next Tuesday.

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Speaking of events, here's a nice Dan Kois piece in the Journal Sentinel. This Whitefish Bay High School grad (and Schwartz Bookshop alum) talks about Hawaiian Israel Kamakawiwo'ole and his groundbreaking album "Facing Future" this Sunday, February 21st, 2 PM.