Eric Jong

In Kathmandu Nepal, this small community made of around 12 to 15 immigrant Indian families make a living by scouring the streets for recyclable materials to sell by the kilogram.

The children of this community were involved in the My Life My Vision program, run by fellow photojournalist Josh Crupi and myself. Our aim was to provide the working and street children of Nepal a creative outlet as a means of advocacy, and to provide them respite from the struggle of their everyday lives.

For the first 3 months of working with the children of this community we did not bring out our own cameras, as our focus was on teaching. Eventually we were asked to take portraits, as many of the families did not have any of their children.

These are some of those portraits.

The following images are taken from a book that my brother and I created together. My brother has battled a heroin addiction for most of his life but in the last few years, since the birth of his son, he has turned his life around.

He now lives with his partner and is on the methadone program. At the time of the creation of this series he was also about to finish the court ordered community service he had received for drug related charges.

I photographed by brother, and left the images with him for a few weeks for him to respond to with text. We scanned his writing and printed it together with the images. The final pages were bound into a single piece or rough cut leather, in the style of an old charcoal sketch book.

This is a portrait of my brother, "A man, a son, a father, a addict".

Banda, is a Nepali word meaning 'closed'. It is also used in reference to a form of protest which often means the closing down a market for the day. Although there have been instances of entire cities coming to a standstill. Usually though the Banda will take the form of a peaceful protest march involving the shutting down or roads.

These images are from the lead up to the first democratic elections in Nepal since the placement of the interim government following the Maoist revolution.

Behind the scenes at the Melbourne Museum.

The Way Community is home to ten men; all of whom have experienced homelessness and many face the challenges of alcoholism and psychiatric disability. The Way strives to provide these men, and a number of other people in the Fitzroy area, with a sense of dignity, belonging and care, as well as the support that they need to access and negotiate their way through various services. The Way Community is not government funded and has very little reoccurring funding.

The following images, and multimedia, were focused on a long term employee of the Way Community and his experiences there. The work was presented at their Annual meeting. 

I had opportunity to do some work with Tom, an absolute gentleman and talented craftsman. Check out some of his work at his website: http://farrah.com.au/

Tom applies a rare technical ability and attention to detail to every piece that he creates, something that is more and more unique to today's market of mass production.

Leather work is his specialty, a skill that Tom has in part learned from his father, who refers to it as 'bushcraft'. Creating objects and tools that are tough enough to weather any circumstance. Or as Tom calls them, Life Equipment.

An Acupuncture institute run by Nepal Red Cross. Dr. Bishal Shrestha, Medical Acupuncturist, provides free treatment to patients. He also instructs students in acupuncture in the clinic.

Photographed on assignment for NRC.

The East Timor Hearts Fund is a new medical aid fund providing life-saving heart surgery in Australia for young East Timorese people.

Head over to their website to find out more about this amazing organization.

I met Guinness Rishi (formerly Har Parkash, born July 7, 1942, India) in 2011 at the first ever international tattoo convention in Nepal.

Guinness had suffered a massive heart attack and following his recovery considered his legacy. As many of us are wont to do following a confrontation with mortality. He decided that he would break more world records than any one man ever has, and changed his name to Guinness Rishi to prove his dedication.

Rishi holds a number or records, Hhe is most renowned for having over 200 world flags tattooed on his body, including 49 flags on his face and head. He also has 'Ripley's Believe It or Not' tattooed on his forehead and a map of the world on his abdomen.

In 2001 Guinness Rishi adopted his brother-in-law Ravinder Kumar Vig, who became the oldest adopted person at 61 years old. He drank a bottle of ketchup in 40 seconds, stacked the tallest single sugar cube tower (64 inches high). And had all of his teeth removed for an attempt to fit 755 drinking straws into his mouth.

While working in Nepal fellow photojournalist Josh Crupi, traveler Jose Cosquet and I decided to make the 200km walk from Kathmandu to Pokhara.

After a few days of walking and camping out by the road side, we eventually hitched hiked our way to our final destination.

Reaching Pokhara, we climbed to the summit of a look out and slept overnight in a uncompleted hotel. Later catching the 9 hour overnight bus back to Kathmandu.

Nepal's National Democracy Day in 2011.

The main celebration was held behind layers of barbed wire in front of a crowd of military and civil officials. The commencement of the parade, a military helicopter flying low over the field with a pilot hanging out of the side door emptying a bag of confetti.

As part of the Melbourne Open House festival I had the opportunity to visit the power substation that provides electricity to my house.

Check out the Open House site for more information.

In the years leading up to 2011 the lake next to Basanta Pandel's University in Kathmandu had all but dried up. He took it upon himself to find a means of refilling the lake. Working in partnership with Nepal Red Cross, Pandel and a small dedicated team, succeeded in refilling the lake through rainfall collection on the roofs of the school.

A portion of the water collected through these systems is purified and used as drinking water on campus. This is the only drinking source, as the municipality does not supply water to the school.