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Figure 32 In Guatamalla, missionary Jane Parker works with the Kechi Indians. |
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Figure 33 Don often talks of the eyes being the
“windows to the soul.”
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Figure 35 The shows an elderly man who came to the feeding shelter sponsored by Baptist. Many are not only hungry but very sick. |
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Figure 36 An Ethopian child is rescued from starvation by volunteers. Mary Saunders, one of the volunteers, comforts the mother of the child. |
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Figure 37 Joy is all that can be seen in the eyes of the young. Rescued from starvation and given hope once again. |
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Figure 38 HOPE——In the face of starvation food is provided to many of these people at the shelter, while others take the food and return home. |
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Figure 39 With food in hand, the people leave the shelter and grounds to return to their families. |
Dr. Keith Parks resigned late in 1992 due to the controversy in the Southern Baptist convention which was making it difficult for him to do the job as he saw it. Don Rutledge and writer Robert O’Brien went with Dr. Parks on his last trip to Rio.
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Figure 40 Surgeon Tim Pennell was able to get five of his colleagues from Bowman Gray School of Medicine to commit weeks of vacation time and thousands of dollars to meet their Chinese counterparts. |
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Figure 41 In the Philippines families cluster together for meal. |
Not everyone at the board was so excited when Don came on board. When he went to the Home Mission Board he was replacing the only photographer. There was not a photography department. However, when Don went to the Foreign Mission Board, there was a lab, the photo library, and photographers already working there. The Foreign Mission Board was in many ways not any further along photographically than the Home Mission board was when he went there in 1966. Here in 1980 they were shooting their coverages on medium format cameras. Hasselblads to be specific. These cumbersome bodies did not let one shoot available light photography. The photography being done was only glorified snapshots.
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Figure 42 Dr. Jerry Bedsole, a career veterinarian missionary, doctors the animals of the people in his open-air clinic. |
Survey trips were the way that photography was done. The photographers would plan a trip and shoot stock photography. These pictures were for the files and not for any specific story usually. The pictures did not tell a story at all. They were scenics of buildings and when people were included they all stood facing the camera. If there were more than two people, generally they just lined them up for the group shot.
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Figure 43 |
and design. The Foreign Mission Board had a larger lab, more photographers and even a larger photo library, but still their work was much poorer than what the Home Mission Board was producing. Some might say that Don had lost his marbles. Why leave the Home Mission Board and go to a place like the Foreign Mission Board. Sounds so familiar to the same reasons that he went from Black Star to the Home Mission Board.
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Figure 44 The child is suffering from malnutrition. The volunteers often see these faces of hopelessness and they bring back the hope for the families. |
After going to the Foreign Mission Board, Don ran into problem after problem once again. The board had just adopted a policy to help those moving to Richmond to be able to get loans through the F.M.B. But Carl Johnson told Don that although the governing board had approved it he could not let Don use this program. Interest rates were sky high. Don took a cut in salary and went from paying a house payment of a couple of hundred dollars to four times as much. The house wasn’t much bigger. It was just the nature of the housing market. Don said he took a major cut in pay when figuring in all the costs of the move.
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Figure 45 |
Phil Douglas, a layout and design specialist, was putting together a book and had asked Don to contribute to the book some of his work. The Home Mission Board and the Foreign Mission Board were using and had used Phil Douglas’ consulting services at the time. Ken Lawson did not think that this was a good idea and refused to let Don’s pictures from the Foreign Mission Board be used in the book. The Home Mission Board did cooperate with the project and let Don’s photo’s be used. Many in the communications department were giving Don a hard time. Dr. Keith Parks had assigned Don directly to the top of the Communications Department head, Johnni Scofield. This infuriated many in the department. They felt they had been there longer and deserved the prestige that was being given to Don by Dr. Parks.
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Figure 46 No shoes or protection for their feet, leaves many with feet problems. |
After looking at the two agencies and comparing the acceptance of Don by then the difficulties that he incurred at the two agencies, this writer has drawn a conclusion. At the Home Board Don was faced with people questioning his knowledge of the technical, while at the Foreign Board they were jealous. He communicated well at both agencies. The sources of his problems at the agencies were very different.
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Figure 47 A mother brings here child to see the doctor. In the background is a sheep that she brought for the doctor. |
Those that were being asked by Parks to change their approaches were having to deal with major issues. Dr. Parks wanted Don to direct the publications. Perhaps those who followed willingly posses more self-esteem than those who fought the battle of falling. Don did not confront this issue. He just let his work do the talking. Slowly many changed their views after seeing the impact of Don’s work.
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Figure 48 Seeing this landscape gives an idea of how the area looks without any grass, anything growing, a very desolate place. |
The ties that Don had with Black Star and others in the secular world helped many on the staff. Steve Helber, the Associated Press Photographer for the state of Virginia, called Don one day asking for some help. Steve had worked in Atlanta and knew Don from those days in Atlanta. Don was too busy but suggested that Joanna Pinneo could probably help. This introduction helped Joanna, then a lab technician in the darkroom at the Foreign Mission Board, get the experience shooting. Steve Helber took Joanna under his wing and taught her the in’s and out’s of wire service photography. With Steve and Don working with Joanna, soon Joanna was doing coverages for the Foreign Mission Board.
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Figure 49 Volunteer Mary Saunders has made a good friend in Ethiopia. |
Don helped Joanna by going over her contact sheets with her. Slowly things were coming together. Her background was art and psychology. Don helped her use this background in photojournalism. Steve Helber helped Joanna develop her style of impact. In the wire services pictures had to have immediate impact or the editors would not use them in their papers. This understanding coupled with Don’s magazine background helped Joanna get some of the foundations that she later built upon to make her one of the most successful photographers in the field today. Howard Chapnick was grateful for being introduced to Joanna through Don.[50] One can see through Joanna, Don’s teaching ability.
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Figure 50 Volunteer Mike Edens taught these two pastors Mikhail Shehata Ghaly and Anwar Dakdouk MasterLife Discipleship training in Cypress during 1984. |
Black Star gave Don the opportunity to pursue this direction and later the Home Mission Board nurtured this call of Don’s. The desire keeps him going now with the Foreign Mission Board. As a result of work with these groups, Don has been in all 50 states, all but two of the Canadian Provinces and 137 countries.[52] This travel has help Don to see how small the world really is. He has noticed that once he arrives in another country the people are very similar and live very much alike. The smile still means the same the world over.
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Figure 51 Missionary Kid, Ellen Duval, loves her cats and books and this is what helps her make home in Indonesia. |
[41] Dr. Keith Parks, interview by author, Tape recording, Richmond, Virginia, 26 October 1992.
[42] Ibid.
[43] Ibid.
[44] Ibid.
[45] Ibid.
[46] Ibid.
[47] Dan Beatty, interview by author, Tape recording, Richmond, Virginia, 27 October 1992.
[48] Howard I. Finberg, The Best of Photojournalism 16: The Year in Pictures, (Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers, 1991), 232.
[49] Interview with Beatty.
[50] Interview with Chapnick.
[51] Don Rutledge, “Using Photography: To look beyond the backyard fence” unpublished, 1992.
[52] Ibid.
[53] Don Rutledge, Interview by author, Richmond, 1985.