Photographer Grant Faint’s work has taken him all over the world—and inspired him to give back along the way.
Grant Faint has spent most of his life being led around the world by his camera. “Photography is like water skiing,” he says. “The camera is the boat and you just get pulled along behind it.”
Faint’s camera has taken him through Soviet Russia along the Trans-Siberian Railway, across Africa at the height of the AIDS crisis, to Asia, the West Bank, and the American Southwest.
He prides himself on his ability to shoot whatever is in front of him. “When you work in the news business, one day you’re shooting a crime scene and the next you’re shooting a performance or sporting event. You’re not able to pick the time or the light—you just have to shoot whatever is happening at that moment.”
Images via Grant Faint.
Sometimes, what’s happening is heartbreaking. “I saw an awful lot of negative things when I was traveling,” Faint says. But, fifty years of taking pictures has taught him that there’s joy and life everywhere, and in everyone.
“It sounds a bit Pollyanna,” he says, “but I think people really are good, at their core. When you meet people in so many countries, over such a long period of time, and you interact with them, you realize that there are a lot of good people in the world—a lot of caring people just trying to get on with their lives and support their families. That commonality of family—of just trying to get on and have a good life—exists all over the world.”
Images via Grant Faint.
Finding the Good in a Bad Situation
The ability to see the positive—and capture it with his camera—is what has made Faint not just a successful travel photographer, but a successful stock photographer, as well.
“People who are buying stock photos don’t really want to associate their service or their product with something that’s negative,” he says. “I go after things where people are enjoying being alive—events, festivals. It helps counter [the negative things I see], to chase things that are beautiful and positive. And, I feel pretty lucky to be able to do that.”
Images via Grant Faint.
Still, Faint does not shy away from the harsh realities his camera shows him. While he is a stock photographer by trade and shoots with an eye toward what sells, he does not limit himself to images of joy and beauty.
“A lot of work just goes into my archive and doesn’t serve any purpose commercially,” he says.
Faint also feels a sense of duty to give back to the people he photographs. “I always ask if I can take someone’s photograph and, usually, I follow up by giving them a business card with a link to my website and tell them that, if they would like, they can select something from my website and I’ll send them a print. A lot of people don’t follow up, but a few do. It’s my way of saying, ‘Thanks for your cooperation.’”
The Importance of Giving Back
Charitable work is extremely important to Faint, and one of the ways he gives back to the communities he photographs.
“My own childhood was pretty tough,” he says. “My family had very limited resource and were the recipients of charity when I was young. So, when the stock business started doing well and I was building up my savings, I wanted to do something to help the people I’d seen [during my travels]. Because, it does affect you, seeing all that [suffering]—and if you have half a heart, you want to help out.”
Images via Grant Faint.
In the early 2000s, when AIDS was infecting millions of people per year in Africa and leaving children across the continent orphaned, Faint and his wife directed their money towards helping them. When they learned of a group of Canadian teachers trying to build a school in Sierra Leone, they stepped in then, too.
“There was a civil war in Sierra Leone and a lot of people were displaced,” he says. “A lot of people were living without a school for their kids. So, we gave them the money to finish the building. And, when that was done, we went one step further and paid to build a medical facility for visiting nurses and doctors, because there was nothing like that in the village.”
Now, he says, that building is a birthing center.
Images via Grant Faint.
Recently, Faint and his wife have added a third charitable initiative to their humanitarian work—funding cataract surgeries in places like Cambodia, Laos, and Bangladesh.
“So far, we’ve funded close to ninety surgeries, but it is my goal to fund a thousand surgeries in the next few years. And, it’s the money I make from the photos I sell through OFFSET that funds them.”
Although the pandemic prevented Faint from traveling much the last couple of years, it’s given him a chance to reflect on his career.
“It’s such a wonderful education you get from the experience of traveling and watching people, and just wandering around, taking pictures and being curious,” he says.
Images via Grant Faint.
“When I started taking photographs in the 1980s, the worldwide travel industry wasn’t what it is today. Often, what you were showing people with those photos, that was the first time they ever saw anything like that.’
“Today, people know more and they’ve seen more, [but I still like to take photos] that make the viewer curious and encourage them to ask questions and learn something. That’s what [I love about this work]: learning about places and people. You just let the camera pull you along through different situations and experiences, and it shows you things. It teaches you and drags you continually into the future, and I just find that so rewarding.”
Images via Grant Faint.
Cover image via Grant Faint.
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