amysworld: Marcus Bleasdale:Using Passion and Talent to Change the World

"You must be the change you want to see in the world."
~ Mahatma Gandhi

We are often asked "what do you want to be when you grow up?" As children, we say what we think are glamorous things, what we think will bring us the most fortune or fame...the easy life. But, it is when we truly begin to grow up that we grasp the depth and gravity of that question. We realize what the true meaning of life is and unfortunately for most, we realize it too late or too overwhelmed to do anything about it.

Here is what it means to me...If you made a million dollars a year, could you give it up, would you give it up to change the world? Would you throw it all away just to know that one life was changed for the better because you existed? How about 10 lives? How about a hundred...thousands? Millions? Most of us would like to think that we could, but I doubt that would actually be the case. Fourteen years ago, Marcus Bleasdale did just that.

Doctor's Without Borders DRC
Marcus Bleasdale - VII

Marcus Bleasdale grew up in Lancashire, England in a modest home with a single mom and a paper route to help pay the electric bill. His mother worked two jobs so he and his two siblings could have what they needed. He worked hard and managed his way through college and into his first job for Schroder's as a derivatives trader at the age of twenty-two. Totally dedicated to his career, often putting in 14 hour days, he was making close to a half a million pounds per year by age twenty-four. Life was grand for Marcus. He was on the fast track to the top. He paid off his mother's mortgage and his own, began purchasing fast cars and a second home. He traveled the world between London, New York and Toronto, regularly went skydiving in South America, took lavish holidays, ate in the finest restaurants in Europe and skied the Alps on weekends. Marcus appeared to have it all.

Stolen Children. Soldiers of the Lord's Resistance Army
Marcus Bleasdale - VII

All that changed one day in 1998. Marcus says, 'I remember reading in the newspaper about the uncovering of a mass grave in the Balkans. I got into work the next day and the person sitting next to me said, "Have you seen the newspaper headlines?" I said, "yes, horrific isn't it?" He said, "What do you think that's going to do to the price of the dollar/mark?" Marcus was mortified. 'I knew I didn't want to be a banker anymore, but to find the motivation to resign and do something else was difficult, so I always putting it off, but I just looked at this guy, and something inside my head clicked. I walked into my boss's office and resigned. I didn't want to be part of something that could take a massacre and turn it into dollars. It repulsed me.'

Marcus Bleasdale - VII

A few years prior, Marcus' girlfriend had wanted a camera, so he bought her one. After the relationship ended, she moved out and left the camera behind. He picked it up one day and began playing with it, shooting this and that. 'I took photographs of cobwebs in nice light,’ he says. 'I’d get up at six o’clock on the weekend and wander through nice sunlight taking pretty pictures of nature.’ He enjoyed it. So during his spare time, he began taking night classes in photography at a local university. He admits that he was not a very good photographer, "horrible" actually, but he enjoyed it, so he just kept doing it. It was a passionate hobby at best.

Marcus Bleasdale VII Photo Agency

The day Marcus quit his job, he walked away from a $1,000,000/year salary, he gave his designer suits to charity and put his houses on the market. He picked up that camera and within twenty-four hours was on a plane to the Balkans. He had no idea what he was going to do there. He recalls, 'I just felt I needed to be there and witness what was going on.’ He stayed for over a year, living off his savings and just taking pictures. 'Just waking up, jumping in a car to go and take pictures in a refugee camp – I loved the freedom, the energy, the rawness of it. It showed me a part of life that I’d been exposed to quite a lot when I was living with my mum, and trying to make life work, living on the edge and not having enough money for anything. But then, working in the bank, it rounded the edges off those experiences.’ The rawness and reality seemed to bring Marcus to a new realization in his life...a new perspective.

Displaced people bring back water to their camp in
Goma after fleeing fighting in Karuba and Mushake.
Marcus Bleasdale - VII

After returning to London, he enrolled himself in a photojournalism course and lived a modest student lifestyle. He gave up his Christmas break to photograph the civil war in Sierra Leone which led to the Ian Parry Award for best young photojournalist. With this accolade under his belt he began working for Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, National Geographic and the charity Human Rights Watch, for which Bleasdale spent eight years documenting the corrupt and violent gold mining industry in eastern Congo.

Kasmir
Marcus Bleasdale - VII

He has documented conflicts in Africa, Central America and the Balkans. He has photographed the bodies, and interviewed the survivors and those who have raped or tried to kill them. He has reported on child abductions in Uganda, air pollution in China, civil war in Somalia. He has escaped rocket grenades, rioters, checkpoint thugs and snipers. He has seen and documented horrific tragedies all over the world including the bodies of 16 children under the age of two who had been shot and killed.

Bleasdale commits himself to documenting and publicizing issues and events that are ignored by today's media and uses his work to influence policy makers around the globe. His work on Human Rights and Conflict has been shown at the US Senate, The Untied Nations, The Houses of Parliament in the UK and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in France. His efforts have earned him the acclaim as one of the foremost documentary photographers of today.

The Rape of a Nation by Marcus Bleasdale

Marcus Bleasdale has published two books "One Hundred Years of Darkness" 2002 and "The Rape of a Nation" 2009 and has received numerous awards. He no longer lives the lavish lifestyle of his twenties, but instead spends months away from home in refugee camps and parts of the world most do not think of and many would not dare to venture. There are no fine cars, in fact he doesn't even own one. He makes barely $100,000/year and spends a large portion financing an orphanage in the eastern Congo that houses 97 children and 5 homes for children with Polio with the help and efforts of a few other photojournalists.

When asked if he thinks he has changed, he merely says this...'I think I appreciate life a lot more. I think I’m more sensitive. I think I’m a nicer guy.’ Marcus Bleasdale, son of a single mother, struggling student, successful business man, millionaire, humanitarian, champion of millions, changer of lives, thoughts and world policy, HUMBLE HERO!

An artist lives a solitary life, not out of choice, but out of silent necessity. The stillness, quietness and uniqueness is purposefully mandatory, Without it they cannot create, they cannot inspire, they cannot invoke change. It is not a sad life, but a life filled with the most beautifully vibrant colors of reality and understanding and growth...colors of peace, love, understanding, hope and evolution. Not evolution in themselves, but evolution in those who SEE them, who are inspired by them..those who love and hear their message...and pass it on, forever changed. The artist is a planter of seeds, a gardener of wisdom, ideas and beliefs. It is only their hope that the one, the two, the few, if they are lucky, will catch those seeds, love, nurture and plant them... and pass them on...this is what it means to change the world. This is what it means to live forever! Marcus Bleasdale has done that...Marcus Bleasdale is a hero to the silent many of today and the millions of tomorrow!

He is the change we should all wish to see in this world!