This project was shot from 2000-2006 during Operation Smile Missions in India, China, Africa, and Brazil. The objective was to attend these missions and remain as unobtrusive as possible, just be observers. This was difficult at times, in Africa a child stumbled towards the camera with no visible defects but very ill. Everybody dropped everything and tried to save the child. Sadly he died of malaria.

Each photograph is meant to capture the spirit of each mission and to follow the crew, from unloading the cargo and selecting the children to operate on to the surgeries and recovery. We wanted to show the scope of how hard these volunteers work, most of them using their vacation days to attend missions.

At times it was heart-wrenching and felt shallow to be taking pictures. But at the end of the day we were always impressed by the immediate effect Operation Smile has on these children and hoped that this book would show that. In a 45-minute surgery, the child is fixed. It really is a miracle.