Miss Land Mine Beauty Pageant

Beauty Pageants have never been of interest to me ... until this. This Pageant is different. Untold tens of thousands in Cambodia bordering Lao, Vietnam and Thailand - even today - step on one of millions of remaining land mines. Horrible but treatable in the first-world, but more often than not - a death sentence, here in a frontier country like Cambodia.

While women with hands and/or legs blown-off are odd and emotionally awkward to take in at first, soon I started to understand the true beauty in these contestants. The beauty is having a big body part removed and still moving forward with dignity.

Enthusiastic about this project, I began work with Chean Long to develop a proposal to do still and video work for this very unique pageant. Out of the blue, the pageant called Chean Long asking to quote for just what we wanted to do. They came to us before we had a chance to come to them. We were ecstatic.

Then a week before the Pageant, kaboom. The Cambodian government said such a pageant was a 'cultural problem' and not good for Cambodia.

My belief is tourism is at the core of Cambodia's denial of this pageant. Wicked things have happened recently here in Cambodia and all the leaders, when they were young, saw it all, but want to put it all behind them. Understandable. Not good for business.

Sensitive stuff. We keep an open mind and encourage Ministries in Cambodia to do the same. There are some beautiful stories to be told about exceptional Cambodians.