FLOOD OF TEARS BY MIKE PATTERSON

© Jan Shim Photography. Book by Mike Patterson. Order here

It all began with this post on dpreview.com and Mike and I became acquainted through a number of emails that ensued.

You’ve been all over the place … I envy you for getting to travel so much.  I would love to do that.  I’ve been a few places, but nothing like you … I would give my left arm to be about to do what you do.

You have been blessed my friend, and I feel blessed to have met you through the forum.  I hope we can keep in touch.  Please keep good thoughts for my trip next week, and let me know the best way to get a book to you. ~ Mike Patterson

And getting the book to me he did when Mike stopped over at Singapore Changi airport. The last time I mailed a book to an aunt in Canada, it never arrived and I was hesitant to have suggested that Mike did the same en route Banda Aceh. Despite the initial worry, it arrived and I picked it up from the post office, sharing some of the beautifully documented black and white images with the post office workers as I pull the book out of the envelope.

Mike, thank you for the book. The foreword by Jill Baughan says it succintly, no words from me would do it much justice:

… don’t think of this book as a “quick read”; instead, consider it an invitation to stop, and stay a while, to stand in the midst of the chaos the giant wave left behind, to watch as rebuilding begins, to delight in the courageous smiles of the survivors who must carry on …

I hope that someday we can trade places to experience ‘the other side’ that both of us have longed after, a chance to live a full circle life, however short the moment lasts! Keep up the great work. Order your copy of FLOOD OF TEARS today. Mike Patterson can be contacted by email and you can check out his other work at his gallery.