H.O.P.E RECONNECT
A Nation Helps Find 350 Faces.
Do You Recognize These Children? 🇰🇭
In 2007, I spent days crossing Cambodia with a camera and a tuk-tuk. No schedule. No fixers. Just the road.
I photographed 350+ children — in orphanages, street schools, floating villages, hospitals, rice paddies, dusty roads. Children running barefoot through schoolyards with a freedom that luxury resorts will never manufacture. A boy gripping a microphone like he was about to change the world. Girls waving through fences with smiles that needed no translation.
Those children are now adults. Mid-twenties to early thirties. Some have university degrees. Some have their own families. Some have left Cambodia entirely.
I want to find them.
THE ORIGIN
How This Started
2007. I was a photographer based in Bangkok. I had just completed a major project for Philippe Starck's resort in Phuket when Mitch Webber, Director of Ogilvy Action Bangkok, proposed something entirely different: "Come to Cambodia. There are children you need to meet."
The entry point: Sunrise Cambodia — an organization founded by Geraldine Cox in 1996, caring for over a thousand vulnerable children. But the photographs extend far beyond Sunrise's walls. I documented children everywhere — in the streets, in classrooms, in markets, on roads no tourist has ever seen.
The series received an Honorable Mention at the International Photography Awards 2007. Then the photographs went dormant. For nineteen years.
THE SEARCH
This Is Where You Come In.
I'm publishing hundreds of photographs from 2007 — week by week — across dedicated galleries on this page.
Look carefully. You might recognize a face. A place. A smile.
If you recognize anyone — if you ARE one of these children — if you are a parent, a relative, a neighbour, a teacher — if you grew up in Siem Reap, Phnom Penh, or Sihanoukville between 2005 and 2010 — if you know someone who did:
Fill out the form below. It takes two minutes.
Every identification brings us closer.
Every share multiplies our chances.
THE PROJECT
H.O.P.E — THE Return
H.O.P.E stands for Happiness, Obstinacy, Purpose, Education.
In 2027, twenty years later, I return to Cambodia. Not to repeat what I did. To find the people I photographed and complete the story.
H.O.P.E — Happiness · Obstinacy · Purpose · Education
Browse the Photographs
New galleries posted every week. Click to enter.
[GALLERY ONE — Cambodia, 2007] The overview. 67 portraits across Sihanoukville, Siem Reap, Phnom Penh. Orphanages, street schools, floating villages, hospitals. The starting point.
[SUNRISE CAMBODIA — Gallery One] 80+ photographs. Day 1 in Siem Reap. Geraldine Cox's centres in Siem Reap and Kandal Province — classrooms, school activities, outings to Tuol Sleng. The search begins here.
[SUNRISE CAMBODIA — Gallery Two] ← NEW The in-between moments. Courtyards, meal times, quiet corners. The everyday life of children growing up inside Geraldine Cox's program — between the activities, when no one was performing for the camera.
[ON TONLÉ SAP AND AROUND] ← NEW Floating villages. Dirt roads. Market stalls. Rice paddies at sunset. School huts on stilts. Days spent moving between the lake and the villages that ring it — no fixers, no schedule, just a camera.
[SIEM REAP ON THE ROAD — Villages, Markets & Streets] ← NEW A French photographer. A tuk-tuk. A bag of keychains. Every photograph thanked with a small object handed over — not money, a keychain. Streets of Siem Reap, food markets, water near Tonlé Sap.
Next galleries to come:
[SIEM REAP ON THE ROAD — Villages, Markets & Streets Gallery two] ← Same tuk-tuk, same camera, same bag of keychains — different faces, different corners. If you recognise anyone, please fill out the form below. Every identification matters.
[SIEM REAP SCHOOLS — LHA & Caring for Cambodia] ← NEW Two schools. One morning. Ten minutes apart by tuk-tuk. Sewing students at Wat Damnak and children in CFC uniforms on red earth. The women of 2007 will sew the school bags of 2027.
[PHNOM PENH — Streets and Around] Streets, markets, slums. The capital beyond the walls. Children, families, daily life inside Phnom Penh's poorest neighbourhoods.
Every face matters. Every identification brings us closer.
H.O.P.E RECONNECT — Wat Damnak & Caring for Cambodia
Two schools. One morning. Ten minutes apart by tuk-tuk. At Wat Damnak, young women learning to sew at the Life & Hope Association. Down the road, children in white CFC shirts running barefoot on red earth. And in between, all the faces met along the way — on village paths, in markets, at corners of streets. The adults around the children may help us find them. Every face matters. Every detail matters.
H.O.P.E RECONNECT — Tonlé Sap & Roads Around
Day 5. On Tonlé Sap lake and the roads around it. Children selling drinks from their boats. Fishermen pulling nets. A floating market. Then the road again — villages, fields, faces along the way. The children may have grown beyond recognition. The adults around them — fishermen, mothers, market vendors, grandparents — may help us find them. Every face matters. Every detail matters.
H.O.P.E RECONNECT - On The Road · Vol. II · Siem Reap
Same tuk-tuk. Same camera. Same bag of keychains. Different faces, different corners. This second volume continues the journey through Siem Reap province — more villages, more market stalls, more children running out of houses, more adults pausing to let me into their day. If you remember a French man handing you a keychain in 2007 — or if you recognise a face, a village, a market — this might be you. Every face matters.
H.O.P.E RECONNECT - On The Road · Vol. I · Siem Reap
A French photographer. A tuk-tuk. A bag of keychains. Every photograph thanked with a small object handed over — not money, a keychain. Streets of Siem Reap, food markets, water near Tonlé Sap, and a stop at the local hospital. If you remember a French man with a camera handing you a keychain at a market, on a road, in a hospital — this might be you. Every face matters.
H.O.P.E RECONNECT — Sunrise Cambodia · Vol. I
Children at Sunrise Cambodia's centres in Siem Reap and Kandal Province in 2007. Classrooms, school activities, outings to parks and cultural sites. Eighty-plus photographs from one full day with the Sunrise children. They were between three and fifteen years old then. Today they are young adults aged twenty-three to thirty-five. The search begins here. Every face matters. Every detail matters.