I travelled to China three times in early 2000. All visits were to Guang Dong Province plus our final visit in 2010 included Yunnan Province as well. While in Yunnan we spent time in four leprosy colonies in the remote and mountainous regions just north of Vietnam.

In 2007 I was asked by a small NGO (Eco Village of Hope) if I would accompany them to Namon Village which was a small subsistence farming community in the province of Guangdong. We were to spend three weeks there and I would be tasked to photograph their day to day interactions. I agreed willingly, provided I could have creative freedom to shoot from my own visual perspective. Knowing that this was a rare opportunity, I also requested that I have time to shoot for myself as well. These images are from those trips. Each of the images shown here has a back story which can be viewed on my Instagram account at speersteve