Photographers and their representatives have generously donated their work to the upcoming 14th Annual Friends of Friends Photography Auction, the proceeds of which directly benefit the Angkor Hospital for Children in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Over the past thirteen years, the Friends of Friends Photography Auction has raised nearly $2 million. In Cambodia, where almost half of the population lives on little more than $1 a day, every dollar goes a very long way.

Friends Without A Border (Friends), a non-profit organization, was founded by photographer Kenro Izu after his encounters with sickly, malnournished, and disfigured children during his photography trips to Cambodia’s Angkor Wat monuments. With the help of an international board of healthcare professionals, the art community, and thousands of supporters worldwide, Friends opened Angkor Hospital for Children (AHC) in 1999.

This year’s Auction takes place December 7, and includes so many great finds. A selection from both the Silent and Live Auctions include Walker Evans, André Kertész, Saul Leiter, Martin Munkacsi, Mike Disfarmer, Michael Kenna, Ruth Orkin, Lillian Bassman, Elliott Erwitt , Herb Ritts, Marc Riboud’, Daido Moriyama , George Tice and Richard Gere, who wrote the foreword to the event, donated his photograph “Amalfi Coast, 2009”.

Award winning photographers Steve McCurry, Hiroshi Watanabe, Debbie Fleming Caffery, among others, are well represented, as are the next generation emerging artists – LaToya Ruby Frasier, Rania Matar, Sean Perry, Ellen Rennard, Marcia Schulman Martin and Russ Martin, as well as many others. Standout celebrity images up for auction include Douglas Kirkland’s Dennis Hopper in Taos; Alfred Wertheimer’s Elvis Pressley with apple pie; Kenro Izu’s 14th Dalai Lama; James Karales’s Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ed Pfizenmaier’s Elsa Peretti and Giorgio Sant’Angelo.
Elizabeth Avedon

14th Annual Friends of Friends Photography Auction