It's been a busy time for photographer Kirk Kingsbury, who is back from shooting in Maine, Cape Cod, and northern New Hampshire for Atlanta-based Blue Linx Corporation. Other items on his varied project list include an assignment on stock car racing for the Learning Channel, as well as shoots for the Discovery Channel, which he works for regularly. He has also completed a photo shoot on teens in southern adult prisons for Essence Magazine.

Kirk does a good deal of commercial work for stateside clients such as General Motors, Kawasaki, Ernst and Young, BellSouth, Siemens, Sprint, NAPA, Coca-Cola, Post Properties, Scientific America, Northside Hospital, CIBA Vision, and General Electric. He is represented by Getty Images Editorial Assignment Division, New York.

In addition to his commercial work, Kirk is known for his striking editorial photography. Kirk has made two extensive trips to Southeast Asia. His portraits of child soldiers and land-mine victims are being used by the Cambodian Trust in England. For the Atlanta PR agency Jackson Spalding, he shot an essay on the 300,000 people who actually live on and in the garbage dumps that surround Cairo, Egypt.

Recently, Kirk was taking some R&R and found himself in the coastal city of Pedang, Sumatra. In the restaurant where he was having dinner, the owner asked if he was interested in renting a small motorcycle. Kingsbury took off on a ten-day odyssey. "To tell you the truth I was just goofing off, having fun. I call it camera sketching; it helps keep me loose. I didn't really have a purpose or a clue," he said.

For no particular reason, he photographed what he saw on his journey around the coast. Once he was back home, the images were forgotten until Kirk heard the news of the tsunami last December. Going through his files, he found a file folder labeled "Sumatra, cutesy kid shots, garbage." He was stunned by what he saw inside. By sheer fate, he had spent several days in Banda Ache photographing children and their parents along the river and by the sea. Kirk phoned Valinda Cambell, senior photo editor of CARE, who calls the work "an amazing window on a world that is now forever changed."

The Sumatra images were donated for a silent auction held at The Bernstein Group in Atlanta. Kingsbury's goal is to "never make a cent on any of this stuff." He added, "I will continue to give it away to anyone else who can use it to help those folks. If anyone out there has a fundraiser planned, give my studio a call. Have at it, it's yours. I have a portfolio of the work I can send over."

Never content to stay put, Kirk may be shooting in Colombia this summer. As if that's not enough to keep him busy, the Atlanta-based photographer has been attending night classes to improve his Spanish. "Language proficiency makes life a lot easier while shooting internationally," says Kingsbury. "Having been in and out of well over 20 countries, I learned that the hard way."