National Geographic Masters of Photography

Lessons 13–14: Jodi Cobb—People in Their Environments

Changing the World with Pictures

I

got into photography because I wanted to change the world, but

this [story] is the closest that I’ve actually come. It’s a story on 21st-

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is now the world’s second largest criminal activity, a $150 billion a

year industry. It’s a story about how 27 million people are bought and

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I proposed the story to the Geographic after reading about the passage

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idea if National Geographic would publish it or even if I could do it.

It was the hardest story that I ever tried to do. And I was in danger, in

fear, or in tears the entire time.

There are more slaves today than [during] the four centuries of the

African slave trade combined. Tens of thousands of children are

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kids used to be sent to the cities to live with relatives and work as

domestics in exchange for an education and a chance for a better life.

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sold by destitute parents or kidnapped. And they now become actual

slaves, like this little mechanic in Benin. ...

Huge numbers of women are sold, lured, and tricked into the

commercial sex industry worldwide. It’s true that some do enter

knowingly, but they have no idea what’s in store for them. And they

have no knowledge that they’re going to end up enslaved. They live

and work in these cages. [A woman’s] entire world is this one little area

where she sleeps and entertains her clients; her kitchen is underneath,

where she cooks her meals. ...

This story got the biggest response in the history of National

Geographic until then. And it wasn’t just people writing and saying,