Snap Judgments
Insight Myanmar31 Okt 2025

Snap Judgments

Episode #423: Ian Taylor is a Canadian photographer whose life shifted from the film industry to decades of work and travel across Southeast Asia. His first experience was with a government-sponsored Asian Studies program in the early 1990s. His early visits to Burma during the junta’s “Visit Myanmar Year” left a strong impression, and he became involved for a short time in advertising there.

By the late 1990s, Taylor had left advertising for photography, focusing on family portraits and NGO assignments across Asia. A formative volunteer trip to Bangladesh further deepened his commitment to humanitarian work, and led him back to Burma.

Taylor left the country in 2015, but reconnected in 2023 through the Thailand-based Border Consortium (TBC). He soon embarked on a volunteer photo project in five refugee camps, describing them as “an active, bustling town with everything.” His photography resists exploitative “poverty porn” and favors portraits that reflect dignity and agency. “Every portrait, in some way, it’s a collaboration.”

Critical of the tourism industry’s distortions, Taylor remains focused on authenticity, connection, and service. In his words: “If you could go to a holiday in the Maldives or something... well, I’d rather go [to a refugee camp]!”

Episoder(507)

Revisiting the Aluminum Trail

Revisiting the Aluminum Trail

Episode #173: Historian Robert Lyman takes listeners on a captivating journey through the little-known Burma Front of World War II. Lyman's 35 years of research and his fascination with the ethnic hil...

27 Jun 20232h 9min

Hope from the Heartland

Hope from the Heartland

Episode #172: In 2021, Jake Snyder embarked on a journey from Kansas to Missouri, unknowingly setting the stage for a life-altering encounter. As he tuned into an episode of the Insight Myanmar Podcas...

20 Jun 20231h 12min

Tempel Smith, Part 1

Tempel Smith, Part 1

Episode #171: Tempel Smith, a meditation teacher who is also an active, committed social activist, is used to finding a balance among differing perspectives, points of view and ideologies. This can be...

13 Jun 20231h 28min

Acting Against Injustice

Acting Against Injustice

Episode #170: May Wynn Maung is a well-known Burmese actress that now lives in the United States. Her father was a long-time Army officer who also worked in the government. His maxim was the importanc...

9 Jun 20231h 1min

Leaving On A Jet Plane

Leaving On A Jet Plane

Episode #169: Today’s discussion looks at the Burmese military’s on-going, devastating airstrikes from a slightly different angle: What helps the jets get in the sir? Amnesty International’s Montse Fe...

6 Jun 20231h 10min

A Candle in the Darkness

A Candle in the Darkness

Episode #168: Shade’s story is a kind of microcosm of how thousands of Burmese and foreign allies have involved themselves in ways they could scarcely have imagined before 2021, while also shining a l...

30 Mai 20231h 14min

Steve Smith, Part 1

Steve Smith, Part 1

Episode #167: Steve Smith’s first meditation teacher was Mahasi Sayadaw. He visited the Sayadaw’s rural Seikkhun monastery back in 1977. Steve was moved by how the great teacher embodied centuries of ...

23 Mai 20231h 42min

Threads of Justice

Threads of Justice

Episode #166: Han Gyi, a coordinator at the Network for Human Rights Documentation, also known as ND-Burma, joins us today to talk about the organization’s work, which focuses on human rights document...

19 Mai 202349min

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