Dr. Baig

Dr. Mirza Baig displaying one of the thousands of gifts his clients have given him.

I first met Dr. Baig several years ago at a fundraising event for Alton Illinois based Community Counseling Center of Northern Madison County.  Community Counseling recently changed its name to Wellspring Resources and built a new headquarters on the site of their former building.  The doctor and I have a common love of western boots and numerous other things.  He prefers the traditional, more pointed toe on his boots and me.. well,  I prefer the wider roper toe on mine.

Dr. Baig has worked with a lot of extremely sick people and is passionate about his work.  At the recent open house held by Wellspring to show off their new building, the doctor and I were catching up on things and I handed him a card.  My cards are a mini-portfolio of images I have shot with contact information on the back.  He went through them and said he wanted me to shoot his picture.  I said I could do sometime and as soon as the ribbon cutting and other niceties were over I found him in his office. 

I talked with him a bit to try and get a better feel of what would show who he is.  It's easy to get a perfectly exposed image, but it's harder to get something that shows who the person is.  Even harder when you can't really photograph the person with the people he works with. He said something that got me digging a bit more and this image is what we ended up with.

The penny has nothing to do with compensation or money.  It's just one of the thousands of gifts that his patients have given him through the years.  He has kept every present and knows the story behind each one of them.

If you ever get the chance to meet Dr. Baig, ask him about his patients and how they show their gratitude.  It's really a very touching story.