One Photo at a Time: How Ceallaigh Smart Transformed Her Pain into Dignity for Others

Ceallaigh Smart, founder of Print The Love

What started as a crowdfunded camera and 1,000 pieces of film has become a global movement across 27 countries, built on a radical idea that giving someone their own photo can tell them they matter.

Ceallaigh, what is your passion?
I am passionate about honoring human dignity and spreading kindness to underserved communities around the world with the gift of an instant photograph.

How did you discover your passion, and how long have you been practicing it?
It was the summer of 2013 and I was in Rwanda for a nonprofit consulting gig. You would never have known it from the outside, but my life had shattered completely. My husband of ten years and father to my two young kids had been cheating on me for months. The emotional abuse had escalated, I had developed PTSD and was barely functioning. But travel, especially to East Africa, had been healing to my soul in the past, so I went.

I brought my digital camera with me, the way I always did. And in the small villages and schools I visited, the children came running every time I pulled it out. They wanted to see themselves on the back of that little screen. One boy, this enthusiastic, bright-eyed kid, asked me for a close-up with him and his friend. I took it. And then I asked him a question I will never forget asking.

"Do you have a photo of yourself?"

He said no.

And something broke open in me. I was standing there holding his image in my hands, planning to take it home to the U.S. and maybe print a dozen of my favorites. And this child had never had a single photograph of himself in his entire life.

You should have this picture, not me.

I didn’t have a photo to give him that day. I had stickers. I handed those out and loved every smile they brought. But that question, that moment, that boy. It stayed with me.

When I got home, I searched for a nonprofit that gave photos to people who didn’t have access to them. I found nothing, nobody was doing it. So, knowing I would be returning to Rwanda the following year, I crowdfunded to buy an instant camera and 1,000 pieces of film. One dollar for one photo.

In 2014, I went back. I gave away every single one of those 1,000 photos. One of the first little girls to receive one (back then we called it LovePolaroids) took the photo from my hands and placed it on her heart. 

Here is the part I never saw coming: it was the first time I stopped having panic attacks. I had begun to heal by doing something so seemingly simple. Intuitively, I needed to counteract the voice at home that had been telling me I didn’t matter. And as I showed others that they are seen and that they matter just the way they are, I started to believe it for myself.

Print the Love became a 501(c)(3) in September 2015. We have been at it for over a decade now. 18,500+ photos, 27 countries and 5 continents. 

Have you ever hesitated in pursuing your passion? 
I never hesitated in starting Print the Love. For some reason, it was just something I needed to do. The hesitation came later, when as time went on, the practical fear crept in that Print the Love wouldn't survive. It is a tiny nonprofit, we do one fundraising campaign a year and our work is entirely overseas. And then a global pandemic hit and shut down all international travel – there were real moments where I didn't know if we would make it.

But we did, and the reason is that I chose to rest and not quit – and the people showed up.

Where have you needed to invest your time, energy, or other resources to pursue this passion? 
Print the Love has taken every kind of resource I have. Time, money, emotional energy, vacation days, weekends, and a willingness to be uncomfortable in places most people will never go.

As a mom with shared custody, having something meaningful to pour myself into during the weeks my kids were with their dad saved me. Those stretches of time could have been lonely and hollow. Instead, they became the hours I spent building something that mattered.

Has there been anything you've removed from your life to give you space to pursue this?
I removed the illusion that I needed permission to do something big. I stopped waiting for the perfect time, plan, and version of myself. I stopped saying "someday" and started saying "now." 

Tell us about one challenge you've encountered as you've pursued this passion.
The challenge is always time. Print the Love is a volunteer-run organization, and I lead it on top of a demanding full-time job as the Executive Director of another nonprofit. There is no paid staff. There is no office. There is just me and a deeply committed board and the collective belief that this work matters enough to keep doing it.

Some seasons are manageable and others feel impossible. Trip planning alone can consume weeks of evenings and weekends. Then there is the fundraising, the storytelling, the social media, the donor communication, the volunteer coordination. Every piece of it falls on a small group of people who are doing this out of love, not obligation.

I have learned to set realistic expectations for myself and for others, and over the years, I have had more than ten paid interns help carry the load, which has been huge.

Look back at the "you" before you started this passion. How is your life different now?
My life is unrecognizable from the woman I was in 2013.

Before Print the Love, I was someone who hid. The regular me, the default me, is someone who is worried about what other people think. An Enneagram 1 recovering perfectionist who would rather do everything behind the scenes than put her face or her name on anything. When I first started Print the Love, even on our first official trip to Nepal, I refused to get on camera to talk about it. I founded a nonprofit about seeing people, and I was terrified of being seen myself.

Now I lead two organizations. I have stood in front of rooms full of people and told the story of the worst season of my life because I know it might help someone else survive theirs. I have traveled to places I never imagined I would go and watched strangers become family through the experience of traveling together.

Print the Love also opened the door to my career in international development in a way I never could have predicted. Most people in this field start in the Peace Corps or get a master's in public health or policy. I started with a camera and 1,000 pieces of film. This work gave me a depth of experience and understanding that no degree could have replicated, and it led directly to where I am today.

I have been remarried for ten years now. My children have grown up watching their mom as someone who gives back and takes risks. That matters to me more than almost anything.

And through all of it, I have been able to see the heart of so many countries in a way most people never will. Not from a resort or a tour bus, but from inside the hospitals and schools and markets and refugee camps. When you see a society from those places, you understand its culture at the deepest level. It is one of the most profound and unexpected gifts of this work, to witness some of the most under-resourced communities on the planet and come away with awe.

But the biggest difference is not the external stuff, it's that I know who I am and what I am capable of now. I know that the voice that told me I didn't matter was wrong. And I know it because I spent a decade proving it, one photo at a time.

How has your passion helped others?

Over 18,500 photographs have been given to people who had never had one before. The most memorable moments are the teenage girl in Zimbabwe who held her photo up next to her face and grinned like she had just been given the whole world, the elderly man in Ecuador who looked at his portrait and said that no one had ever taken his picture before and the children in Haiti who ran back to show their parents (with the parents asking if they could have one too!)

Print the Love has also helped the people who give the photos, not just the people who receive them. Volunteers come home changed, talking about how watching someone’s face light up made them rethink what generosity truly looks like.

And it helped me – it saved me, really. In the season when I most needed to believe that I mattered, this work gave me the evidence.

What is one "life lesson" you're learning as you pursue this passion?

Do something good with your pain: that is the lesson I keep coming back to, over and over. Pain is not wasted if you let it become fuel. The worst thing that ever happened to me became the reason I started the most meaningful work of my life. I did not plan it that way, but when I found myself standing in a village in Rwanda, handing a photo to a child and watching his whole face change, I understood something I had not understood before: that the antidote to feeling invisible is making someone else feel seen.

What would you say to a friend or colleague who is considering exploring a passion?
Action brings clarity. I say that a lot because I have lived it.

You do not wait until you are ready. You start, and the readiness comes. I started speaking more and it got easier. I started writing more and it got better. I finally overcame my fear of being seen because I realized this is the only life I am getting, and I refuse to make myself small in my own story.

If you have something pulling at you, something you keep thinking about, something that lights you up even when the rest of your life feels heavy, pay attention to that. It does not have to be perfect. It does not have to be big. It does not even have to make sense yet. Just start. Take one step. Buy the camera. Book the flight. Send the email. Write the first sentence. The clarity will come after you move, not before.

—— Learn more and support Print the Love on Instagram:@ceallaighsmart and @printtheloveorg and https://www.printthelove.org/