Rick Wilking is a Reuters contract photojournalist based in Denver, Colorado who has been shooting for Reuters for almost 25 years based in Europe, Washington, D.C. and now in Colorado. Rick recently developed the idea of spending time documenting the lives of a Christian “Quiverfull” family who have 15 children due to their belief that all family planning is best left in the hands of God. Rick produced the following piece of multimedia video from his time spent with the Jeub family in Colorado and tells us about the experience below. -  Jim Bourg

I am convinced that the easiest part of my job is taking pictures.  Coming up with story ideas, getting access and then producing the final results are MUCH tougher! That was very true with this story.  I read about Christian Quiverfull-minded folks who closely follow and live by Christian scripture and biblical verses and decided to try to find one of these families to document.  I begged my way into a Quiverfull forum on the web and was met there with much skepticism about letting me in. One family in Kansas said maybe and another back east said I could come by.  But neither were enthused and I knew the travel budget was too tight for a trip that distant and long.

Then I found the Jeub family, only a 90 minute drive away from my home in Colorado.  They too were tentative at first but let me in after seeing stories I had done recently in their area.  My work documenting the headquarters of the “Focus on the Family” organization, portraying troops returning from Iraq at a nearby military base and covering “The Purity Ball”, a Christian father-daughter event all convinced them of my fairness and the integrity of my photojournalism.  They said they prayed on it hard and were led to let me into their home to tell their story through pictures and sound.

Quiverfull, like any other belief system or philosophy, takes different forms. Believers generally view children as a gift from God and avoid all forms of birth control. To many, including the Jeubs, the movement means trusting God entirely to decide your family size by surrendering your life to God.

The Jeubs say that goes for their reproductive life too. “Wendy and I believe God wants us to trust Him in our family planning. The results are his to deal out.  We’re more than fine by that. We are amazed (italics theirs) at how incredible the blessings have been…..We have 15 children, but why would we say that #16 wasn’t a blessing?  Or #17?  Or #18?”

Once I met the Jeubs it was really just about being a fly on the wall witnessing what goes on normally in their lives and their home.  Chris told the attendees during a church service held in their home that one of the best things about a photographer is that they are invisible.  He then proceeded to introduce me.

Producing the video after the fact took almost as much time as shooting the pictures and video did.  I think it is worth it though because the power of the images is just enhanced with motion, music and narration by the people involved.  This old dog just decided to learn some new tricks and record audio and embrace video technology in addition to shooting still photos late last year.  I’ve been working for Reuters for almost 25 years but this is my first video project.

For photographers the saying used to be that you can’t go wrong with kids or dogs.  The Jeubs had recently lost the family dog but kids they had in abundance.  Thirteen kids are living at home; six are under the age of 6, there’s a set of twins, a 4 month old baby and a 17-year-old celebrating her birthday.  We in the business say this is a “target-rich environment” for making photos.  Everywhere you looked there was something happening.  The trick was to pick and choose the moments to focus on, the same as with any other story.  It’s the little fleeting moments that make the best pictures, every time.  Seeing them when others don’t and then capturing them in a creative way is the secret to success as a documentary photographer.

Thanks to the Jeub family:  Zechariah, Priscilla, Havilah, Joshua, Josiah, Hannah, Keilah, Tabitha, Noah, Micah, Isaiah, Lydia, Cynthia, father Chris and mother Wendy for letting me into their life briefly and ignoring me as much as possible while I was there!

Here’s my favorite still image from the 50 some pictures that went into the video project and the two long days I spent with the Jeub family. The action of three-year-old Havilah seemingly floating around on the trampoline, the light, the way her dress twirled up - all combine to tell a story.  If only her sister hadn’t appeared dressed in red in the background of the picture it would have been perfect. I guess you just can’t have it all!

"Skunk", the Israeli Army calls it. Good name.

It had been a month or so since I was last in Bilin, a village in the West Bank, north of Ramallah. Regular protests occur here every Friday over the controversial Israeli barrier fence. Palestinian, Israeli  and international protesters and activists gather near the fence to protest and sometimes throw stones at the Israeli security forces standing guard on the other side who fire teargas at the protesters. Sometimes the amount of teargas the security forces fires can be overwhelming because they are firing into open fields rather than narrow streets or houses. The gas is usually enough to turn all but the hardcore protesters back along the path from which they came.

I knew beforehand the Israeli security forces had recently introduced a new sort of smelly chemical spray, called Skunk, fired from a police water cannon. I was told by Fadi Arouri, our Ramallah photographer, how horrible it was after he experienced the lasting stink it left with him the week before. He politely offered to stay back last Friday, a few hundred meters away, to get a long shot of the tear gas being fired.

I thought, no problem, I'll get in there and get the shots before any spraying starts. I should have known better with my track record. I was once sprayed by a police water canon in Kuala Lumpur during a protest and had to walk the walk of shame through a brand new shopping mall, covered in yellow die and  pepper spray,  to find a dry shirt and a  pair of pants. Nobody in the mall wanted to serve me.

A few years later, outside the American embassy in Jakarta, I was directly hosed by a police water canon, for more than the required amount of time I might add. Moments later I discovered, to the amusement of the few hundred hard-core anti American protesters who were also there, that I was the only person who was wet.

This time in Bilin, I promised myself, it would be different.

Some of the protesters were wearing heavy yellow rain gear, the type fishermen wear or crossing guards don in storms. I wonder where they bought them, out here in the desert where it rains only a few days a year. The police water canon quickly emerged from hiding behind a house on the hill. I was already wearing my gas mask as I casually started walking backwards, trying not to appear like I was retreating.

It was not the most dramatic sight in the world. The water cannon first sent a few feeble streams of the green liquid into the air to test the wind direction. It looked like most went back towards the Israeli troops watching from the distance. Then it started sending the plumes of spray 45 degrees to the right of us, high into the air. I watched it rain down on the protesters in front of me, took some pictures and stood back out of the way. Again and again it fired, but I was dry, safe and, I believed, smelling sweet.

And then it happened. It started with a drop of sweat on my nose, inside my tightly sealed gas mask. The sweat started a chain-reaction itch. I shook my head and even jumped up and down. This had to be dealt with, and quickly I thought. Walking away from the protesters, I gently slid my index finger through my mask's seal in attempt to solve my dilemma by scratching my nose. Big mistake!

It was, without doubt, one of the most horrible things I have ever smelled. I can't describe it without using expletives. But if you mixed dirty diapers with not so fresh road kill and left them all in the sun for a few days, you might get an idea. That half second scratch will last me a lifetime. And I wasn't even hit with it.

Despite changing my clothes by the car, and rinsing my exposed arms and face with water the stench was still there. It was on my boots, my cameras, my helmet and mask. I could smell it the whole ride home. I could think of nothing else. I thought about what I would say to the border police at the checkpoint if they searched my car. "No, I don't have a rotting corpse in the trunk, I was just at a protest"

Five days later, after countless washes and scrubs, I can still smell it. My cameras came out worst. I wanted to put them through the delicate cycle in my washing machine, but you just can't do that.  My gas mask went in the dishwasher, though, along with my helmet. Everything else that couldn't be machine washed, has been coated over and over with disinfectant spray, to no avail. The trunk of my car still has a "serial killer" stench to it.

Next time I am in Bilin, I will go for the long shot...