They call it The Bright Bird which comes from a faraway place to give sight to poor children.

ORBIS, a non profit-making organization which performs complicated eye surgery aboard a converted DC-10 aircraft, visited Wuhan in China’s Hubei Province in March 2007 and photographer Qiu Yan was there to record what took place.

Dedicated to preventing and treating blindness, ORBIS was founded in New York in 1982 and its aircraft is said to be the only one of its kind in the world.

“ORBIS’s service is free to the poor and without borders,” says Qiu Yan. “So I wanted to make a photographic record”.

He used a Canon 1D mark II.

Forty-five-year-old Qiu Yan, who is photo director of the Wuhan Evening News and attended a World Press Photo seminar in 2001-2003, adds: “My favorite shot was the one where the plane’s portholes are reflected showing that the operation was taking place on an aircraft”.