"There are no bad pictures. Thats just how your face looks sometimes."- Abraham Lincoln
Place: A market, not far from Jinka
Time: Mid June
What happens when you turn over a $3,000 dollar camera to a child for awhile?
Read on and find out.....
I have a Go Pro strapped around my neck that fires off 1 photo every 5 seconds. As I follow my new photography student around, it clicks off random photos showing him on the hunt for that next image.
My photography student in Omo Valley, Ethiopia.
I just picked him out of the crowd, handed him my camera, gave him a few pointers and sent him on his way.
Here are a few Go Pro shots my camera automatically shot while I was giving the kid some lessons.
The show him grasping the camera and slowly making sense of it.
With the help of Lalo translating, I attempt to teach him how to roll the barrel, how to focus, how to close in on the subject. I have a kid on my shoulders at the moment that he is shooting....
Sometimes in my quiet thoughts it terrified me to see him take this technology and move through the crowds. I thought of the kids his age with AK-47s in Sierra Leonne who were conscripted by the evil RUF and sent out to murder in their cause (See movie Blood Diamond). An AK- is far simpler to operate than a camera. Its a bolt, a lever and a trigger.....
Im sure this kid was the talk of the village for months after this experience. I wonder how it might change his life in the future. You just never know when you start a ball rolling. Even the largest of trees, the Sequoia start with a seed the size of ground pepper.
I hope I made a difference.
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The following are some of the shots that the kid took while he had possession of my camera.
As the shoot progressed, you could see him learn to get closer to his subject.
He caught this guy digging for gold....
Cleavage....atta boy!
