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The Camera Experiment

Last month we visited the orphanage and Janna let one of the little girls borrow her camera to take a few pictures.  The kids love it when we do this.  Unfortunately, this time, she took a picture, looked at the picture she took, and then dropped the camera. 
It was broken, completely caput. 
This was when the building team was here from the States, and at the end of the week they took up a collection for us to be able to buy a new camera.  It was a very kind gesture, we were so grateful. 
The next week, we had a great idea.  What if we bought a decent camera (just like the one we had) and then bought a cheap camera with the funds the team gave us.  Then we would have a camera that we could lend to one child every time we visited the orphanage.  We could make sure the strap was around their wrist, so hopefully they wouldn’t drop it, and then tell them to take a hundred pictures. 
Brilliant.  It’s always so hard to stop spending time with the kids to take pictures and so every time we come home we wish we had more pictures.  This was the perfect solution, and every week one kid gets to have a lot of fun taking picures.
(Vita, all these pictures were taken by her, except this one)
So last Wednesday we tried it.  I pulled out the camera as soon as we got there, and one little girl Vita came up to me and smiled, wanting me to take her picture.  So I did, and I showed her, and then gave her the camera.  She took my picture, and started to hand the camera back to me.  “Nope.” I said, “I want a lot of pictures.  100.”  She looked a little confused, and a little intrigued, but started taking a picture of the dirt.  This is going to be interesting, I thought.
That first hour, I had to stop Vita and put the camera strap back on her wrist, and twice  remind her to take pictures, but after that, every time I saw her she was holding the camera, and I would see the flash every few seconds. 
  
And that’s how one kid breaking our camera inspired us to want to let more borrow our camera.  A little ironic, but hey, that’s life. 
At the end of the day, I had 301 new pictures.  I have spent a couple of hours already going through them.  But after getting rid of the fuzzy shots, the shots of dirt, grass, sky, walls, candy wrappers, and deleting shots of people’s foreheads, knees, chins, backsides, and on and on, I was left with some really cool shots.  I’ll be doing this every week when we visit, so look forward to a LOT of new pictures.

 By the way, if you wouldn't mind saying a quick prayer for the longevity of the camera, it would be appreciated.
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  1. philip fulmerNovember 13, 2011 at 9:53 AM

    hey guys, love the pictures, makes me ready to go back,great work you're doing, tell everyone hello, take care,, philip aka the smelly one..

    ReplyDelete

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