I’ve said it before: the film you can buy today, even in a single-use camera, is the best there has ever been. I’m not saying these pictures were taken by film instead of people. But the quality of the film helped make it possible for these untrained photographers to capture scenes from their lives. Rather than worry about if the picture would come out — assuming they knew that much about what they were doing — they just composed what they felt to be worth sharing.
Go look at some more of these: this picture isn’t even close to being the best of the lot.
Pim writes:
I sent a number of disposable cameras to a few people – children and farmers – at a small village in Lesotho, Southern Africa and asked them to take pictures of their life. What returned are some truly amazing pictures, un-mediated by the professional photographer’s eye.
I posted a number of them here, you might find them interesting. They are really amazing, especially considering they were taken by a throw-away Kodak, by folks who mostly had never even touched a camera before.
We are doing this as part of our Menu for Hope, the fourth annual fundraising raffle run by me and a whole bunch of food blogging friends to raise funds for the UN World Food Program – last year’s campaign did over $60K in two weeks. This year’s plan is to support the school lunch program in Lesotho, where the WFP not only feed the kids but is pushing a new initiative to buy from local farmers to support the program. We help feed the kids, which keeps them in school, and also support their parents and community farming.
I remain ga-ga over the quality of pictures taken by those with no training. Keep these in mind the next time you try to convince yourself you need that $2,000 DSLR.
Faces from Lesotho [ChezPim.com]
