Travel & Humanitarian Photos
And, just to prove that I wasn’t exaggerating earlier in the week, here are a few quick photographs taken yesterday in a charming Chinese village, which will remain nameless 
The instant prints that these wonderfully hospitable people are holding were taken with a Fujifilm Instant Mini 505 camera.
The Calligrapher’s Friend
The friendly monk, 80 year-old Shi Chong Shun, who, when asked to guess my age, carefully studied the frown lines on my forehead and mused “75 years?”. Cheeky wotsit.
As soon as the rest of the family saw the print that I’d made for the daughter, they all wanted one!
I had the great privilege of being invited to a house-warming party, where the friends and relatives of the owners gathered to eat, drink and be merry. Photography really does open doors.
Are you communicating with them via gestures and smiles, an interpreter / fixer, or did you take a crash course in Chinese?
My fixer was with me when I met the cheeky monk, Craig. But for the rest it was sign-language and theatrical miming. It’s amazing how much it is possible to communicate without a common language.
It was especially interesting at the house-warming party, where I stayed for some time, sharing food, taking the occasional photo.
This is one of those really heart-warming things about travelling, to be welcomed into a stranger’s home and their life without any expectation. Priceless!
Good idea, beautiful imagens, Gavin!
Gavin if it counts for anything, you inspired me to do this while I was in India. My first time trying it was in Jodhpur and it went so well that I did it again. Now I’m try to do it once a month when I travel, take a whole day and just shoot people, print and then spend the next day finding them all and giving them copies. You can read my first attempt on it here: http://foggodyssey.com/2011/06/26/photo-essay-jodhpur-india-bishnoi-village/
Probably the best time was when me and a friend did it in the Old Town of Delhi. That might have been the most fun day I had in all of India. Will be posting that article in about a month.
I’ll have to check into that little camera but carry another camera just makes me cringe. Got way to much stuff as it is now but the good thing about the world is there are print shops just about everywhere in the world. So this is my method.
Did you shoot two different kinds of film with that camera?
Thanks. One looks like the image area is bigger.
[...] gentleman is a monk, it transpires. A rather cheeky monk who, you might recall from my earlier post, decides that some good-natured teasing of a visiting English photographer will provide his [...]