Everyday, these children are rewriting my ideas of photography, of learning, of teaching, of living. I have been spending much of my time with the students at Druk Padma Karpo school and feel privileged. I have decided that splitting my time between two schools is not fair to the students, or to me, for that matter. It is because of this that I will be dedicating all my time, efforts, and program funding toward the children at Druk Padma Karpo/Druk White Lotus. These children have worked their way into my heart and I feel an honest connection with them. They have, collectively, in the last two months I've been working with them, taken over 5,000 images (most of which have been extremely captivating).
The most recent project was one conducted with the 6th grade class. As Gandhi's birthday is approaching (October 2nd), we decided to create a project around his ideals. I randomly pulled about 20 quotes off the internet (a referenced site) and put each of the quotes into a hat. The students got into groups of three and chose one quote from the hat. They read the quote and then I spoke with each group about what they thought their quote might mean. After discussing this at length, the students went outside with one camera, per each group of three, and began making images that represented, in some way, their interpretation of the Gandhi quote that they had chosen. The results were, as always, breathtakingly beautiful.
The group belonging to the image shown above was given the quote: "To deprive a man of his natural liberty and to deny to him the ordinary amenities of life is worse then starving the body; it is starvation of the soul, the dweller in the body."
