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June 16, 2005

It is impossible to stay out of the picture

This is a late addition to the journal, it has been sitting in draft status on my laptop for more than a few days. I have questioned my motives for posting this but have decided to do so anyway.

Taking stills and capturing video for the Belmont team is my primary contribution to these trips and for the most part I keep my distance and try to capture the spirit of the day in a candid style without being too obvious. I do sit down and rest (chasing athletes and active children around on a playground can be pretty taxing) and when I do it is not uncommon to be approached by curious children who either want their picture taken or who want to see the gadgets I carry. These three little guys spent a lot of time with me during one of the orphange visits. We had no interpreter...none was needed. There was a lot of hand waving and improvised sign language. There was hands-on camera time for the boys that made me a little nervous. We had a great time making silly faces, snapping digital stills, and then passing them back and forth to view on the small LCD screen on the camera.

This is one of those pictures that will stay with me...it summarizes for me, much of what we came to do...and that is that we share who we are with the people in Ukraine. For a few minutes on one hot, June day, these guys were photographers...and I'm pretty sure they had a great time. Betty nailed me a little later by saying that I probably didn't realize how much the attention that I gave these boys meant to them. I had not given it a thought. I have witnessed it with every other team member on this trip but had never realized how that felt, until now. Wow!

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at June 16, 2005 06:45 PM