Journeys From A Small Room

The Image I chose came from a visit to Myanmar, from the boatman who took us round Inle Lake. His family lived in a traditional wooden stilted house on Inle Lake. During the Holidays when not at school these children helped their family with wrapping sweets for the mother to sell at the local Lake markets to support the family income. It became very apparent at how poor they were yet they made me most welcome into their home and showed me what and how they lived. None spoke English and I do not speak Burmese! But we still managed to communicate in a few broken English words via the fisherman and my couple of Burmese words. I also realised how much the (reasonably small amount) of money would contribute to this family’s household income. We had not gone through an agent or tourism package, we had instead trusted out instincts and paid the same we would have had to pay a tour operator for the “whole day” trip! The hospitality was the warmest I had received anywhere and I am pleased that I did not hesitate to pay him the going “tourist” rate.

Well this week’s challenge was a bit of an epic fail! Every time I tried to get this challenge done in the vicinity of children it looked like I was being creepy. It would seem that here in Thailand people have got just as suspicious and distrusting about people (even female) taking images of children. Yes I did try and talk to people but they wanted the parents to be in all the shots, which kind of defeated the object. Not wishing to be picked up by the Thai Police for taking pictures of peoples children without consent or from a distance I looked at a previous shoot I did in Myanmar.
Here the Children and parents are still essentially a part of a still trusting society. Taking their images neither bothered them or they posed anyway but not in a false way if you get my meaning?
I had many great images from many great moments from my 3 week trip to Myanmar and my photo observations of its people (inc. children) so finding the key image I have chosen was not a difficult one. Children are everywhere and the time I was there was the School holidays. Many of the children either work paid to do a living as the children I photographed at Kalaw Railway station selling fruit and veg to people taking the train back to Inle Lake. Or they were on their way back home from short holidays at Kalaw. Or as in the Young Novices at Inle Lake South interested in meeting new people and without fear or distrust allowed me to take their photographs.