CREATING #TCOBW'S PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION

Sometime mid 2006, Michel Karman (BW Master Printer in Los Angeles) and I created the idea for The Children of Botswana: A Humanitarian Photography Collection to help educate Botswana's HIV/AIDS and Disadvantage Children. 




Production started in June 2007 throughout November 2009: 40 children (ages 8-17); social workers from SOS; Volunteers from the Anglican Diocese of Botswana (mainly moms); and I photographed Botswana.
 The plastic Holga Camera was chosen because it allowed us to use Kodak Tri-X medium format film. The latter has always been a preference since my Wet Lab days with James Fee at Pasadena's Art Center College. Together - the camera and film - renders a beautiful and intrinsic poetic reality of any subject matter.


Furthermore, for our volunteer photographers, this was was not only an introductory lesson to photography. Additionally, it was about teaching the children that they not only have rights but also responsibilities towards their own communities. Thereby a lesson not only of empowerment but at the same time inculcating in them a sense of responsibility towards other children, as well as their own communities and country as as a whole.




~ Annelize Bester | THUTO.