Photo Rally with Carlos Lopez in India

Hello from India!  We are excited to share with you that we have just finished the photo-taking phase of Cre8’s second Photo Rally!  For this Photo Rally, held in the town of Rishikesh, India, Cre8 had the privilege of receiving creative assistance from long-time Cre8 collaborator, friend, filmmaker and photographer, Carlos Lopez of Columbia.  Visiting from his current home in Berlin, Germany, Carlos helped Ole conduct an engaging, hands-on workshop for Kishan (14) and Anrurag (17), our fantastic Photo Rally participants from Ramana’s Garden orphanage here in Rishikesh.  In addition to teaching the boys the ins and outs of operating a digital SLR camera, Carlos and Ole made a point to stress the often-overlooked, but all-too-important “secret” of creating compelling photography: the power to do so rests in the photographer’s imagination, not a high-end digital camera.As we described the process in the results of our first Rally, the Photo Rally concept asks that the participants take certain pictures to satisfy a number of different categories that we provide—some simple, some thought-provoking.  For example, we asked the boys to, among other things, “take a picture of your friends”; and “take a picture of something that represents a dream you have”; and—our favorite—“take a picture of something ‘normal’ and make it looking interesting!”

With the concept well understood and eager to test their newly acquired skills, Kishan and Anrurag took to the streets and surrounding hills of Rishikesh and looked for anything and everything that caught their eyes leaving no stone unturned (sometimes literally).  We were truly amazed with their creative minds and inventive eyes.  Ole followed along to give encouraging advice and opinions where needed, and Carlos took tons of video of the entire process.   Soon, we plan to incorporate the video footage into an instructional video that will guide other Photo Rally participants through the process at future events that we hope to hold all over the world.

We are going through all of the photos now, and there are a lot of them!  We could not be more impressed.  Both Kishan and Anrurag did an incredible job and (as I write this) are currently sitting with Carlos, learning about the digital editing process while selecting the best of the best.  After printing the final photos, we will hold an exhibition to showcase them alongside those taken by Thailand’s Meowadee (16), the winner of our first Photo Rally event in Chiang Mai.  As always, we look forward to the cross-cultural element of the event, as it never disappoints in creating an engaging forum in which the budding photographers and their peers can appreciate the project’s creative results within a global context.

As soon as we can, we will be sure to post the final photos along with the highlights from the exhibition and the related discussions that will surely follow.

So long for now!