Touch of Inspiration

Between travels, a couple girls from the Neddi will come over on the occasional late afternoon to work on a brochure for Mubarak's campground: Zahra, Nafissa and Saida. Zahra has proved most consistent and insightful.

We started by going to Mubarak's campground, and taking photos one evening. The goal was to make an advertising brochure for tourists. I explained the idea to all of them. And pulled out the camera. Each step along the way is a teaching tool: how to hold a camera, position it, using flash, framing a subject, excluding distracting elements. We even rearranged furniture in the Salon and stood on chairs to get a good angle.

She visited the other day and we looked through pictures we had taken and edited on previous occasions. I opened PowerPoint and we began discussing ideas of layout and what photos she might want to use - what she might want to portray in each section of the brochure.

For the cover she envisioned the front door of the campground, opened ... leading one to peer through the open door and catch a glimpse of the campground. We looked through the photos. None equated her vision. I got excited about the fact that she came up with her own idea.

So I suggested we hop on bikes and return to the campground straightaway to get the photo she wanted. "Now!?" She queried? "Yes, why not?" So we did. (She had not ridden a bike in quite some time, so that in itself was yet another "lesson" :) We rode to the campground, greeted Mubarak and friends, asked if we could snap a couple more pictures and adjusted the doors just so.




She stepped back and framed the door from a couple different positions. I took a couple more, and we discussed what we wanted to include in the pictures... stabilizing the camera on my bike for non-flash shots. Her hands were shaking. I realized that all this attention - two men holding doors for her and watching; me instructing and her handling a rather expensive camera - was a bit of pressure. I assured her the photos looked very promising. We laughingly took a posed "Greeting" shot of Mubarak and his friend and headed back home to edit and crop the best of the batch..

We're still a long way from a brochure, but the joy comes in seeing a young girl's mind in action. Allowing her to use her creativity and imagination, and then capture it in some form. Shwiya b shwiya (little by little..).