Photography Class... what I learned.

Before leaving for the Waorani community of Kewediono last year, Jennie and I visited the small documentary team at the Gateway Middle School in Manhattan.  It just so happened that these students were beginning a video pen pal exchange with the students in Kewediono.  That was my first time ever teaching in a classroom, let alone teaching film-making. I had no clue what to expect, but what amazed me was how quickly the students learned how to use the camera equipment and advanced documentary techniques, especially when I compare it to my experience learning to use my first video camera as an adult.  I assumed it was because their generation more than any before grew up in a digitally saturated society.

After the class, the students equipped us with a small Canon Vixia camcorder and a Macbook Pro to bring, on loan, to the Waorani students.  Naturally, I assumed that teaching photography and film-making in Kewediono, a community without electricity let alone digital cameras, Macbooks and skyscrapers made of giant LED screens, was going to be much more challenging than teaching American students.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

There was no difference between the Waorani students' ability to learn documentary skills and camera techniques than people I have taught in the US.  Not just with the Canon consumer camcorder, but also with the professional dSLR cameras that we brought for our production.  At one point, one of the students asked Jennie if he could try her camera, the Canon 60D, which is a completely different camera than the camcorder they used in class. Without any instructions, he immediately disappeared with the camera.  When we found him he was about 30 feet up in a tree looking out over the community's rope swing with Jennie's camera.  Here are some of the photos he took.

 

 

Looking at all the photo files from that day, Toca had only taken four photos prior to these amazing shots.

If you think about it, digital technology is just as foreign to the average iPhone camera user than it is to the Waorani.  I have even met professional photographers who don't fully understand the concepts behind aperture, shutter speed and ISO yet capture amazing images.  Personally, I have no clue how companies like Canon then take those concepts and convert them into digital signals on a point and shoot or iPhone camera.  What I do know is that I see something I like and my camera captures it and stores it on a little plastic media card about the size of my fingernail. The objectives of a photographer or filmmaker is to observe the environment they are in, find a captivating subject or story within that environment and understand that subject enough so that they can capture its essence on film.  As hunter-gatherers that rely on all aspects of the forest in which they live, I can't think of anyone else who is more suited to document the wildlife, land, and culture of the rainforest than indigenous groups like the Waorani.  

Hundreds of photographers and filmmakers travel to the Amazon each year to capture the stunning wildlife and stories found there, including myself.  From my experience, composing the shot, setting the exposure and keeping a steady hand is by far the easiest part of capturing wildlife footage in places like the Amazon.  The hardest part is getting to the right place at the right time and knowing what you are looking at.  This is something that I know I will never excel at as well as even the youngest Waorani students.  That is why for me, this aspect of our project is the most exciting.   Because I love watching nature documentaries so much, I am so excited to see the footage they will capture, as well as the unique perspective they can offer as not only documentary-makers but also scientific researchers.