Note* Updated in Canada.
After arriving and setting up in Kathmandu I had a nice sleep (sort of as the room was freezing, no hot water shower) then got up early the next morning to go make photos. At about 6am I wandered out and photographed a injured man limping along doing his daily exercise, did a bit on construction workers and was doing some wall art when I saw a fire across the road. Around the fire was a group of maybe 10-12 young boys (men) with a few girls and one older lady (never found out her role). They were all huddled around the small fire after waking up, a few kids were still sleeping. I found out later that the kids were all homeless and hustled on the streets with tourists to get money for drugs and food. I ended up hanging with them and photographing them for a few hours, they tried hard to get money out of me. That first day I did give them a bit of money which was probably not smart (used for drugs), later on I gave them some rice and cookies etc instead.
I ended up photograhing them over about 3 days but wish I had done more. I made a mistake by not throwing myself into their world more and spending all my time with them. In Nepal there are so so so many subjects worthy of shooting that it is easy to get distracted. I ended up using the rest of my film shooting at the 2 Leprosy clinics, at the bricking making factory (farmers also) and along the river with the landless people of Kathmandu.
Maybe next time I can do more work with these street kids, I need to do more to tell their stories.
After arriving and setting up in Kathmandu I had a nice sleep (sort of as the room was freezing, no hot water shower) then got up early the next morning to go make photos. At about 6am I wandered out and photographed a injured man limping along doing his daily exercise, did a bit on construction workers and was doing some wall art when I saw a fire across the road. Around the fire was a group of maybe 10-12 young boys (men) with a few girls and one older lady (never found out her role). They were all huddled around the small fire after waking up, a few kids were still sleeping. I found out later that the kids were all homeless and hustled on the streets with tourists to get money for drugs and food. I ended up hanging with them and photographing them for a few hours, they tried hard to get money out of me. That first day I did give them a bit of money which was probably not smart (used for drugs), later on I gave them some rice and cookies etc instead.
I ended up photograhing them over about 3 days but wish I had done more. I made a mistake by not throwing myself into their world more and spending all my time with them. In Nepal there are so so so many subjects worthy of shooting that it is easy to get distracted. I ended up using the rest of my film shooting at the 2 Leprosy clinics, at the bricking making factory (farmers also) and along the river with the landless people of Kathmandu.
Maybe next time I can do more work with these street kids, I need to do more to tell their stories.
