WOULD YOU DONATE FILM SLR CAMERAS TO SUPPORT CAMBODIAN PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPRESSION?

WOULD YOU DONATE FILM SLR CAMERAS TO SUPPORT CAMBODIAN PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPRESSION?

Hello.
Since I posted this message a little more than 10 days ago I have received some nice offers for a few used film SLR cameras + some films, thanks a lot.
Please, let me launch it again:

I would like to call for photographer’s generosity, might they be professional or passionate amateurs. Let me explain myself and I try to be not too long, and please excuse my English, it is not my native tongue!

I am a photographer who has dedicated its work to a country – Cambodia – that I have photographed since the early 90ies (work on www.pbase.com/stephanejanin).
After visiting Cambodia regularly for more than 12 years, I have permanently lived there from 2004 to 2007, before relocating to the USA, Washington DC.
In Cambodia in 2005-2007, I have managed my own photo gallery, the only photo gallery in Phnom Penh, featuring local and foreign photographers (www.lepopil.com).

In 2006-2007, at the gallery I have managed, I have taught photography to 14 Cambodian students, aged around 20 years old. The class was designed to provide basic knowledge and photographic techniques, but the main goal for the students at the end of the project was to develop an individual, photographic project. See their works at: www.pbase.com/stephanejanin/photo_class_in_cambodia
It is 14 different photographic views on Cambodia by 14 Cambodian young adults.

I have left Cambodia last July and now live in Washington DC, but I keep good connections with my former Cambodian students and with the people from the art and culture scene in Phnom Penh. Most of all is that some of the students I have taught photography want to continue to practice photography. 10 of them have recently created a group (“the Art Rebels”, “stiev selapak” in Cambodian language) of independent artists who wish to work together, promote en strengthen art production in Cambodia, including the photography practice. They have met recently, elected their president, curator and secretary; they have written their mission statement and internal rules and regulation for the founders, the members and affiliated. They are serious young people who intend to be part of the growing art and culture scene in Phnom Penh and Cambodia! Learn more about it at: http://saphan.info/projects/stievselapak/
These young people are supported in their project by Cambodian/American artist Linda Saphan (www.saphan.info) and my good Cambodian friend young photographer Vandy Rattana (www.flickr.com/photos/khmerview/)

These young people are all from modest origin, some of them are still at the University, most of all they lack cameras to work and develop their own personal projects.

So if you have some unused SLR film cameras and lenses, whatever brand or models (Contax, Canon, Minolta, Nikon, Pentax, Yashica or others …), if it still works, and you feel you like to be generous enough to forget about making a few hundred dollars selling it, then I would be more than happy to receive them and have them shipped to Cambodia soon so these young people can hopefully work with their own camera. They are not so many; I do believe we can find through LS generosity enough so we can support them and enable them to continue documenting their own country.
If you would like to be generous in another way than what I have mentioned earlier (digital cameras? Photo books or magazines? Or else…?), feel free to propose, and thank you in advance.

Some of you might be surprised that I am asking about old SLR films cameras. Why put the students into film practice where everyone switches to digital now? I won’t go into arguments and ideas in this debate, I am no anti-digital at all (I use it, and I still use old stuff too), it’s just that I believe it will be easier in the start to gather-gift SLR film cameras. They will be used indeed, have a respectable second life (or third or fourth! Like cats do!). Some great photo-education and practice can still be done with films. In the end, there are always scanners to have the film images become a digital file, they do it in Cambodia too, included in the film process and it’s cheap.

So, you want to know more about it? You want to check about it? You are interested in Cambodia and plan to visit the country? You are really interested in being part of this experience? You contact me at mondolkiri@hotmail.com or 202 957 53 17 (ask Stéphane).

If you are currently traveling or based in Cambodia and want to know more about it would be better to be in touch directly with Vandy Rattana, he is based in Phnom Penh (855 11 936 855 – vandyrattana@yahoo.com)

Thanks for taking time to read this till the end. Check the works we have done together last year (www.pbase.com/stephanejanin/photo_class_in_cambodia), it’s the promise for more to come, and you can help it if you wish. It is important now to have Cambodia being documented by young Cambodia people too!

Thanks,
Best Regards,

Stéphane Janin
Photographer
202 957 53 17
www.pbase.com/stephanejanin
www.lightstalkers.org/stephanejanin

by Stephane Janin at Fri Oct 12 22:35:59 UTC 2007 (ed. Mar 12 2008) Washington DC, United States | Bookmark this | Digg this |