Pyin Oo Lwin: Baby, it’s cold outside! part 1

February, 2015

This was the project’s fourth visit to Pyin Oo Lwin (formerly the British hill station Maymyo where George Orwell served as a policeman).  And it was the fourth visit during cold season!  So out came the jackets, toques, scarves, socks.

Our nine students were a hardy bunch, cold didn’t phase them in the least.  Originally scheduled as a workshop for women journalism students, plans changed and we had 6 women and 3 men, all involved in community development or pastoral work.  Organized by Daw Mu Mu, who runs the New Light Media Foundation in Yangon, the workshop was held at the Methodist Church Compound in Pyin Oo Lwin.  Our students were Shan, Burmese, Chin, and Karen.  Daw Ni Ni and U Zaw Tawng were a married couple,both pastors, and along with Daw Ma Yi, probably in their early 50s.  Roi San, Zung Myaw, Htoi Aung, Seng Din, Naw San, and Sein were in their early to late 20s.  For the first two days, the workshop was held in the church, dark, cold, and damp, with variable electricity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we moved into the community center, a big concrete building with lots of windows and better plugs!  Finally able to take off down jackets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mu Mu brought us a translator: Bobby, whose English was very good and who was interested in photography.  He was also interested in his cell phone!   Most of the students understand quite a bit of English, but they are very shy about speaking, afraid to make mistakes.  Cell phone aside, Bobby made life a lot easier for us.

Soon everyone was taking lots of pictures and projecting them for the class to see and comment on.  Because we didn’t have a printer, at the end of each session, students had to edit their work down to 4 images which we took to the Cherry photo shop (portraits, ID photos, wedding photo shoots happening all day long).  We’d sit in the afternoon sun while the images were printed, then head back to the guest house, maybe stopping for a hot coffee on the way.

Every morning, for 8 days, we’d leave our guest house after a breakfast of piping hot Shan noodles, get on our Japanese bikes and pedal across town to the workshop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We opened the Pandora’s box of camera settings….. fish-eye, b/w, vivid, ‘toy’ ( which turned out to be vignette).  This produced some pretty hilarious images, most of which got deleted, and a few nice b/w shots.  We are so used to color that it is sometimes hard to see beyond it to the subtleties of black and white.  Do we sound like old fuddy-duddies?  No, just old film people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They photographed movement, they photographed color, they photographed each other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We asked everyone to write down three things about themselves.  Naw San’s took the prize for honesty:

1.  I like music

2.  I like to waste time

3.  I am telling you a secret:  I am trying to grow a moustache.

 

 

 

 

 

One of their assignments was to shoot pairs of things or people:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a few more images:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scenes from a classroom: