Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Two Girls, Humana People to People India, 2007

Two girls benefit from their parents' choice to allow them to attend classes for a few hours per day. Their teacher is their neighbor, a person that they trust immensely. In collaboration with Humana People to People India, the school is very much a success, with a mutual respect between students and teacher that is an example for schools universally.

In this portrait, one is married a year after her first portrait is made. This is her first portrait with me after her marriage. She is the one with the shorter blouse, the one with the larger nose piece.

She is now considered a graduate of the school and tends to her new family's chores and responsibilities. In great part to the foundation, she is still allowed to attend the photography and honors me with her presence, her cooperation. Like the rest, they understand that my work is made possible through the foundation. They also understand through the help of the kind translation of my words that my work will continue regardless of their status with the foundation, regardless of whether they graduate from the school. That is of course dependent on their desire to continue.

There is nothing like the face of a person when they know that we make the effort to find them even though their collaboration with the foundation is perhaps at an end. Only then do they realize the full meaning of my work: 'to follow them for life.'


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