Delivering Photos

One of my main goals for my first trip to Nepal was to photograph the people who live there. It turned out to be very easy. Almost everyone was extremely friendly and happy to have their photographs taken.

On my first morning in Nepal I photographed a mother with her two daughters not far from our hotel.

 

 

 

 

Before my fourth trip to Nepal I made several hundred 6 x 9 prints of photos that I had taken during my previous trips. My intent was to give them to as many of the subjects as possible. It turns out that I was able to deliver all of them, although a few were not handed personally by me to the recipients.

 

 

In my search for the two girls seen above, I carried a photo of them into several shops near where I had photographed them four years earlier. A man recognized them, led me back into a courtyard, and started screaming toward the second floor of a building. The girls emerged. I held up a photo so they could see it. They immediately ran down.

 

 

 

On the left you can see the two girls with one of the several photos I gave them.

 

 

 

 

After returning from our first trek, I walked around Kathmandu and met a man who ran a motorcycle repair shop. I took a number of photos of him.  He was disappointed that I was not able to pull a paper copy out of the back of my camera to hand to him. Apparently he had some “exposure” to Polaroid cameras. But I was able to give him a few of the photos I had taken when I made my fourth trip to Nepal.

When we distributed fleece jackets to the school children in Nunthala, we met a young boy, Neema, who was from a large and impoverished family living several miles from the school. The next morning his mother visited us near the Taksindu Monastery. Neema is in the front center of these photos. The Tara Foundation sponsored Neema’s schooling for a number of years.

When we passed through the area on my fourth trip, I was able to give quite a few photos to Neema. We were disappointed that his mother was holding yet another child. So it goes in the mountains, I guess.

We had a wonderful visit with Alawa Sherpa and his family my first trip. Here they are in the kitchen of their second floor (animals sleep on the first floor) — an open air combination kitchen, dining room, living room, and bedroom.

 

Returning on my fourth trip, I brought two dozen prints for Alawa and his family.  Chhongba took them and handed them to the women. I hope Alawa eventually got to see them, but the women grabbed them first. I was distressed they did not seem to care about fingerprints on the photos like I do.

My first visit to Khari Gompa was during my second trip. I took quick individual photos of all of the nuns. Here is a photo of many of them lined up to give us katas as we arrived.

I returned in 2012. Here is Chhongba sharing some of the photos with them.

In all I delivered several hundred photos that fourth trip. It was a rewarding experience.