Smile Please! PEPY students participate in photography workshops with Zoom In Project

Here at PEPY we love collaboration and working with like-minded people. In November we were lucky to be joined by Zoom In Project, a filmmaking duo supporting the work of non-profits in Asia, Africa and Latin American countries.  Luis Barreto and Dur Montoya worked with PEPY and PEPY Tours creating innovative videos about PEPY programs, lessons on responsible tourism and volunteering, as well as working with students in our Creative Learning Classes.  It was a pleasure to work with them and we gained not only great videos but great friends in the process.
 
At the start of this year, we received some exciting news… Luis and Dur decided to stay here in Cambodia for 6 months! We spoke to the couple about their experience working with the students and about their hopes for the future at PEPY.

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We started volunteering at PEPY two months ago. (We were supposed to stay just for a month, but we fell in love with PEPY’s team and the community … that’s another great story to be told next time)
One of the projects we’ve worked on is teaching the basic concepts of photography to a group of students in Chanleas Dai.  We ran a photography workshop in two days. The first day was the theory (a bit boring but necessary).  We also looked at how common subjects, like trips, can be documented. To make it dynamic we showed our own video about our personal life working for Zoom In.  Why?  Because we are travellers and Siem Reap receives so many tourists so there are potential opportunities for young students who want to get work in videos and photography.

The second class was practicing the theory with a real camera!!! Some students were the photographers and the others were their models, and then they swap over.  It was the best part of the workshop because they really enjoyed shooting and posing – they picked it up easily!
At the end everybody was so exited; they were laughing, happy, shooting, interacting with each other, making their opinions about the pictures –  it was so much fun!!! Now they have their own portraits printed and they say: “Wow I looking very good and pretty”, “I took this picture? It looks so good I love it!!”
 
We wanted to show one of the good results of our efforts since we were young, just like they are now.  We are from Latin America where countries are developing like Cambodia and we started like them looking for how to achieve our dreams, looking to improve and find our skills, working and studying so hard but always happy doing our passion. We identify with the students completely.
It was one of our amazing experiences at the community and we love to be part of the PEPY team now!!
Thank to all the students for allowing us to share with them.
@LuisBarretoD and @DurSmile