First off, it was visually intense: the tiny houses and crazy vertical separation from one street to the next made the whole place feel like an ewok village, and ensured that every rooftop had a stunning view of Copacabana beach, Corcovado, and the rest of Rocinha curving up and around the mountain.The pictures are really cool, different than the sorts of things a tourist would likely snap. I wouldn't say more "authentic" necessarily (although one could argue that), but better at giving a visitor new perspectives.And whether or not we were exploiting them, people were very friendly, and little kids ran out of their houses excited to see us. I let them use my camera, and showed them pictures of themselves on the LCD, and they'd laugh and call their friends over.
As we're nearing the bottom of the hill and starting to head home, I was thinking about how much the kids enjoyed using my camera, and wouldn't it be interesting to see what they photographed on their own, if they had their own cameras.
And so The Plan was formed.
A few of us from the hostel spent the next several hours buying out the disposable camera inventory of every street-side camera store we could find. Prices varied widely, so there was much talk of "volume discounts" and we had to buy a few underwater cameras that would never be used underwater because stores were closing and our mission was Urgent.
[via metafilter.com]
Posted by johndan at August 30, 2004 03:37 PM
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