Snaps and Bytes

A week or so ago MESH conducted a really happy workshop training seven  people from five producer groups in how to take good production photographs and videos using just their mobile phones.

We were amazingly lucky to be able to hold the training in Kiran Village, a wonderful centre that provides education, physiotherapy, early intervention strategies and vocational training for people with disabilities. Located about 35 km the Hindu holy city of Varanasi it has a really very beautiful compound full of trees and plants and ponds. The place hums with activity especially at “going home time” when there are all sorts of wibbly wobbly children helping each other to catch the bus or reach the gate.  

 At MESH, we believe every product tells a story — one of skill, perseverance, and creativity. To communicate these stories effectively to our global audience, we require professional-quality photographs and videos that reflect the production process, the artisans’ craftsmanship, and their working environment.

Many of our partner groups, however, face challenges in producing videos and pictures that are good enough to share with our customers. Hence, this training was designed to bridge that gap by empowering artisans with practical, hands-on knowledge to capture clear, well-lit, and well-composed visuals using smartphones. Our trainer was a young freelance photographer full of passion for his subject.  

He didn’t waste any time and was soon explaining about phone handling techniques, basic camera settings (“ah so that is what that setting is for”) lighting techniques, framing and angles and capturing production processes and then he accompanied everyone into the production unit in Kiran to practice what he had taught. When we returned to the meeting room, we were all able to see each other’s pictures on a large screen and learn from each other’s mistakes and head off and try again.

Our trainer then went on to demonstrate video recording skills, interview recording techniques and sound and clarity improvement for the videography before sending everyone back into the production center. We must thank the marvelous artisans who just carried right on working allowing the trainees to video and photograph them from all angles. 

It was most satisfying to compare the starting efforts with the finished work, proving that even with the least fancy phone camera, really very good pictures and videos can be taken to tell the story of the crafts people, their skills and the processes of production.

We were able to give each participant a clip-on microphone so that they can video artisan interviews with improved audio. Oh, and there was small gift of a Kiran friendship tie for everyone because Kiran has one woman with disabilities who can only make those…and who wouldn’t want to support her efforts?!