This photo was taken in the small Kenyan village of Makongeni near the south east coast. I was lucky enough to be out in that part of the world on a business trip, I have recently started working for a company called Camps International who do sustainable community, environmental and wildlife project work in some of the poorest parts of East Africa and Asia. These expeditions are aimed at UK school kids and ordinarily my job involves driving around the UK recruiting schools (I'm currently writing this from a motorway service station near Leicester!), however I was able to travel out to our camps in Kenya over the October half term holiday with a group of teachers on a recce.
This shot is one of many many many (around 900) I took during that week, I'm in the process of putting some of them up on my Flickr site however I'm reeealllly busy with work at the moment so they'll be coming in dribs and drabs for anyone who's interested.
The main reason I chose this shot is that it's a great example of the REAL poor Africa. So much of television and photography coverage of underprivileged of this part of the world makes it seem like everyone is sad and wallowing in self pity. The reality is that these are actually really happy, fun loving kids who live very different lives from the rest of us.
Any UK school teachers out there who'd like to get their schools involved with the project work PM me or check out the website!
In terms of PP and technicals, this was shot with a graduated neutral density filter attached which is why the top half of the shot is darker and the kid in the middle really pops out. In pp i used a hint of Topaz drama portrait to bling out some of the details and a bit of purple/ yellow cross processing which makes the contrast pop and helps to layer the shot into different colour areas.
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