Jason vd Merwe made these paired portraits of children during a community outreach trip to Lesotho. His first-person account is preserved below as the contributor’s own. The gallery contains identifiable children; no release records are established by this page.
Children of Lesotho by Jason vd Merwe.
I went to Lesotho on an outreach/ mission with a Church based in in Stellenbosch “Kruiskerk” together with a group of Students from the Stellenbosch University. Before embarking on the trip I knew I was in for a treat into an endless opportunity of photography possibilities. If I had the time to do photography. My inspiration behind the photos are purely my love for children, photography and to inspire people to go out and help. I went there for three weeks, we worked everyday helping these people work on their crops etc. We did Months of work for them in a matter of days and the happiness that brought to them was…speechless. More relevant to the photos when they were taken… there is a massive communication block between me and them I can’t speak their language. So then firstly making them understand what my camera is was quite a challenge with some of them as they arent as privileged as you and I to be in contact with technology on a daily basis. A lot of them were afraid at first so I had to snap a quick shot and then show them the back of the screen. After doing that a few times and then “playing “ with them they got more and more use to it and enjoyed it and that is when you capture real emotion in them”.
