Developing Peru: Journeys of Inspiration

Our first ever photographic exhibition, held as part of the Bristol Festival of Photography, was a great success.

In addition to some captivating images of the children Traveller Not Tourist works with in Peru and some shots of the country itself, we also had stalls and the Pachawawas Cafe.

Visitors particularly seemed to enjoy the “Herbs to help” stall, which sold potted plants and freshly cut herbs with all the proceeds going to help build the new orphanage, Sundara Facepainting helped to brighten up the place with tigers and butterflies galore, JenniferLizzy brought a touch of glamour with her gorgeous handmade jewellery and Hannah let us all borrow her brilliant juggling balls for a bit of clowning around. Delicious home made cakes were supplied by some of our lovely volunteers for the cafe and, of course, we had the Pachawawas stall with all manner of Peruvian delights.

We’d like to say a special thank you to ProAm Imaging for printing all our images for free.

Not only did we take £500 over the weekend, we also raised our profile and recruited some lovely volunteers (for both Peru and the UK).

Big thanks go out to all the volunteers, stallholders and attendees and especially to the photographers – Mim Woodward of Calico Sky and Leon Puplett, here’s a bit more about them:

Mim Woodward (Calico Sky)

I finished my degree in Documentary Photography in 2004 and felt that I needed to put my Nikon film cameras to one side and move into the digital world. I now shoot on a Canon 5D, usually with a 24-105 L lens.

My chosen field is social photography and I mainly shoot weddings and music events, whilst in my spare time I love the outdoors and this leads me to landscape images. I went to Peru with a view to raise awareness of the need for help within the projects supported by Traveller Not Tourist, to learn about the culture and to travel around locally. I came back having experienced some of the friendliest children and most spectacular landscapes of my life so far.

Leon Puplett

I’ve been playing with cameras for 8 years, starting off with an Olympus point and shoot digital camera, with a whopping 4 megapixels and progressing onto a basic Nikon film camera and developing my own black and white prints. I spend a lot of my spare time behind a lens shooting mostly theatre and sport and photo blogging with any camera to hand thanks to the speed of digitally sharing we’re grown accustomed to.

I’m currently using a Sony Alpha a35 and most of my shots are taken with a 50mm 1.8 alpha lens. This lens was perfect for these expressive little faces whilst I was working at the Casa Hogar orphanage in Arequipa, Peru with Traveller Not Tourist in 2009/10. I had not tried portraiture or baby photos before, but my camera was always close by to capture the action and I’ve never had more fun taking photos than the 4 amazing months I spent with these charismatic kids.