here, there, everywhere

By far my favorite volunteer project was getting portraits of the women who make up Awamaki's two weaver's cooperatives, based in the rural communities of Patacancha and Kelkanka. Most of the Patacancha weavers already have photos and bios published on the Awamaki website and in the shop, but when I got here, none of Kelkanka weavers did, so getting to photograph them was really fun. I went up to Patacancha thee times, and further-afield Kelkanka once, and mostly just hung around while they had their meetings or taught tourists to weave, and tried to get candid shots of the women smiling (or at least not openly glaring); fortunately, they were given a heads up as to why I was there, and thus were pretty accommodating about being photographed... 

 

... even if it took waiting for three hours for some of them to crack a smile (Eustalkia, in the photo above, I'm looking in your direction). 

In all honesty, volunteering with Awamaki has been a mixed experience, but no matter how frustrating some aspects of the organization got, I'll always be happy that I got the chance to spend so much time photographing the incredibly patient, friendly women of the weaver's cooperatives. I think it definitely helped me become a little less shy about approaching people for photos, and also more patient about taking my time to get better photos rather than just taking them as fast as possible. 

With meetings that can run on for several hours, I had lots of down time to also grab a few photos of the weaver's children, who often tagged along - how awesome are those hats? 

So in case you were wondering what I've been up to down here, that's pretty much it (or at least, the best part of it!) You can see all of the weaver portraits I did (mostly mine are the Kelkanka ladies, plus some of the larger sized Patacancha weavers as well) at the Awamaki website here.