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One of Ed's images from his recent trip to India to teach a workshop. ©Ed Kashi

After wrapping up a National Geographic Photo Camp in January, teaching young Indian students to use cameras for the first time, I returned to India in March to teach a workshop for American and European adults who want to become better photographers — some to make it a profession, and others, who are already professionals, to gain a new perspective that refreshes their work and attitude. The workshop students ranged in age and background: an American in her 60s who is a retired doctor and environmentalist but has been using photography for 40 years; an Italian professional photographer in her 40s who mostly does commercial work and wants to break into photojournalism; a young American just starting out as a photographer; an Italian photography lover in his 40s who is an Alitalia pilot; a German psychotherapist in his 50s who also loves photography; a British journalist in her late 20s who wants to improve her photography to be a double threat.

Occasionally during these workshops, it can feel uninspiring and frustrating when leading a clutch of prosumers, many of whom you know will not become photographers. But I cherish the NG Photo Camps and most of them won’t become photographers either. In the end, anything that allows me to teach, to impart my experience and passions, is satisfying and ultimately useful to my students. If one truly loves photography both as a craft and a profession, whether you want to change the world or just want to learn how to better enjoy your creative process, then it’s all good in my eyes.

As with any workshop, this recent one had a distinct arc: the beginning, always rocky, with people jet lagged, not sure of who is who, what they should be doing and maybe nervous about exposing their work to strangers. Then, just like with the kids in Udaipur, the experiences, breakthroughs, and imagemaking gives them strength, confidence, and joy that reaffirms their desire to be photographers. Both groups of students also come to the initial classes with varying degrees of confidence and creativity — most with timidity and all with the need for guidance, the fear of getting close to subjects and the desire to learn and improve that marks all beginners or intermediate photographers.

Often the teens have never picked up a camera before, so the camp is new, exciting, and overwhelming. For them, becoming a photographer is not a goal, or even a possibility, while the adult students are already photographers who may want to make it their profession. The outcome of their extra experience may come as a surprise, though: The adults bring more neuroses, habits, and fears, along with their more developed talent and purpose. They are hampered, in a way, by their photographic baggage, their professional dreams, or their desire to emulate or outdo other people’s photographs.

For these reasons my adult students are as much in need of guidance as the kids, but in certain ways they also present a greater opportunity for growth. One major challenge for the adults specifically is not being Indian. Photographing in a foreign culture reveals to them the difficulty of getting beyond the surface, and it requires the foreign adults to achieve a different level of inspiration and discovery than the teens from India. I also can be more candid in my critiques with the adult students than the teens and center my comments on their photography. If I know an adult photo student wants to make photography their profession, then I’ll take a more critical approach to their images as well as their approach, behavior, even dress sometimes (especially with females), and I try to get them to express their intentions so they become clearer and stronger about why they want to do this.

The amateur who just wants to improve their photography requires a different approach. To me it’s important to help them grow while also preserving their love and joy for the craft. We all know people who are wonderful in some art form yet drop it because they lose the joy when they realize they’re “not good enough” to “make it” professionally. In fact, many very talented people just don’t have the stomach to handle the pressures, rejection, and bullshit involved with being a professional in something that is so personal and subjective.

The teen, who is being asked to use photography by outsiders to tell their stories, requires a yet another approach. In these cases, I am not trying to cradle or soften my approach for the teens, but what I don’t want to do is snuff out their enthusiasm or courage. And given these NG Photo Camps are not designed to make the students into photographers, my role is one of support and encouragement, to help them tell their stories and open their minds to the possibilities of photography, writing, self expression, and life!

So what do I get out of these workshops? Exposure to other photographer’s concerns, ambitions, ideas, and inspirations. An income stream to make up for a loss of work for serious documentary photography. I can’t deny it also soothes my ego to be, for a short time, among photographers who respectfully listen and appreciate what I have to say. In this subjective profession, we often flourish or fail according to others’ whims and the uncontrollable fortunes of fate (others might call that luck!); the break from that provided by teaching is refreshing and rejuvenating. I also love sharing my work with others and, especially, the chance to help shape photography’s future, teaching human values and creativity by sharing my passion for the craft and my commitment visual storytelling.

Afghan women clad in burqa on a windy day in Kabul, Afghanistan. Photo by Farzana Wahidy

In 1983, I was a photographer for TIME and LIFE magazines. At the time, Afghanistan was occupied by the Russian army and was closed to the media. There were all these refugees, and the terrain was so difficult. My first assignment was in Kabul, and it took me three weeks just to get there on foot, which is only 150 miles from the border. Then I realized immediately how important that story was, and how little the foreign correspondents could  do to cover it. The country is huge — if you have to go on foot, it would take three months to reach the other part of the country. I also realized there would be no media that would accept a correspondent being there for six months on foot to do the story. TIME, CBS, and other media were giving a couple days to a couple weeks maximum.

When I came back from  Afghanistan, I thought to myself, the only way to cover the whole thing would be for Afghans to do it themselves. I thought, so let’s train some photographers. I went to refugee camps, explained my idea, and started training people and giving them cameras. This was all on my own. The following years I went to South Africa, under apartheid. Again, I realized how hard it was for foreign correspondents to cover, because the government was blocking entrance to journalists. So I thought the best way would be to train younger people living in the townships. I began training them, and the whole time I was also covering the story from the inside. It gave me a totally different perspective. Because usually when I went somewhere to cover a story, I was finding myself with the same group of photographers in the same hotels. The local people would be better storytellers.

Photo by Fardin Waezi, another AINA student.

The second thing, which was much deeper, came to my mind later, when I was in refugee camps especially. I realized there are two different destructions in wars. One is material destruction: buildings and bodies. That’s what we photograph. The houses that are destroyed and the people who are suffering the loss of part of their bodies. But the reality of wars and conflicts is that there is another trauma — the destruction of the human soul, of culture, and of human connection. One day, I was reading in a newspaper that there was a shooting in a school in the United States. And what really took my attention was that all the police went to the school immediately, and then the ambulances. Then a group of psychologists was sent because people had been traumatized by this shooting. And that was just one shooting. What are we doing in conflict zones? We are only helping to rebuild the material destruction. But we don’t care about the psychologists that are needed.

In humanitarian efforts, 99 percent are just for buildings. The United Nations and NGO’s help to build schools, roads, wells, and to make the artificial legs. But where is that group of psychologists for countries that have been in conflict for years and years. Where are the psychologists and who can they be? I realized, you can’t send American or French psychologists to talk to Afghans or Cambodians. It has to be from inside. But you also can’t send psychologists to talk to people one-on-one. So I thought maybe the best tools were media and communication tools. If they were used collectively, maybe they could replace these psychologists.

At that moment, I also saw there was no opportunity in these countries for a group of people, journalists or artists, to express themselves. We need to help them to express themselves. We need to train them and give them the tools, which are all the tools we use in the West: cameras, video cameras, and computers. They don’t have access to these. This was one main thing that brought me to Aina.

James Brown, Georgia, 1979 ©Harry Benson

Carmen Suen: How did you get started in photography?

Harry Benson: That was a long time ago. When I was a teenager, I felt like being a photographer was my only hope. I have always been interested in photography. And, I was never very good at academics. I thought, I could be a professional soccer player, or I could be a professional photographer. I played a few soccer games, and thought I wasn’t that great. When I was 21 or 22, I started doing wedding photography at local churches. It was at that time that I started to get more serious about photography. Eventually, I got a job at the Daily Express.

To me, photography is honest and straightforward. As a photographer, all you need to do is to take good pictures. If you work hard, and take the opportunities in front of you, you will succeed. There are, of course, obstacles. While my friends were going out for a drink, I was working. I seldom got to celebrate Christmas and New Year like most people do. I celebrate these holidays with my family in a different way. I don’t see it as a sacrifice; I see it as a privilege. It’s very lucky to be able to do what makes you happy.

CS: What was your first “big job”?

HB: Well, there was not really any one “big job.” But I think I have some favorite pictures — those I took during my 2-week trip with the Beatles in February 1964. I love those pictures because they are happy pictures.

That was a very special trip for me. I never wanted to be a rock photographer. But then I got this opportunity to travel with one of the most important groups in rock history. Because it was a newspaper assignment, I had to send pictures back to London every day. I had to consistently bring back good photographs. I needed to stay as creative and good as I could be. That was not easy, but I did it.

CS: Do you have any advice for young photographers?

HB: Always go to the smallest denominator, and don’t get carried away. Look for a job in a local newspaper, not a big city paper. Local newspapers pay for your mistakes. If you can take a great picture of a small town mayor, you can take a great picture of a president.

Luz Maria Marin holds the head of her husband Angel Toala one day before he died of stomach cancer in his home in Shushufindi. ©Lou Dematteis

Click below for segments from a recent audio conversation between Lou Dematteis and Michael Costuros, the founder of liveBooks. Lou speaks candidly about the tangible social change produced by the project and how his involvement with the cause continues to nourish his own passion and creativity.

Part 1: How did Amazon organizers initially use your images? “I found out that photographs I had taken that I had passed on for use in Ecuador had been used as part of an education and organizing campaign.”

Part 2: How did the book Crude Reflections come about? “In 2007 we received a Distribution Grant from the Open Society Institute, and that allowed us to print a set of photos and display them back in the Amazon, so the people living this and experiencing this had a chance to see their photos. They were literally in tears.”

Part 3: What effect has the book had in South American communities? “The book is bilingual…we didn’t just want to produce a book we were going to show in the United States. We wanted to make it useful and available to people in Ecuador and Latin America.”

Part 4: How has this project enriched your life? “I’ve developed an incredible bond with many people there. They are very thankful that I’ve helped give a voice to their community. That is tremendously fulfilling to me.”