Tim Barrus

I was Creative Director for a foundation where we brought art programs and cameras to kids at risk, all over the world. We gave hundreds of Play Sport Kodak cameras to the children. What came back was a kick in the gut. I was speechless (rare). This is how they are living their lives. There was the HIV/AIDS group and most of them were favela kids from Brazil. They were not literate. They wanted to know how to make the Kodak camera work. Especially video. I would not send you tech goodies unless you were working with us in an effort to become literate. Then, you could learn how to make the camera work. Teachers were clamoring to get a few cameras. My Russian students were being pulled out of classrooms, and put on trains to Ukraine. What they sent me was one awesome story. A long line of vehicles and people trying to escape to Sweden. I could only get two out. They bribed their way onto a ship leaving St. Petersburg with the extra Kodak Cameras I had sent them. Play Sport took great pictures, great video (from what I can gather, they are no longer being made). The Play Sport is also an underwater camera. The program had children in the DRC. Those photographs and the videos they made were destroyed. By me. I hope to never see another place like the DRC. Kids taking photos of other dead kids, was too much. Just too hard to look at. I want to see life. Death came with it. This is a terrible planet for children to be on. I will never be the same. The cameras were invaluable.