Pakistan: Brick-maker Image Overlooked

Pakistan brick yard worker and child

Working mother and her child in a Pakistan brickyard.

During the process of looking through our archived images of Pakistan for another grant proposal we are making, I came across this image that I had totally overlooked. I normally mark images with one, two or three stars in the editing phase. This image had none. Yet, it tells so much about the poor laborers in Pakistan that work in the brickyards. Overworked and underpaid, these families are often unable to send their children to school. A kindergarten child in Pakistan has only a 1 percent chance of reaching the 12th grade, according to New York times columnist Nicholas Kristof. Literacy rates hover around 50 percent. The grant proposal is about education in Pakistan so the image works well to tell part of the story.

Sometimes when I revisit my images months or years after a shoot I see things in a totally different way. Some I liked then, I now dismiss. Some I totally overlooked, become favorites. This is one reason I hardly ever toss images during the initial edit. Time has a way of making some images more important.

(Canon 5D, 24-105mm @28mm , 1/125 sec, f8, ISO320)

Photos ©Copyright Gary S. Chapman 2011

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011 at 8:19 am. It is filed under All Posts, Humanitarian, Latest Posts and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

11 Responses to “Pakistan: Brick-maker Image Overlooked”

  1. Brian says:
    February 22, 2011 at 8:26 am

    So true – I’ve written a few posts on finding those diamonds in the rough months after you shot something. I’ve actually gotten to a point now where I make sure and review a set of images a few months later just to make sure that my critical eye didn’t skip something it didn’t

    Fantastic shot btw.

    Cheers,
    Brian

  2. JerseyStyle Photography says:
    February 22, 2011 at 9:34 am

    Brilliant and understated. Thanks for sharing, Gary.

    ~ Mark

  3. Craig Ferguson (@cfimages) says:
    February 22, 2011 at 10:02 am

    Revisiting images in the future almost always reveals a gem or two for me. I’m a big proponent of keeping everything and never deleting. Storage space is cheap but photographs are priceless.

  4. gary s. chapman says:
    February 22, 2011 at 10:30 am

    Brian…thanks…I seem to often miss things in the initial edit!

  5. gary s. chapman says:
    February 22, 2011 at 10:31 am

    Mark…thanks for the kind words and for even taking the time to look!

  6. gary s. chapman says:
    February 22, 2011 at 10:33 am

    Craig…so glad storage is cheap. I remember paying $1,000.00 for a 1Gig HD. Thanks for reading and commenting.

  7. Christopher Bloor says:
    February 22, 2011 at 5:23 pm

    Some say that a picture can tell a thousand stories; But sometimes the story behind the image helps.

    Thanks for sharing.

  8. Tod says:
    February 28, 2011 at 2:15 pm

    This image is a strong, storytelling photograph, and I also like the lines of the bricks as well. Thanks for sharing, Gary. I’ve had the same experience myself. With digital, many of us are shooting more images than we ever did with film, so I think that it’s even easier to overlook an image in your initial edit. At least, that’s been my experience. Thanks for reminding us to not be too quick to throw out an image in that first edit.

  9. gary s. chapman says:
    February 28, 2011 at 5:01 pm

    Thanks Tod. I just can’t believe I did not see it before now.

  10. ChristenB says:
    March 8, 2011 at 1:54 pm

    What a powerful image! I want to know more about this woman laying bricks…

  11. gary s. chapman says:
    March 9, 2011 at 1:53 pm

    Christen…I want to know more about her too. Problem is, I did not really think I had a good image so I did not engage her further. Live and learn!

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