The village school

Part of the boma visit was the school, which is one room and a chalkboard and not much else. A boy stood at the front working through his letters with a stick pointer, the board behind him crowded with the day's writing.

There is a version of this photograph that turns it into a message, and I tried to stay off it. A kid at a blackboard is a kid at a blackboard, here as anywhere; the pink jacket and the concentration are the picture, not the poverty of the room.

Both the 55, dragged to ISO 12800 at f/19 with only the doorway for light, a fiftieth of a second held as still as I could. The grain is the room being dark, not a decision. The pink carries the colour frame; the black and white lets the board and the boy do it.