Only Fools Become Masters

One of my favorite things at work is running the creative lab, especially the Kids with Cameras program, which empowers children to explore their voices and the world around them through project-based instant photography. In the past, I bought Fujifilm instant film cameras for my students, mainly because they were easily available for purchase from their Shanghai warehouse. Importing foreign electronics in China is extremely hard, so it was a no brainer. However, earlier this year, Shanghai got locked down due to the high number of COVID cases, so I needed an alternative solution for the spring semester classes.

“What about Lomo?” my teaching assistant said. “What’s a Lomo?” I felt like a fool. I thought she would lose respect for me for not knowing anything about Lomo, but her eyes lit up.

She told me that Lomo, which is short for Lomography was a pretty recent type of photography invented by the Lomographic Society, founded in the early nineties in Austria. The founders first experimented with Lomo LC-A, a cheap Russian toy camera, and then invented their own. Later in 2016, they did a Kickstarter campaign, and released their first Lomo’Instant Automat camera that used the Fujifilm instant mini film. “I think the kids will love these cameras,” she said. “Yeah, that can work,” I looked it up online, and their Chinese warehouse was stocked up, so I ordered 50 cameras instantly (pun intended.)

Over the weekend, I went out and shot with one of the cameras, and my first thought was, the kids are going to be frustrated, because everything I shot that day was unimpressive. I couldn’t figure out how the camera worked. In the past, when we used Fujifilm, it was super easy, you clicked and a perfectly focused photograph came out. But Lomo was a different beast, and I needed to master it before I could introduce it to my grade one students. The camera was highly unpredictable, like it had a life of its own, and that was what made the whole experience so frustrating yet so fun at the same time.

On the first day of the spring semester, when I took the cameras out, all the kids went crazy. It was like Christmas came early. When we went out to shoot, I expected them to be disappointed, but I was surprised by their enthusiasm.

“Is this good?” one kid put a blurry image in front of my face. “Do you like this?” another one showed me her abstract art looking print. “Great effort,” I smiled, “keep shooting.” The more I observed my students, the more insightful it got. Their shooting experience was the total opposite of my initial shoot that I did over the weekend. When I took photographs with the Lomo’Instant Automat camera, I was frustrated, but these kids weren’t. Why is that? I wondered.

Then one of the kids came up to me, and laid down ten images on the floor, “I love this camera,” she said. I couldn’t believe those photographs came out of the same camera I tried to master over the weekend, and couldn’t. How the hell did she do that? I asked her about the settings she used, but she shrugged her shoulders, reloaded a new pack of film, and ran away.

I wondered why children sometimes learned new things faster than old people. Was it just because they were willing to let themselves be foolish and I was not?

“They are so inspiring,” my teaching assistant said. “Yes, they are,” I said.

“You know the carefree fool in the tarot deck?” she put her hands on her waist, “these kids are like that.”

Is she frickin reading my mind? I nodded.

“The zero on the tarot card signifies the state of emptiness,” she cupped her hands, “which allows new things to come into being,” her eyes widened, “sorry, do I sound like a weirdo?” she laughed.

“No, not at all,” I said, “it makes sense,” I reminisced about my own childhood, all those moments when I stopped learning because my parents, my peers, my school, my society didn’t allow me to be playful, free, and foolish in the learning process.

I picked up one of the spare cameras, loaded a new pack of film in it, and passed another one to my teaching assistant, “let’s go,” I said. “Where are we going?” she took the camera from me.

“Follow the kids, and let’s be foolish,” I smiled, “only fools become masters,” I held the door open for her, and we walked out of the classroom.