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A person carrying a colorful bag walks beneath a street sign and bright light in a low-angle, blurred scene in El Alto, Bolivia.

World Photography Day: Learning to Look Again

A candid photo of young Eric Richenstein smiling in a kitchen. He is wearing a white shirt with colorful figures and standing near a stove, sink, and refrigerator covered with family photos.

Honoring Eric’s birthday by carrying his light forward

Two people standing together in a field with mountains behind them

Better Trip Photos: An Easy Smartphone Photo Guide for the Days You Want to Remember

A student frames a photograph in the El Alto landscape.

What Noemi G.’s students are learning to see

Happy New Year — Thank You for Your Support in 2025

Giving Tuesday 2025 – Recycling for the Future

Building Stories in Bolivia: Inside the Photo Start x Wikimedistas Program

The Follow-Through: A Family’s Rise Behind the Lens

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Shine a Light, Change a Life: Honoring Eric’s Legacy in 2025

Celebrating Women’s Month: Empowering Female Photographers Through Photo Start

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The cameras behind (and in) these photos had a lif

The cameras behind (and in) these photos had a life before Photo Start. Now they are in the hands of students in Nairobi, where they are being used to learn, practice, and teach.
That is what we love about World Photography Day. The picture matters, but so does everything that happens around it: learning a new tool, moving files to a computer, editing, talking through choices, and trying again.
If you have a camera, phone, tablet, laptop, or other digital gear gathering dust, we can put it to work. Financial donations help us keep the classes running too.
Give:
https://photostart.org/donate/
Donate equipment:
https://photostart.org/donate-equipment/
#WorldPhotographyDay #PhotoStart #DigitalLiteracy #VisualStorytelling #PhotographyEducation

Student work from El Alto, Bolivia, seen as a sequ

Student work from El Alto, Bolivia, seen as a sequence of place, structure, direction, landscape, and atmosphere.
Photography asks us to slow down long enough to notice how a place holds together. These images reflect that practice: observing closely, framing with care, and finding meaning in ordinary details.
Photo Start celebrates the attention and visual language emerging through this work.

Today would have been Eric Spencer Richenstein's b

Today would have been Eric Spencer Richenstein's birthday.
We're thinking of him with this photo: young Eric in the kitchen, smiling, years before he became a chef and someone who loved to cook. Looking at it now, it feels like foreshadowing. The warmth was already there.
Eric's Circle of Light was created in his memory, and it has become one of the ways Photo Start carries that warmth forward.
When the world changed, Eric's Circle of Light helped us keep showing up for students. Our focus on hybrid and digital classes allowed young people to keep learning, creating, and building confidence even when in-person programs were disrupted or out of reach.
That work helped Photo Start persist. It helped us grow. It helped us reach countless students through photography, mentorship, life skills, and creative education.
Now we are stepping into the next chapter.
As students grow up in an AI generation, Photo Start is expanding the tools we place in their hands. Photography remains at the heart of what we do, but the future also includes digital learning, creative technology, and AI-supported education that helps young people imagine what is possible.
Eric loved to cook. He understood the joy of making something with care and sharing it with others. That same spirit lives in this work: gather people in, give them tools, help them create, and let the light travel farther.
Today, on Eric's birthday, we honor his life by carrying his light forward.
Help carry Eric's light forward.

El Alto is not just the backdrop for this course.

El Alto is not just the backdrop for this course. It is part of the students’ visual language.
Mountains, roads, weather, open ground, city edges, and everyday details all become material for learning composition and storytelling. Through these images, students are practicing how to make place visible — not as scenery, but as something lived in and observed.
#PhotoStart #ElAlto #Bolivia #VisualStorytelling #StudentPhotography #PlaceBasedLearning

Noemi G.’s students in El Alto are learning to loo

Noemi G.’s students in El Alto are learning to look closely at the world around them — not only at dramatic views, but at the people, roads, buildings, weather, and details that shape daily life.
This carousel brings together several different ways of seeing place: a person against the scale of the landscape, color and structure in the built environment, a road opening toward the sky, and a small sign of community life with the mountains beyond it.
Photography education starts with that kind of attention: noticing what is worth framing, choosing where to stand, and building the confidence to tell a story through an image.
#PhotoStart #StudentWork #Bolivia #ElAlto #PhotographyStudents #VisualLearning #CreativeEducation

Black-and-white photography asks students to pay a

Black-and-white photography asks students to pay attention differently. Without color, the photograph has to carry itself through light, contrast, shape, weather, gesture, and mood.
This set from Noemi G.’s students in El Alto brings together several ways of seeing in black and white: a dramatic sky, a figure against open space, a person moving through the landscape, and a road drawing the eye forward.
The result is quieter and more graphic — less about bright color, more about form, atmosphere, and the feeling of a place.
#PhotoStart #BlackAndWhitePhotography #StudentWork #Bolivia #ElAlto #PhotographyStudents #VisualLearning

When roadblocks and protests brought parts of El A

When roadblocks and protests brought parts of El Alto to a standstill, the students in our Bolivia cohort continued looking for ways to practice. 📸
Throughout May and June, despite transport disruptions and lockdowns, instructor Noemi Daniela Gonzales Cabrera helped the group find ways to stay connected. From shifting to virtual learning to organizing an intentional outdoor shoot near the city’s cable cars on May 20, these students used photography to maintain their creative practice during uncertain times.
For students like Norka, this course has provided “a new language to express what I see.” For others, it is a way to find focus when the world feels unpredictable. We are proud of this cohort’s continued practice and their commitment to mastering visual storytelling.
Join us in sending a message of support to our El Alto community. 💙
#PhotoStart #ElAlto #Bolivia #VisualStorytelling #CreativePractice #PhotographyEducation #StudentVoices

From El Alto, the city and mountains become part o

From El Alto, the city and mountains become part of the classroom.
Noemi G.’s Photo Start students are continuing their photography projects through a difficult period of roadblocks, uncertainty, and disrupted transportation around La Paz.
As the cohort moves toward the final weeks of the course, we’re sharing views from their recent practice as encouragement — and as a reminder that creative work can continue even when circumstances are difficult.
Photo by a student in Noemi G.’s class, El Alto, Bolivia.
#PhotoStart #Bolivia #ElAlto #StudentPhotography #PhotographyEducation #VisualStorytelling

Instagram post 18083986574214847

Instagram post 18083986574214847

“A camera is more than a tool for images - it’s a

“A camera is more than a tool for images - it’s a tool for opportunity.”
At Photo Start, photography is the gateway. Through it, students build digital, creative, and technical skills that extend far beyond the camera.
Today, on International Women’s Day, we celebrate the girls and young women learning to tell their stories, develop new skills, and shape the way their communities are seen. Please celebrate some of our recent graduates from El Alto, Bolivia!
Empowering the next generation, one photo at a time.
#InternationalWomensDay #PhotoStart #WomenInPhotography #NextGeneration

Happy New Year! 🎉 As we welcome 2026, we want to

Happy New Year! 🎉
As we welcome 2026, we want to sincerely thank everyone who donated in 2025. Your support made a real difference, and we’re grateful for your generosity.
We look forward to continuing this work together in the year ahead.

Today, December 2, 2025, is about the Sustainable

Today, December 2, 2025, is about the Sustainable Cycle of giving back!
Did you upgrade your gear on Black Friday or Cyber Monday? Don't let your old camera gather dust! 🙅‍♀️
This Giving Tuesday, you can help us change lives through photography by donating your used equipment to Photo Start.
✨ The Cycle of Impact:
THE UPGRADE: You bought new gear.
THE DONATION: Your old camera/iPad/smartphone gets a new purpose.
A NEW LIFE: It becomes a tool for creativity, skills, and opportunity for under-resourced youth.
Please consider making a donation today: https://www.photostart.org/donate
#GivingTuesday #GivingTuesday2025 #PhotoStart #Donate #PhotographyForGood #SustainableGiving #GivingBack #CameraDonation

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