Bowman Homes

Recently a group of singles from my church planned a service project at Bowman Homes, a housing development in Atlanta. Our focus was the children: there are over 1000 children under the age of 18 in the community, most of them living below the poverty level. Like many developments of it's kind, there are a lot of problems, including substance abuse, crime, and gang activity.

This wasn't an official assignment, obviously, but I grabbed my back up camera body and lightest lens (50mm f1.8) to take with me. Once we arrived, we were briefed by the representative from Essentials2Life, whom we partnered with. Then we got busy, picking up trash and chatting with the kids while walking around. The children gradually trickled out, trailing us around as we walked back to the Rec Center.

Then it was on! Jump rope, kickball, and just sitting and talking with them. They had so much energy and were so affectionate. They were fascinated by the camera and kept wanting to see the LCD screen and handle it. So I left many of them hold the camera and take pictures of one another. Some of them got some good shots!