I also poll the class at the same time I am telling them this, asking them how many people have kept a diary. I usually get a fair number, half to 2/3rds, and as I continue to tell them, rattling off the list of what they shouldn’t photograph, I ask by a show of hands how many people have attempted to write a poem even if they never showed anyone. Then I continue with the list and return for the last question - How many have written a love letter or a letter home? I then tell them that whatever it is they were trying to express in their diary, or poem, or love letter or letter home, is what their photographs should be about. I doubt whether they were writing about old people or Chinatown or children playing in the park. At least I hope not.
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