During our two day trip to Phouluang Tai, we visited the local school, a shack with two blackboards and some battered wood boards acting as school benches, packed with no less than fifty school kids, all ages in one classroom, with one very young teacher desperately trying to keep them quiet.

When they saw us they were totally overexcited – news of the “magic” Polaroid camera had spread very quickly, and they all wanted to see the magic trick with their very own eyes. Many of these kids have probably not left the village yet; they have no TV or internet, and can only rely on two hours per day of Hmong radio to connect them to the outside world. So when Guillaume took a couple of Polaroid pictures of the class, fifty kids ran totally out of control, following him, shouting and laughing, all very eager to have their picture taken.

We were soon almost running out of instant film. So I tried to explain to the disappointed kids the vast superiority of the digital camera: with it, you could take hundreds of pictures, and see yourself in the LCD screen etc. What did I just do! As I was still explaining the beauty of the digital SLR, the kids took the camera from my hands and started taking pictures of themselves, even more excited!

At that point the teacher gave us an exasperated look and simply shook her head.

And this is what happens when kids get ahold of your digital camera: