I took this photograph of Yazmin in 2008 when I visited Copandaro for the very first time. It was during Christmas and the community set up an event to give toys and gifts to all the kids in the small town. Copandaro is a small working class farming town and for most of the kids, these gifts were the only thing they probably received. It was such a great feeling as I didn’t know anything about it but the local people urged me to come and take photographs. Well it doesn’t take much to egg me on….

Flash forward to 2011 where I went back to Copandaro and handed Yazmin a copy of the photograph above. I brought a handful of prints with me to hand out to the people I had photographed. Being a small town, it wasn’t that difficult to find the people as all I had to do was ask Betty’s dad or ask the locals who was in the photograph. To see the smiles on the faces of the people is a feeling I’ll take with me forever. We found Yazmin as we walked the town and ask another kid in the general vicinity of where I thought Yazmin lived. She lived in the poorer part of the town and it’s probably the first time she’s held a print in her hand.

First photograph from 2008, Olympus Epic, flash fired. The 2011 is from my iPhone using Hipstamatic.