As professionals engaged in bringing out children’s books, most of our days are spent in the innocent world of prankster kids, lost bats, happy holidays, exciting things to learn, wonderful phrases, pretty drawings, gloriously cheerful illustrations and so on. And then we see the other world….where children are made to pick up a gun rather than a pencil, a magazine of ammunition rather than a storybook. Our friend Ryan Lobo told us about the child soldiers in Liberia. He was in Liberia recently filming Joshua Milton Blahyii, also known as General Butt Naked, warlord turned preacher and crusader. Ryan has worked as a producer, cameraman and sound recordist on more than 60 film projects for National Geographic, Discovery Channel and other networks, including shooting undercover for the Emmy-nominated film Child Slaves of India.
We’re delighted that the film “The Redemption of General Butt Naked” made by Eric Strauss, Danielle Anastasion, Ryan Hill and Ryan Lobo has just won the Best Cinematography prize at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, USA. Our congratulations to Ryan, and more power to his camera….we do hope more children will be inspired by photographers like Ryan to shoot with a camera, and never with a gun.
Some of the photographs here may be disturbing to the weak-hearted.
Image: Copyright Ryan Lobo, used with his permission in this post.