Spending a Meaningful Day with the Kids

How It Started

After signing up as a photography volunteer for Walking Edelweiss, I was nervous, but even more excited and confident.

At noon on August 5, someone in a photography group I was in asked, “Who’s free in Beijing from the 11th to the 13th? Public welfare photo shoot. A group of kids from Qinghai will be visiting Beijing and needs volunteer photographers. You can practice your skills and help others.”

I usually shoot for fun anyway, so being able to serve as a volunteer for the kids sounded like a great thing. I signed up without hesitation.

Soon I added several organizers on WeChat and joined the event group.

Professional Teamwork

Very quickly, Fanfan in the group sent training materials by email and scheduled an online training session to walk us through the kids’ itinerary and volunteer guidelines.

I had never joined this kind of public welfare activity before, and I was honestly impressed after opening the materials.

Everything was there: a detailed schedule, personal profiles of every student (family background, school situation, personality traits) with photos, volunteer requirements, taboos, communication tips, local culture in western China, an introduction to Edelweiss, photography requirements, precautions, responsibilities between the shooting team and photo-selection team, sample references, and more.

It made me realize how professional Walking Edelweiss really is.

At 7 p.m. on August 9, the volunteer training started on time in the group chat: kids’ accommodation, meeting point, volunteer contacts and personal info, role assignments, photo upload rules, cloud drive account, and other reminders.

Once we understood everyone’s role and schedule, we quietly waited for the kids to arrive.

The Night Before

That night I did final prep work: fully charged my GH4, packed three lenses, a 20mm pancake lens (for group photos), a 58mm vintage Soviet lens (for close-up shots, though many photos later turned out soft because I opened the aperture too wide; the lack of coating was another big weakness), and a 14-140mm kit lens (I planned to use it as an all-rounder but dropped it because of image quality).

The weather forecast said there might be showers, so I packed an umbrella, a power bank with cable, and also a tripod just in case.

August 13, Morning

At 5:20 a.m., my alarm woke me up right on time. We had to gather near the exit of Chairman Mao Memorial Hall at 7:10. After a quick wash I stuffed two mung-bean cakes into my mouth, checked my gear again, and headed out.

The moment I exited Qianmen subway station I froze. Tiananmen Square was absolutely packed. While I was still trying to figure things out, I remembered volunteer Sister Shi and called her. She had just come out of the station too, and we pushed through the crowd together toward the meeting point.

When I finally saw the kids, all the names I had spent over two hours memorizing the night before suddenly vanished. Every face looked familiar, but each name sat right on the tip of my tongue and refused to come out.

Training had said the kids would be shy, and that was true. But honestly I wasn’t doing much better. As a naturally introverted person who codes all day, directing kids for group shots was hard for me. Luckily Sister Shi, Sister Zhang, Sister Xu, and Sister Yin helped with posing and atmosphere, so I could focus on shooting.

In just three days they had to visit many iconic places in Beijing, which was a tough mission. Even though I only joined the last day, I could feel how tight the schedule was. They woke up around 4 a.m., watched the flag-raising ceremony, visited the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, toured the Forbidden City, went to Peking University, experienced Wangfujing, had dinner, and then took a train to Changchun.

Even with cloudy weather and no extreme heat, the physical demand was still intense. While shooting, I had to keep changing angle and position, capture people and landmark architecture together, avoid random pedestrians on both sides, watch framing ratios, sometimes half-squatting, sometimes half-kneeling, constantly moving around.

My clothes got soaked over and over again. After shooting I was drenched in sweat and couldn’t even lean back on the bus seat. By the time my shirt dried, we got off and started shooting again, soaked through again, then back on the bus.

August 13, Afternoon

After a short morning warm-up, the kids became less awkward in front of the camera. Their confidence and joy started to show.

Before meeting them, I had imagined many times what kind of kids they might be. I mostly pictured those “plateau-red” faces often seen on TV and in photos, with rough skin and dramatic black-and-white HDR tones. Their family backgrounds in the files were indeed difficult: single-parent households, seriously ill or disabled family members, siblings working to support the family. But what I felt in person was optimism, energy, curiosity, and liveliness. Capturing that joy and leaving them with a beautiful memory was exactly what a photographer should do.

During the exhibition visit at Peking University, the kids relaxed a lot. The tension in group photos was gone. I captured many natural moments there. They were eager to understand the outside world, with curiosity and desire to learn on full display. At the same time, they wanted to grow more confident and show their best side.

Volunteers from All Walks of Life

This volunteer group included retired teachers, journalists, office staff, managers, two programmers (I was one of them), people from the investment industry, Peking University students, and more. Some came from Anhui, some from Tianjin, and some were locals in Beijing.

Because of work, I could only join the last day of the kids’ three-day trip, which was Saturday. Sister Shi, Sister Zhang, and one team leader stayed for the full program, while journalist Long covered the first two days. Most of us joined on Saturday only.

Even for someone barely young like me, the Beijing schedule was physically demanding. Sister Shi and Sister Zhang were in their forties and fifties, and still accompanied the kids to places like the Summer Palace, Bird’s Nest, Water Cube, and Badaling, running for three full days. It was not easy at all. After the event, Sister Zhang rushed to the train station and took an overnight train back to Tianjin.