FAMILY, FRIENDS and staff of St. Julian’s School in Carcavelos gathered recently to attend the opening of an exhibition of photographs taken by pupil Eldev-Ochir Javhlan, who died in an accident in August.
Eldev-Ochir, known to friends as Dolgoon, had shown a talent for photography since he was 11 and started a collection of photographs when he was 15. With a fully automatic camera, he showed an eye for identifying and composing simple but effective shots.
When his parents bought him a digital camera, he would take it with him wherever he went, even when he walked his dog along the beach. He wasn’t afraid to experiment with all the various functions until he got the result he wanted.
Headmaster David Smith welcomed guests and emphasised the fact that they were there not to grieve, but to celebrate Dolgoon’s life and talent for photography.
Saying a few words at the opening of the exhibition, Eldev-Ochir’s father commented that this was one area where parents should be grateful for modern technology. “Too often, we as parents are frustrated by, or even fearful of, technology that surrounds our children. We tell them not to watch so much TV, we’re concerned about violence on the PlayStation, the internet may hold uncountable dangers, and it seems they don’t even talk to each other any more, just text. But you can now buy a digital camera for less than a PlayStation and give the instant results that children crave. They don’t have to guess at the settings and wait a week to see what happened. They don’t have to pay to develop a film then throw it away as it all turned out wrong. If the picture is bad, they can delete it, change the settings and take another shot, all within 30 seconds, for free – and continue for 1,000 shots if they want.This new technology encourages them to be creative with no more than the purchase cost. And for that, and for the resulting photos we see today and will keep forever, we are grateful.”
