Even if you weren't a middle-school student still figuring out how to use a digital camera, shooting photographs at the Seattle Aquarium could be a challenge.

Some exhibits are dark, and when you use a flash, the glare can bounce back off thick glass panels. Some sea critters zoom off or turn away just when you've got a good shot lined up. Or your view might be blocked by a handrail or chain-link fence.

All that would be plenty to deal with if you were simply shooting snapshots to show friends and family. But what if your photos were going to be seen all over the world?

"I kept looking for a place for a good shot," said Tristan Quan, 12. "Then near the dome I looked up and saw all these little salmon fry. The light was coming from above them and it seemed like an ideal time to get a picture."

Quan and about a dozen other students from Aki Kurose Middle School in South Seattle have just completed an aquarium presentation that will be seen and discussed by students as far away as Peru and Kenya, India and Nepal — even in the frozen north of Arctic Village, Alaska, population 146.

Meanwhile, students in those areas are putting together multimedia shows to be viewed here through an innovative program called Bridges to Understanding, creating avenues of communication spanning the globe.

Started in 2000, the nonprofit organization has 11 active sites, three in the Seattle area. At Hamilton Middle School in Wallingford, students recently completed a presentation about water quality in the schools. And at The Evergreen School in Shoreline, students have made brief shows about a neighborhood park, a family dog and volleyball practice.

Bridges to Understanding is the creation of photographer Phil Borges of Mercer Island, who has traveled in about 50 countries, photographing indigenous peoples of distant jungles, deserts, valleys and mountain ranges for more than 25 years.

Borges, whose work has been featured in numerous galleries, museums and documentaries, has had books published in four languages. Photography became a full-time career after he retired from his practice as an orthodontist in California in 1987.

Salmon fry hatched at the aquarium make their way up a fish ladder into Puget Sound in this photo that Tristan Quan, a seventh-grader at Aki Kurose, took for the project.

On his travels to remote areas, Borges found it natural to start by photographing children, tapping into their curiosity about him and his equipment.

"I would start taking pictures of the kids, handing out Polaroids of the kids, and they would take me to their homes."

As fascinating as these studies were, they triggered a certain sadness; Borges realized he was seeing cultures on the brink of extinction amid a trend toward urban, industrialized societies.

Approximately every two weeks, Borges said, somewhere on the planet, "an elder goes to the grave ... carrying the last spoken word of an entire culture."

Back in the U.S., he was troubled by Americans' insular nature. "Our country, with the most powerful media presence on Earth, is becoming the least aware of the world around us."

He began to wonder about ways to broaden American students' understanding of other countries, but not just by showing them photographs or handing them a textbook.

"What would happen," Borges asked, "if young people were able to meet on a platform that allowed an equal exchange? What if they could learn with and from each other, not just about each other?"

That "platform" is the World Wide Web, and the avenue of communication it accommodates is "digital storytelling," innovative ways of combining photos, video and sound to bring a story to life.

ALAN BERNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES Jonisha Hoang, left, Phounsouk Sivilay, center, and Khadi Clamoungou take photos inside the aquarium's dome.

Working with volunteer mentors, groups of Bridges students take photographs, interview story subjects, create "storyboards" plotting out how a story will be told, write and record a narrative, then pull all the pieces together.

Through these projects, students separated by thousands of miles learn about not just their differences, but what they have in common.

For example, the importance of water is universal, and just as Aki Kurose students documented the flora and fauna of Puget Sound, students in several other Bridges locations have put together presentations on water's role in their lifestyle and culture.

In the mountain village of Ollantaytambo, Peru, perched at 8,500 feet in the Andes, students and mentors photographed their community's water supply flowing from glaciers through canals built by the Incas centuries ago.

And in Takaungu, Kenya, a Bridges group took photos of a baptism in the Indian Ocean and of a mother giving her daughter a blessing by spitting water onto the girl's chest.

Borges said that over the next few years, he envisions 20 to 30 "core sites" supplying the bulk of the content for the organization's Web site and publishing an online magazine. "And we're also hoping to have hundreds, if not thousands, of affiliate sites, where students can look at the information and ask questions."

At the heart of the effort are volunteer mentors such as Dani Weiss, a professional photographer who helps conduct weekly sessions for a group of about 30 students at Aki Kurose.

Weiss, 37, heard about the organization at a photography lecture last year and began her work at the school last spring.

"I've enjoyed watching the kids flourish and become more creative and helping them express themselves," Weiss said. "I also like having such a diverse population [of students]. I live in this neighborhood, and I see these kids on the street."

Sometimes, the connection between Bridges groups is on a face-to-face level, such as a recent visit by Dwight Wayne, 13, a student from a Bridges group on a Navajo reservation in Arizona.

"It was an eye-opener when Dwight told them they still have to haul water on a reservation," Weiss said. "These kids just turn on a tap and there it is."

Donated cameras from Canon and computers and technical assistance from Microsoft help in the students' ability to gather and package their presentations.

Over the past week, Aki Kurose students selected photos to use in their aquarium show, set them in order, then wrote and recorded a script to accompany them.

Kayla Robinson, a seventh-grader, helped put the sound and pictures together using a program called Adobe Premiere. The finished three-minute show is posted on the Bridges to Understanding Web site.

Timmy Phan, 14, who took a sea-otter photo for the show and helped record the narration, said the Bridges sessions have fueled more than an interest in photography. "I want to travel, to see more of what other people's lifestyles are like. When you see that in other places they have to struggle and work all the time, you know that we are lucky to have this environment here."

Jack Broom: 206-464-2222 or jbroom@seattletimes.com