Cambodia: Culture for sustenance

My Scholarship entry - A 'place' I have visited

Cambodia | Monday, January 14, 2013 | 5 photos

I am ordinary. I get up, go to work, go home. Repeat. Nothing that would really interest anyone. Certainly nothing that would fill up an essay. To the world I am no one. But when I hold a camera I feel powerful. I shift from a world of what is to a world of what is possible.
I was first drawn to photography when I took a photo of the Manila Bay sunset for a school project. It was so beautiful that I just had to get off my car & try to capture as much as I could. That was when I realized what photography is–freezing time to be able to relive it; that although life is impossible to grasp, photography is the closest thing we have to holding onto what we can.
In the Philippines, photography was never considered a practical career option–to some it is not an option at all. Although all I wanted was to be a photographer, I settled for the practical & got a desk job. My dream was demoted to a hobby. Yet I know that the real world can never compare to the one I see through the lens.
I joined this contest because I want to learn as much as I can to move people through images. I want to go beyond the possible, the practical. I want to be an instrument of change. I want to be extraordinary.