Cuban Streets

My Photo scholarship 2011 entry

Cuba | Friday, September 9, 2011 | 5 photos

This set of images was taken in Cuba, a country often misrepresented in media around the world. I chose to document ordinary life on the streets, an unbiased, non-political view of Cuba, a view rarely seen by those who have never had the opportunity to travel there.
I am passionate about telling the untold stories of the world through photography - the events that are of great importance to humanity and sometimes go by unnoticed. Creating knowledge is the first step towards creating change. I want to pursue my goal of documenting and bringing attention to these issues, and winning this competition would be a great step towards a career in documentary photography. I recently returned from the journey of a lifetime through Central and South America and the Caribbean. As a solo 22 year old traveller, I went with the intention of documenting everything I saw and returning with a body of work for exhibiting to shed light on some of these stories. I witnessed so many injustices towards indigenous communities, the disappearance of cultures across the continents from the deserts of Mexico to the forests of the Amazon, along with many other stories. Resulting from this expedition is my first solo photographic exhibition to open next week, which I am holding as a fundraising event for a small Non-Profit Organisation in Peru. The experience and knowledge I would gain from this opportunity would be invaluable, and it would give me a chance to share my work with an audience I don’t have the opportunity to reach.