Cerro Rico

My Photo scholarship 2010 entry

Netherlands | Sunday, October 17, 2010 | 5 photos

My name is Asher Floyd, a prolific and occasionally exhibited portrait pro-amateur from Australia. After a recent year spent backpacking, I proved a passion for exploring the world with my camera.

I differ from other applicants and here's the first reason – dedication. I quit my previous dream job (a producer at an independent TV production company) and left the country with the goal of honing my travel photography. I travelled South America, Scandinavia, and in Morocco – maintaining a now popular travel photoblog.

The second reason is bravery. To photograph people, culture and other places – I deem as essential the speed you move your feet, your guts to get the shot, and your confidence to meet your subjects. So I chastised myself when not courageous enough, and I am now one brave photographer. With my camera I have crawled down Bolivian silver mines, struggled my way into General admission of the infamous Boca Stadium (Buenos Aires), and snapped from dusk until dawn at volatile new year parties in Ecuador.

My photo story was taken in Potosí, Bolivia – site of the tragic Cerro Rico silver mines. The excavations have swallowed an estimated 8 million lives over their 400 year operation, and silver discovery has slowed to a trickle. The photos depict the mining carts, the miners underground chewing coca leaves as their only sustenance, a refinery and the pitiful yield (now mostly tin).

And Bhutan? It will be utterly new – which is what I want. I have never visited Asia, never formally studied photography, and my work is built on portraiture not landscape or wildlife – exactly what I can take from Jason Edwards. I am poised with everything to learn, and the knowledge and experience of this scholarship would be the spark to begin a career.