Horizons End

My Photo scholarship 2011 entry

Worldwide | Thursday, September 15, 2011 | 5 photos

In July 2010 I travelled to Haiti in order to aid the relief effort after the catastrophic earthquake on the 12th of January. What I saw and the people I met in that beautiful yet devastated country changed my life forever.
I've always loved photography having studied it for 6 years but it was mostly in a fine art context studying the classics like Henri Cartier Bresson and Edward Weston. It wasn’t until I discovered Joel Sternfeld’s collection American Prospects that the potential for photography opened up for me and the drive to travel around the world and shoot the incredible scenes I come across consumed me.
I have travelled frequently around the world each time taking a piece of each place with me along with the photos I accumulate, but no place has had the impact on me that going to Haiti did. By immersing myself in the culture and working alongside the communities to rebuild their shattered lives I enriched myself and revealed how important it is to use photography as not only a medium to express personal ideals and opinions but in order to show a wider audience the significance of the things that are happening around the globe.
This scholarship is the embodiment of all I want from life; to make the most of it, to experience all it has to offer and take photographs so other people can share in those experiences. It is the perfect vehicle for me to try and attain some practical experience as to what it would be like to work for the national geographic, the dream job.