Impressions of the world

My Scholarship entry - The Danube Delta and Its People

Romania | Monday, January 14, 2013 | 5 photos

A UNESCO World Heritage site, the Danube Delta is best known for biodiversity unparalleled elsewhere in Europe. Less known is the fact that a small community of “Old Believers”, or Lippovans, also live here. For them, life in the Danube Delta is every bit as harsh as it is idyllic for the birds and the fish. Subsisting mainly from reed farming and fishing, the Lippovans are among the poorest inhabitants in one of Europe’s poorest countries. Their small villages are so isolated that an ambulance needs as much as 5 hours to reach them and they seldom have running water or electricity; social life revolves around the church; alcoholism and domestic violence are commonplace.

It took me years to surrender to photography. I had merely dabbled until 2010, when encouraging feedback to images on an old film prompted my partner to buy me a used Nikon kit as a gift.
Photography has since become a profound way for me to connect to the world, enriching my other great passion, for travel. It has taught me to relish the role I'm relegated to, that of eternal spectator.
Over the last two years, photography has also become my drug. Few sensations compare to that of getting the one shot that captures a moment of meaning.
I have never taken a photography course, nor have I had any professional training. The shots I am submitting were taken during a workshop I attended two years ago, in the Danube Delta. There I first learnt how to no longer shoot on “automatic”. Since then I’ve taken thousands of shots and sought to learn from each mistake, sweating for hours to get the image I want. Realising I can never stop learning is one of the reasons I love photography even more.
This contest would be a dream come true because of the chance to learn from the best, in my favourite setting: while exploring a rich, but little known place and its people.