Hope - Japan

My Photo scholarship 2011 entry

Japan | Tuesday, November 8, 2011 | 4 photos

I am an Italian PhD student at Ghent University, Belgium. My research topic involves understanding and simulating human sound perception. Few years ago, after getting an old Pentax MX, I fell in love with photography, in particular photojournalism; at now I am attending the second year of photography at Sint-Lucas Hogeschool in Ghent. Combining aesthetics and communicative skills makes photography so powerfully evocative and intriguing.

In September I have been in Osaka, Japan, to attend a scientific conference. It was a golden opportunity to make a photographic reportage in the Miyagi prefecture in the North of Japan, seriously struck by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. I prepared the travel carefully by means of reading news and contacting journalists who have been already there. I developed a network of contacts on the field using my innate social skills; I came in contact with several Japanese voluntary organizations and I got the opportunity to follow their activities. Aware that expertise is fundamental, I tried to involve professional journalists and photographers but in vain.

The travel scholarship just comes at the right time and it will be the perfect occasion to learn more and faster about lighting, composition and, last but not least, how being in the right place at the right time.

I don't hide my desire to become a professional travel photographer. This is my strongest wish, I am working hard for it and I am aware of the need to learn by means of working shoulder to shoulder with pros. Lastly, my social skills, my travelling attitude, my desire to meet other people and cultures make me an optimal candidate for this travel scholarship. Hopefully, my photographs do the rest.

Regards

Damiano Oldoni