My Photo scholarship 2011 entry

My Photo scholarship 2011 entry

Chile | Monday, November 7, 2011 | 5 photos

If I'm honest with myself I have always loved culture, photography and writing, though I may have not realized it as quickly as I should have. In college I studied Spanish, which required me to live in Latin America for a short time. While I was there I fell in love with taking photos of the things I saw. But it wasn't just about pretty places, it was about understanding the world differently through the lens of a camera.

As photography often does, it pulled me in. When I studied culture for my Master's degree, I knew that my final project would be about telling the story of a place I had never been, and of a people I had never met. Together, my wife and I traveled to southern Chile where we sought to capture the story of a small group of the Mapuche people and their way of life.

Though I was working as a web designer when I finished my degree, over time I felt as though there was something missing. Last November I quit my job and started my own web design business, but my desire is to use my design skills to transition into storytelling and photojournalism. With my wife's help, we recently started a website where we will be writing about the places we see, the people we meet, and the stories the world has to tell.

To use the old adage, this mentorship would mean the world to me, and my hope is that it would help me tell the stories that need to be told in a much more professionally polished and passionate way. I would be honored to have the opportunity to work alongside Jason Edwards, and to learn everything that he has to teach.