Place

My Photo scholarship 2010 entry

Vietnam | Sunday, October 17, 2010 | 5 photos

I have always dreamt of exploring of the world since my fingers first graced the pages of National Geographic when I was merely 12 years old. As I grew older and learned about the environment and it’s relationship to humanity I realized that they are intrinsically linked. We are a part of the environment, whether people want to believe it or not. What affects the environment we live in innately affects us. I have dedicated my life to studying the environment and the cultures that are inevitably bound to it. In 2009, I designed an independent research project to study the environmental health affects of the third world in Southeast Asia including Vietnam and Cambodia. In Vietnam, I visited a remote indigenous community along the Ho Chi Minh trail where traces of the chemical, Agent Orange can still be found in the soil and food that the people depend upon. Despite the health hardships and poverty the families face, they demonstrated an immense amount of love for each other and respect for the environment. On the other side of the spectrum, I volunteered at the Phnom Penh garbage dump in Cambodia where over 500 families live. I was introduced to a world where the environment meant something completely different. The families at the dump lived for generations without access to clean water, surrounded by the haze of endless burning trash. Despite what most Americans would consider unbearable circumstances, the children were all smiles. Place and humanity are undeniably interconnected. The places I visited were altered by human impact and the people forced to live there are currently paying the costs. Perhaps these photos are a somber reminder that people affect place, often in a devastating way, and we are unquestionably affected in turn. These photos are proof that people can define place.