Rio de Janeiro: Where privilege and poverty share one backyard

My Scholarship entry - A 'place' I have visited

Brazil | Saturday, May 25, 2013 | 5 photos

Before I started taking photos, I was a marketing major staring down the barrel of a future I feared. I looked at life through the filter of the usual, not the unfiltered eyes of a dreamer. But life changed when I met a guy named Tom on a trip I took to New Orleans to rebuild houses.
We talked about life one night and he asked me, “What do you love?”
I’d never really thought about that before. I'd been so glued to my marketing career track, I'd never focused on what I really loved.
“I love… photography.”
“Well do it!”
What? Just do it? Then I remembered the afternoons I spent with photography books of Yosemite & Greece & the Grand Canyon; the weight of my father’s camera when I held it for the first time when I found it under his bed; why when strangers ask me to take their picture, it feels like a higher calling.
“What’s stopping you?” Tom asked. “Just get out there and take pictures!”
That summer, I forewent a marketing internship to familiarize myself with life behind a lens. Thinking of Tom, I took photos, edited my travel blog and applied for travel scholarships.
I'm here because travel is my heart, photography is my soul and good mentors gave me a heart and soul to cherish.