'Work, Pray and Play'

My Scholarship entry - "Happiness in all aspects"

Myanmar | Monday, November 24, 2014 | 5 photos

I walked into my back yard when I was 12. I saw the forest behind me and decided to walk the 100 meters towards them and take a photo of a beautiful tree I'd seen. Then I decided to see whether a mile behind that there was another one. Then if there was anything to photograph 10 miles behind that. I ended up calling my mom to come and pick me up from the next town 10 miles away. It turned out I liked taking photos of cows!

It is that unexpected thrill and spontaneity that we can rarely find elsewhere than travel photography. They are partners holding hands - opening up a world to you that you would perhaps not see any other way by simply looking; it makes you discover and even more importantly want to capture, capture in a way that you do not even have to explain. It is only with travel photography that I have ever understood - "a picture speaks a thousand words".

I try constantly to put the beauty I see in a photograph, to get my own "thousand words', and it is with traveling and photography that I feel I'm capable of doing this every time I set foot on new lands, and convey through photographs the kindness, life and joie de vivre of the people who's country you're in.