With pens and lenses

My Scholarship entry - A 'place' I have visited

Vietnam | Monday, January 7, 2013 | flickr photos

As someone who earns most of my meagre, yet extremely satisfying living from re-ordering 36 alpha-numeric characters and some punctuation (a digital editor based in Sydney), the opportunity to get behind a viewfinder and record the world from a purely visual perspective is both a joy and a privilege, albeit in a part-time capacity (that may become full time).

Fuelling this desire is an infection known as 'wanderlust', when, from an early age, I've taken every chance to hit the road with notepad and Nikon in hand to record these wayward travels. Yet while words remain my forte, it is the craft of travel photography that I'd like to hone further.

You see, at its core, I believe both writing and photography should be as much about storytelling as anything else. Not 'my story' imposed on the reader or viewer per se, but their 'take' on what I was trying to communicate.

Which is why this competition represents a wonderful and rare opportunity for the amateur photographer in me to 'have a shot', so to speak, to absorb the lessons and experience of a lifetime and maybe, just maybe, derive an increasing part of my living from travel writing and photography.