Finding Beauty in the face of Adversity

My Photo scholarship 2011 entry

Worldwide | Saturday, November 5, 2011 | 5 photos

My name is Hannah Newcombe. I am obsessed with taking photos. Of everything. Patterns, colours, shapes and anything out of the ordinary. My love for photography suddenly appeared in Papua New Guinea; my first adventure to a third world country. Dusty roads, pot holes, flies, heat and polluted streets. I am eternally optimistic and see the best of every person and every situation, and what I saw was rainbow umbrellas, floral muumuu's,smiling faces, pineapples on the baggage conveyor belt in the airport, green lush rainforest (from the sky you saw the palm plantations and the devastating burn off, which to me resembled an animal that has just been to the vet and had patches of its fur shaved off) and then the cool blue expanse of ocean. Ocean. the place where I feel most at home. I was to travel to our destination by mini van. That wasn't 4WD. On a road that wasn't sealed. That had rivers running over it. It was the most wonderful, most educational and mind blowing 2 hour journey of my life. Thatched huts, women carrying baskets on there heads, naked children climbing trees, new plants, new faces. All this from a place I had been warned about, seen only negative publicity about. To me its was amazing. And I hadn't even been diving yet! Its under the sea where New Guinea shows its beauty. Glorious unheard of colours, the same colours that the umbrellas on the streets had promised. Creatures contrasting their environment, living in 'muck', grey silt, leaves and logs, fluorescent anemone's, red shrimp wearing purple gloves, the most vicious clown fish I've ever encounted, clear water where you could see to eternity. In a land that promised nothing, I found everything. These pictures show the colours and wonder that is Papua New Guinea.