Jessi's Travels Photographing the world, one country at a time.

My Photo scholarship 2011 entry

Worldwide | Tuesday, November 8, 2011 | flickr photos

People have lived in the fertile lands of Mesoamerica for thousands of years. But it is only in the last thousand or so, after the advent of agriculture, when people no longer had to spend all their resources on survival, that they began to settle down and build things to last: monuments to the everlasting, gods and the eternal spirits of their descendents on Earth. Yucatan, Mexico, boasts some impressive architecture, from the ruins of ancient Mayan temples to Spanish colonial towns with their old churches, which despite differences in form and function have interesting similarities.

I am fascinated by the way that different cultures develop the world around them. In the past three years, I have traveled in more than 13 different countries, including riding through the countryside of Cambodia, Thailand, and Mexico on a bicycle, to places where the locals have never seen, let alone spoken to, a white person before. For me, it is a never-ending quest both to absorb as much of this as I can and to capture as much as possible with my camera, to share these places and these experiences I am so blessed to have.

That was what sparked my interest in photography five years ago. I was living in Colorado at the time, and whenever I had the opportunity to get away for a few days, I would load up a backpack and lose myself in the most beautiful spots in the world, seeing things that few else will see, and no one quite the same way I did. I bought a camera so that I could attempt to share the magic of the world I see. Every time I pick up my camera, I see an opportunity to learn to take better pictures--I would relish this experience to learn from the best.