Choose your own adventure Footprints behind you

My Scholarship entry - A 'place' I have visited

Tanzania | Monday, January 14, 2013 | 4 photos

I was once a cynic of travel photography. Too conscious of the propensity for clichés, generalisations and voyeurism, I put my camera away and attempted to soak in experiences without a viewfinder.
This changed after I studied journalism at University and began to appreciate the power of the still image. From the Vietnam War to famine in Sudan, there have been certain photographs that have become iconic, even changed the course of history. Often these images could tell a story in a single frame. They haunted us.

I started to take photographs again. It became clear to me that beyond the documentary function of travel photography, there is a power within the still image. A power that can shock, inform and even change opinions. I began to see the capacity for illumination rather than invasion.

A snapshot holds our attention in a way that other forms of media simply cannot. Photography is a universal language and I would love the opportunity to learn how to speak it fluently. To show rather than to tell.