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My Scholarship entry - A 'place' I have visited

Philippines | Monday, January 14, 2013 | 5 photos

I got into photography by accident. In college, I found out my "literature and film" class was actually opera, so I shifted into the only available elective -- photography.

Before this ‘mistake,’ I made sense of the world only through words. I’m a journalism major, and I knew how to write a story by talking to people and writing their words down. But telling a story visually was foreign to me.

Photography demanded me to pay attention: I had to see the world as it is and think about how to let the subject tell its story. That was what appealed to me; it opened a new way for me to do what I love doing in journalism.

To me, this travel photography scholarship is a chance to understand a different culture. I do not want to simply point my lens and shoot. I do not want to look at a foreign environment with an exploitative gaze. I want to understand, as best as I could, so I could tell a story as faithfully as possible.

As a journalist, I’m concerned about trying to change the way people view the things they don’t understand. Photos have the potential to move people beyond what words can inspire. The ultimate goal: that through prose and photography, I can help people understand.