Cliff Walker

My Scholarship entry - A 'place' I have visited

New Zealand | Tuesday, January 1, 2013 | flickr photos

I have been telling stories since I was five years old. Outlandish, crazy stories that seemed to come out of nowhere, stories that would defy belief and reality. For seventeen years the stories I tell haven't changed; but the ways I tell them have.

The stories I tell through words have always been my own, they are not subject to interpretation. But as soon as you bring photography into the story-telling process, the images you tell your stories with are not just yours anymore. They belong to the viewers as well, viewers with their own imaginations who can bring their own experiences and thoughts to your story, and it takes on a whole new meaning. To me, the excitement of photographic stories is the ability to leave your story open ended, but with enough hints to point your audience in the right direction.

I enjoy telling stories more than anything. They are a way of escape from a life of mundaneness, and in my opinion, photographers have the least mundane life of all. For them, the stories they tell are more real to them than real life, and that is what I want more than anything: a life of adventure and excitement, doing what I love.