Scenes from Laos

My Photo scholarship 2010 entry

Laos | Wednesday, October 13, 2010 | 5 photos

The first time I set foot in Laos I fell in love with the place. The images I've submitted attempt to share some of the reasons for this adoration. Remote temples, humble monks, hardworking locals, free-spirited kids, colorful outdoor markets, sparsely populated, wide-open mountains. The Lao and their country are incredibly beautiful, and they've been through an incredible amount of struggle, and continue to go through it. It's impossible not to admire their ability to live in the moment, with a million things they could be worrying about, but don't. I always liked to take photographs but it wasn't until I moved to Laos that I really began to love photography. To photograph a culture and people vastly different than my own was richly satisfying. And then to bring these photographs back to America and share them with people who had never been to the place taught me the power of photographs. Stories alone only partially transport the listener. But a photograph takes people there, faster than any plane. The photographer can make people care about a country they've never heard of and never seen before, just by showing a picture that captures them. What a wonderful tool. That is why I want to be chosen to go to Bhutan. I think I have an eye for capturing a scene with emotion but I have so much to learn about technique to improve my ability to take photographs that make people care. Working under Jason Edwards would give me the chance to learn the many skills I'm lacking. Particularly, working in Bhutan with Jason would be deeply meaningful to me. As a constantly growing Buddhist, the chance to work and travel in a country with such a long tradition so unspoilt by the western world plus a Gross National Happiness Measure would be positively and massively life changing.