Gjirokastra, Albania

My Photo scholarship 2010 entry

Worldwide | Saturday, October 16, 2010 | 5 photos

I'm a nineteen year old Journalism student from Sydney with a passion for documenting the world around me through photography. A long trip through the road less travelled in central and south-eastern Europe last year further solidified this passion. I want to understand what it is I'm shooting and immerse myself in my surroundings, in what I'm doing. Both in my photography and in everything I do, whether at home or abroad. I believe everywhere and everyone has something meaningful to share.

The attached set was taken in Gjirokastra in the south of Albania. The eerie birthplace of former dictator Enver Hoxha is nestled in the foot of a mountain above a flowing river.
A short walk from the town centre, where the elderly seem to stand and swap jokes day all day, a largely resented Roma settlement stands over a hill. Just past the Roma shacks is the district of Lazerat, where, amongst vast plantations of commercially and illegally grown marijuana, people living in tin sheds stand incongruously alongside three-storey mansions with BMWs along the one paved road that snakes through Lazerat like the stray dogs that do the same. Albanians struck me as warm and inviting, the old happy to live the easygoing communist lifestyle they had until 1992 while the young dream of the day that Albania becomes part of the European Union so they can live and study in London, Berlin or Paris.

I'm deeply fascinated by the history and current social and political climate in Bhutan. To go to Bhutan would be an incredible opportunity to further develop my photography and to learn more about the variety of human life. Growing up in Sydney, even with open and encouraging parents and friends, isn't conducive to great cultural exploration but an opportunity like this certainly would.