Multikulti

My Scholarship entry - A 'place' I have visited

South Africa | Monday, January 14, 2013 | 5 photos

It was during my gap years in Europe, when I realised that I enjoy capturing fascinating places and faces on camera. However, what started off as a hobby, motivated by aesthetics, has turned into a study of balancing your eyes, head and heart.

2013 is my final year as a journalism student at Rhodes University and my second year of photojournalism. Ignorantly, I started off believing that my best work would be done at foreign locations. I believed that we become hardened to the beauty of our surroundings and that to see something with fresh eyes, we need to travel to new places. I have never been more wrong in my life.

2012 has taught me to look differently at the everyday things in places where I have lived for years. I have learnt that photography isn’t only a photograph, but all that leads up to that photograph which isn’t captured. I have learnt that taking a photo isn’t only a decisive moment of capturing detail, but also the detail’s meaning. If I have gained so much in only a year, how much more isn’t there to learn?

I love sharing stories, but it’s difficult to tell someone’s story for them. That is why I want to learn more; so that I can do others’ stories justice.