Travel

MyTravelScholarship2010

Nepal | Wednesday, October 13, 2010 | 5 photos

When I took up photography two years ago, it was because a friend of mine said I needed a hobby.

What I thought would be an interesting habit, I later discovered was to become a way for me to express emotions I otherwise could not or did not want to -
until I discovered that I could capture that same emotion through a lense. And I began to understand what freedom meant.

That is why I love portraitures best. The expressions people wear are so beautiful, so telling, so naked in their sincerity. Though I have seen this over and over again in the many countries I have visited, each time I take a picture, I find a different message.

I visited Nepal in December 2009 because I was drawn to the spirituality of the nation and its people, the embodiment of the country's very soul. The picture of the old man with the cigarette is a reflection of the country's spirituality and poverty - the two factors that had me snapping more than 400 photographs on that trip.

With my photo-taking, I try and do justice to capture humanity in its many forms. But as a self-taught photographer, learning what I could about composition, exposure and other technical details from anything I could find on the Internet, I know that the missing piece is to study this art under an established expert who will guide my hand.

As I child, I had flipped through many of my father's National Geographic magazines, but it was Steve McCurry's 1984 "Afghan Girl" that I recall two decades later. That is what I want to do with my life. I hope, someday, to also be able to capture that one moment that could change the world.