View from the Ground

My Scholarship entry - Rodeo at the desert's edge

Australia | Monday, November 24, 2014 | 5 photos

Over the last few years, travelling in the footsteps of a photographer, my mind has opened to the meaning and potential of photography.

It's a responsibility that goes beyond perpetuating stereotypes and creating beautiful images painted with light. Photography is a modern, powerful answer to one of human's primal needs: to tell stories.

My biggest idols are Heinrich Harrer's Seven Years in Tibet, Robyn Davidson's Tracks, magazines such as National Geographic and organisations such as Amazon Watch. The documentary, Born into Brothels, also remains on my mind. The common thread, a desire to to promote justice and understanding through storytelling.

I have taught photography workshops with children in Nairobi, Kenya and Belen, in the Peruvian Amazon. I have felt the nerves taking a camera into Tibet, and photographing Al Qaeda protests in Istanbul. I have lived in Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory, and thought, this is nothing like we are taught.

The Human Condition is a worldwide documentary project I run with my partner.

The question is always, how do we make this clearer, more significant and more impactful.

I am seeking professional guidance and a mentor.