Outback Desolation

My Photo scholarship 2010 entry

Worldwide | Tuesday, October 12, 2010 | flickr photos

Travel and photography are two of the foremost passions in my life. I majored in studio art with a thesis in photography, and also launched myself into the exploration of the world at the same time. I took every opportunity to study abroad, spent all my time off on independent solo travel, and received grants that took me hiking high into the Himalayas and down the Ganges. I graduated with an excellent academic track record and took one last travel fling, bumping across the rusty red Australian Outback in a four-wheel-drive and hitchhiking through New Zealand's glorious rugged scenery. Through it all, I carried my trusty camera and journal in order to record all the amazing experiences that I went through, both to cement them in my mind and to share them with others.

Nine months after my return and my entrance into the "real world", I feel the tug of the open road calling to me every day but the wanderlust I could once give myself up to so easily now seems unattainable in the face of bills, a 9-5 job and adult responsibility. These photos, taken in the rugged Outback, embody a time on the road and a love of continual exploration that I hope will not slip away from me. The Outback is a place that makes you feel minuscule in its grandeur and haunting, lonely beauty - an emotion that I know every time that I step on the road, forsaking comfort, relationships and the familiar to indulge my insatiable wanderlust.

This scholarship represents an invaluable opportunity for me to start out on a career that seems so difficult to break into otherwise. Nothing else that would be more fulfilling than to be able to live on the road, bringing people glimpses of worlds that would be unknown to them otherwise, and maybe inspiring them to step out and embrace a borderless world too.