Stories from Planet Earth One Planet. Many Species.

Pork-knockers in the backdam

Guyana | Friday, July 5, 2013 | 5 photos

My folks always said I never missed a beat. Indeed my brain exploded trying to take it all in. I recall pre-teen years devouring nature mags. In high school they called me Curnography (surname Curnow) for my obsession with all things geographic. My wanderlust emerged and it never subsided.

As the global village shrinks I believe it’s more important that we reconnect with what matters. From the day that I was old enough to inherit my Danish mother’s Voigtländer, my photography has always been as much about the letting go to understand another, as it is about my connection with others to gain glimpses into worlds that I might know.

In the way that my guitar playing and singer-song writing only improves when surrounded by people who challenge me, I anticipate this scholarship doing the same and pushing me to take my photographic journey’s great leap forward.

And while I love the fact that my photography, just like my music, has brought so much joy and insight to those I share it with, I know its impact can be greater still. Photos don’t change the world. But a conversation about them that leads to new intentions might. And this is where my photo-journalism might have its greatest power.