Orphans of Thailand

My Scholarship entry - Orphans of Thailand

Thailand | Monday, November 24, 2014 | 5 photos

To me, the best photos are like a poem. Or maybe like a few lines of a poem. They have a force and a weight beyond what they literally represent and they compel viewers to interpret – to make more of – the scene before them. It is this symbolic power that draws me to photos by others and that I want to capture in photos of my own.

I work professionally with words more than images – I am a travel editor – and I think that is why I find creating those photos such an enriching contrast to what I normally do. It is a bit like cooking (another activity I find enormously pleasurable): when I take photos, all sorts of different – I think more instinctual and sensual – faculties take over and I feel, as a consequence, a fuller human being.

The search for a good photo feels much like a hunt, so there is that thrilling element to it, too: an atavistic pursuit, the spear transformed into a DSLR – and you even get to hang the trophy on the wall.

Photography is a natural accompaniment to travel, something I perhaps naively still feel should broaden the mind. And having a camera to hand keeps your eyes scanning for travel's great reward: the drug of novelty.