Set In Stone - The Contours of Agra Fort, India

My Photo Scholarship 2011 entry

India | Tuesday, November 8, 2011 | 5 photos

In 24 years, I have gained insight into what fascinates me: colour, contrast, whimsicality, multiplicity of meaning and forms of expression. Photography allows me all of these.

I believe that it is also representative of certain values. A picture is a portal, allowing the grounding of fleeting moments and refreshing of fragmented memories. Unlike a snapshot, it takes me not only to the place but to how I felt there. Thus, a photograph is also a narrative – one of confluence – where the photographer and the photographed meet, and the viewer is gifted eyes to see this wondrous, vast world with, and a heart to live a different story. Even the process is spiritual to me. In a world that discriminates along many ‘isms’, photography’s gaze is kind, with the most diverse definition of what is meaningful and visually appealing. Photography demands the Buddhist practice of mindfulness: complete consciousness of one’s environment. Acting from this state restores fresh perspective and fascination from habit and ennui; stimulates awareness of every scale of experience, from the placement of a hand, to the sunlight on trees; and necessitates far less post-processing.

These very beliefs about photography and the underlying spirit of love and faith in it that I carry into the field (work), I consider my value and my contribution. That my photographs symbolize these truths is what I strive towards, and to the extent that they do, is also my merit and my offering. Towards this end, I have the requisite thirst, focus, passion, instinct, integrity and gratitude, having previously exhibited these in my writing and my study of psychology. Thus, as an amateur photographer, I feel like damp but fertile soil, hoping to receive suitable instruction and molding, such that my dream of embodying (such) a professional travel photographer reaches fruition.