A 'place' I Have Visited

My Scholarship entry - A 'place' I have visited

China | Monday, July 8, 2013 | 5 photos

In my life I have been blessed. I grew up in an upper middle class suburb of Milwaukee; the kind of place where people are happy and children protected from the realities of the outside world. There was no need to be conscious of the human struggle because it never seemed to be apart of my life—not until I visited China. On that trip, I visited factories and saw the very workers that manufactured the goods that made my lifestyle possible in the United States. For the first time in my life, not only was the human struggle right in front of me, but also I realized it had been present all along even if myself, and those around me chose to ignore it. The reality of the human condition – its hardships, its pain – exists regardless of whether we are looking or not. As a photographer and storyteller, my role is to be a catalyst of culture. I am not going to tell you what to think, or how to feel. I will, however, provoke thought and get people talking. The human experience is a narrative that doesn’t need any altering; it simply needs someone to preserve its authenticity. To do this, I need the support of National Geographic. Help me give a voice to this human experience.