Born With a Suitcase y travel these days is hit and miss due to my domestic responsibilities and my travel ethos has also changed over the years involving an increased level of creature comforts (i.e. taking the single supplement rather than the multiple one with resident rat

My Photo scholarship 2010 entry

Worldwide | Monday, August 23, 2010 | 5 photos

I am a mother of two primary school aged boys and married to a farmer. I have a part time job with the local Shire as a Finance Officer. It’s easy to stereotype someone like me but make no mistake, my aspirations reach far beyond our paddocks. My style is journalistic and I have a strong sense of social and environmental justice. Watching the emotional response from my friends and family gives me a wonderful sense of achievement from my travel images.

There are so many things I’d like to ask some one who is so experienced. Everything I know comes from magazines, books and Youtube. Living too far from a photographic club, I feel I could learn in one week from a mentor than what I could in a life time of reading magazines. Due to time constraints I struggle to fully engage with my subjects whether they be animal or human. Because of this my images lack a real wow factor. This opportunity would give me a chance “to smell the roses” with my photography and to reach a new level of image making.

After winning this scholarship I hope at most, National Geographic will consider me for future assignments. In the least, I know that having one-on-one mentoring will dramatically improve my images so that I can share them with a wider audience and maybe make a difference to other people’s lives.

My portfolio is of Phsar Leu, the biggest market place in Siem Reap, Cambodia. A hub of frenetic activity, it sells everything from motor bikes to severed pig’s heads covered in flies. Sights and smells contradict the western sense of what’s ‘normal’ and whilst shoved from pillar to post by this amazing cross section of humanity, I captured the unfolding drama.