Study abroad photo contest names winners

Studying abroad can be a thrilling, perhaps even daunting, experience for students. It is one that requires them to be present and live in the moment. Sharon Chesney, the Assistant Director of the Office of Study Abroad, believes that students can do this while capturing their experiences on camera and film.

“I think [this] generation is in the moment and using technology and photography simultaneously,” Chesney said. “I don’t think they are mutually exclusive.”

With this in mind, Chesney and her colleagues created the bi-annual Study Abroad Photo Contest.

Now in its sixth year, the contest showcases the work of students who have photographed their experiences abroad over the course of a year, a semester or over Intersession. This year’s event, after being postponed due to weather, took place on March 10 in the Study Abroad Office.

The contest allowed students who studied abroad during the fall semester or during Intersession the opportunity to submit their photos online along with a description of their experiences.

The photos were then displayed at the event, and those who attended were given a ballot to select their top three favorite photos. According to Chesney, it was important that the contest not be “curated by a panel.” Instead, the winners should be selected by the student body. This seems appropriate given the spirit of the event.

The photos featured this year captured aspects of a range of programs and countries, including Spain, China, Italy, Japan, Bolivia and the Galapagos. Attendees marveled at the wide variety of images ranging from animated Galapagos wildlife and serene Vietnamese landscapes to photographs of crowded Toyko streets and traditional Florence waterways.

The diversity of the photos submitted to the contest is always impressive, and recently the manipulation of photos using digital software has added a new dimension to this variety.

There is no mandate that photos be journalistic. Students have recently been creating what Chesney noted to be “very creative, artistic manipulations with their photos.”

After the ballots collected on Tuesday evening were tallied, the results were finally revealed on Wednesday night. In first place was Eric Chen’s photo titled “Purification Fountain,” which depicts the sacred Japanese cleansing process of “harae.” Chen, who studied abroad as a part of the Hopkins Japan: Meiji to Manga program over Intersession, took the photo in Kyoto, Japan where he learned about Japanese culture.

“The fountain was definitely unique from any other fountain I’ve seen because there was a huge line of people waiting to get a sip of the water,” he wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “The legend is that if you drink the water, you’ll live seven years longer.”

Before snapping the photo, Chen also noted the different people he saw in line around him.

“It was interesting to see the variety of people in line,” he said. “You have those who are tourists who are just waiting on line to taste the water and then you have those who are devoutly religious who sincerely believe in the water’s powers.”

In second place was Sarah Manning, a sophomore Global Enivironmental Change and Sustainablity (GECS) and public health double major, who submitted an image of a Calico cat that wandered into her Ugandan homestay in her photo “Visitor in Mugongo.”

Manning, who participated in the Hopkins Uganda Intersession program, recalls the exact moment she captured the photo.

“I took the photo on one of our first full days in Uganda,” Manning wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “We went to an area just outside of Kampala and were eating lunch with a brass band that had just played for us, and those involved in the neighborhood.”

The photo itself reminds Manning of her overall experience abroad.

“Uganda has such a warm and kind community of people too, beyond being just an aesthetically beautiful place, and I remember that being the day where we really started to feel a sense of belonging as a group.”

“The cat kept coming into the room to see who the strangers were and what we were doing and I just happened to snap the picture at the perfect moment!” Manning wrote.

The photograph awarded third place was taken by Vikas Daggubati, a sophomore biophysics major and bioethics minor who participated in the Ecuador & Galapagos: Tropical Biology & Evolution Intersession program.

While abroad, Daggubati was able to explore the rich and diverse wildlife on the island. His unique photo, entitled “Baby’s Day Out,” features a close-up of a baby seal on the red beaches of the Galapagos Islands.

In addition to being an outlet for students to share their pictures and anecdotes with others, Chesney has seen the positive impact that the event has caused since its original inception six years ago.

“I think the primary benefit is bringing students who studied abroad together to talk [and] to process the extraordinary experiences they’ve had,” she said.

Interested students can view these unique travel photos and read student-written blogs including those of students who traveled to Madrid, Cape Town and Uganda on the Study Abroad Office’s website.

The Study Abroad Office hosts frequent photography events. For example, on March 11, they hosted a guided tour of the “In the Wake” photography exhibit, which is currently being displayed on Q Level in the MSE Library.