Exhibit shares photos from study abroad trips

Experiences abroad and creative talent came together Monday as students, alumni, faculty and staff displayed photos from their time around the globe.

The photos, submissions for the 10th annual International Photography Competition hosted by the Center for Global Initiatives, will be on display in the FedEx Global Education Center atrium until Jan. 4.

Winners spoke about their pieces at the reception Monday.

The winning pictures will be featured in the center’s 2010 calendar, and the photographers will be given the 20-by-30 inch print of their picture that is on display.

The calendars are expected to be available later this week.

Participants submitted pictures online and supplied the context of the photo in a few sentences.

A panel of five judges picked their favorites based on the picture quality, as well as the intrigue of the story behind it.

“This was sort of the anti-National Geographic competition,” said Niklaus Steiner, director of the center. “We looked for the commonality rather than the exotic in the pictures.”

The grand prize, 14 winner and 18 honorable mention photos were taken by people from a variety of majors, including journalism, geography and math.

“We want to encourage people in underrepresented majors to submit their photographs so others can realize they can study abroad too,” said Beth-Ann Kutchma, the senior program officer at the center.

Specifically, undergraduates majoring in science and math might not know about study abroad opportunities within their major.

The subjects of the photos, both their locations and the emotions they evoked, were as diverse as the people behind the lens.

Professor Afroz Taj was visiting family in India when he snapped a winning photograph of his hired car head-to-head with a bull cart in an alley.

“He was waiting for me to move, I was waiting for him to move, and that’s how time passes,” he said, speaking about the Indian traffic.

The grand prize photograph, taken by geography major Cameron Taylor, portrayed a Malawian bride dancing in her village’s wedding dress with a single, humble streamer decorating the patio.

On display to its right, philosophy major Bela Fishbeyn’s bleak and emotional picture featured an empty tunnel that Holocaust victims walked through on their way to execution.

“One of the things I love about a photograph is that you take a picture of something that’s really not beautiful and make it beautiful,” Fishbeyn said.



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