Foreign locales inspire brilliant photos

Author: Mike Murali

A picture is worth a thousand words. On Tuesday, Nov. 14th, students who studied abroad last year were judged on their artistic aptitude in the 10th Annual Study Abroad Photo Contest. Photos were displayed in the Juice Bar and for the rest of the week students were welcome to vote for their favorite photo.

The photos then travelled to Sunderland, where people could vote for their favorites over the rest of the week. Program Assistant at the Office of Off-Campus Study Christie Jones explained that the contest "celebrates and displays the wide variety of places [where] Middlebury students study abroad."

Each submission came from a student who studied abroad during the 2005-2006 academic year. The submitted photos featured a range of subjects including, according to Jones, "home stays, internships and vacations during program breaks, their classrooms in other countries as well as unique flora and fauna from the countries where they were living and studying." Each student could submit one photo in each of three categories: People, Places and Things. There were 312 submissions in total.

"People were able to submit one ballot (ballots with no name or ballots submitted twice were not counted) with their top choice in each category, Jones said. "The photo with the three highest vote totals won the grand prize, and then there was a first place in each category."

When the votes were tallied, the grand prize went to Laurie Griffin '07 for her submission, Penmanship. Taken in a small Tibetan village in Songpan, Sichuan, China, it depicts a young girl sneaking into her classroom to get a seat, with the previous day's penmanship lesson on the board. Griffin said of the photo, "The little girl caught my attention as she went into the room ­- She very calmly entered the room. I couldn't help but follow her in and see what she was up to. As soon as I realized what she was doing I took the picture as fast as possible so that she wouldn't realize I was there. When people in China realize you are taking a picture of them, they try to pose and you can never capture the true scene. I was very fortunate to catch her before she noticed me, because after that, she, like all of the other kids, wanted me to take another picture and show it to her on the digital screen."

In addition to the grand prize winner, the top three submissions in each category received prizes. For submissions under "People," these were, in order, "Staring at 'La Blanche'" by Emily Adler '08, "Man Praying Before Ganges" by Molly Bowman '07 and "Children of a Dusty Town" by Chris Heinrich '07. For "Places," the top three were "Cape Coast" by Sara Granstrom '07, "The Road to Baghdad" by Nura Suleiman '07 and "Journeying the Tomberg Hole" by Ed Len '07. Under "Things," they were "La Mano" by Sandy Sokoloski '07, "Lefkada" by Anna Murray '07 and "Coming Home Before Dark" by Josh Hendrickson '08.

Adler's photo was taken in the town of Dschang, Cameroon. It depicts several sets of eyes staring out of a hole in a rush covering, children fascinated with seeing a white person. Says Adler, "I chose the picture for exactly this reason: It was nothing extraordinary, and it was something I experienced daily." Granstrom's picture was also a shot depicting daily experience, though perhaps not her daily experience. It captured fishermen and fishing boats along the beach of Cape Coast, Ghana in the shadow of a former slave castle.

Len's picture proved to be somewhat more spur-of-the-moment, capturing a tourist in the Franz Joseph Glacier in New Zealand. Murray's picture was also taken by chance, showing a boat submerged in water on the quiet island of Lefkada in Greece, removed from the bustle of Athens.

Prizes for the contest came from numerous college organizations and businesses including the Office of Off-Campus Study, Milne Travel, the Middlebury College Store, the Language Schools, American Flatbread, Forth 'n Goal, Eat Good Food, the Center for the Arts, Bimini Bill's Salon, Mr. Up's and Lightning Photo.

Regardless of whether or not the contestants won prizes, each student who submitted a photo to the contest revealed a unique part of the country in which he studied. A different view of the world was captured through the eyes of a camera, and the ordinary was made extraordinary.