Travel Photography Scholarship 2018
Meet the winner.
Aspiring travel photographers, thank you for sharing your incredible stories again with us this year.
Through your photos the judging panel experienced more unique people and places than a lifetime of travel can account for. We were taken from a game of Xiangqi in Beijing, to the Alps for a lesson in cheesemaking, to hunting for water in the Colombian desert, to name only a few.
Each of you have a unique view of the world to share and we've seen so much potential in your photography and storytelling abilities. Many of you have only just cracked the surface of what you can achieve and we can't wait to see what you do next.
The judges had no easy task of picking just one winner from the thousands of applications we received. In the end, this scholarship is not given based solely on the photos. We look for an aspiring photographer who shows both talent and the desire to follow the path of travel photography in future, and who will ultimately benefit the most from the mentorship opportunity.
Please join us in congratulating our 2018 winner and shortlisted applicants.
In partnership with:
The winner
Congratulations to James Griesedieck (USA).
"Congratulations to our winner, James Griesedieck, for his series The Chosen Path. His images capture the essence of the celebrations at Lalibela, Ethiopia, on Christmas Day, resulting in a tightly presented submission with a clear theme. By varying his viewpoint and subjects he has presented key moments of the day, revealing the various moods, participants and locations. The challenging light conditions have been well handled and add to the evocative nature of the story."
2018 Travel Photography Scholarship Mentor
The shortlist
Congratulations to the following shortlisted applicants.
- Angelo Alberto Minacapelli
Across the Lands: A Chinese Story (China) - Bhishma Thapa
The Wild Hunters (Nepal) - Cristina Ananías
Athens Dimotiki Agora (Greece) - Edan Cohen
Cheesemakers of Jaman (Switzerland) - Eliah Walton
Sailing Under A Midnight Sun. (Norway) - Francesco Soave
Silent Heroes (Indonesia) - Gabriel Aldea Dávila
Estancia Morro Chico. Southern Patagonia's Sheep Farms (Chile) - Hanz Rippe Gabriel
Wayúu, People of the Desert (Colombia) - Jenny Warren
Raised for Meat, Raised for Manhood (Egypt) - Jesse Yang
Reclamation: Abandoned Desert Homes Swallowed by Sand (United Arab Emirates) - Joshua Saacks
Ethiopia 'Land of Origins' (Ethiopia)
- Karim El Maktafi
Fantasia (Morocco) - Kelsie Waller
Yūgen (Japan) - Kristyn Taylor
The Winter Migration of the Kazakh Eagle-Hunter. (Mongolia) - Lucas Guerra
Kamayurá’s Old Traditions (Brazil) - Marius Ionut Scarlat
Home (Romania) - Md. Redwan Ahmad Khan
An Overloaded Platform (Bangladesh) - Mili Paul
"The Dead River Full of Life" (India) - Natallia Butsnevich
Appearance and Traditional of Dagestan (Russia) - Nicolas Digard
A Festival on the Ice (Mongolia) - Sai Priya
Kusthi (India) - Satyaki Chakraborti
The Community Housing Blocks of Saigon (Vietnam) - Sonia Cacoilo
Xiangqi (China)
Richard's feedback
The 2018 World Nomad’s Travel Photography Scholarship attracted over 4000 submissions from aspiring photographers around the world. Once again proving that the combination of travel and photography is a truly motivating and highly desirable goal.
Thanks to my fellow judges Alison Wright (USA) and Jody MacDonald (USA) who came on board for the first time this year to assist with the judging and, in particular, the finalisation of the short list. Their years of experience and professional eye ensured that the entries were assessed with great care and much thought.
Thanks also to the team at World Nomads who work tirelessly to make the scholarship program so successful, and the judge’s job manageable.
Overall, I was most impressed with the standard of submissions, which of course makes the challenge of selecting just one winner especially difficult.
Everyone who entered is to be congratulated. The discipline imposed to identify and shoot, or curate previously captured images, into a visual narrative, is an important step on the path to creating consistently excellent photography. It trains the eye and teaches a process that can be applied whenever you want to share your images, whether you’re creating a photo book from a trip, posting on social media, presenting to a potential client or planning an exhibition.
For the scholarship it is very important to clearly identify what story you are trying to tell, and although I again stress that it is not a pure photography competition, the strongest entries included five distinct images that worked together to tell the story. The most consistent weakness in the submissions was the inclusion of two or more images that were essentially the same, presenting too similar a take on the same subject.
I’m very much looking forward to the Morocco trip with James and sharing my views on the art of travel photography. I haven’t been to Morocco since my very first overseas trip in 1986, so it will have the sense of a new destination. I’m excited to help James produce consistently good images at new destinations through sharing my experience as a traveller and a photographer, in whatever time we have and in whatever conditions we encounter. As is typical of my trips we’ll be covering a lot of ground in a short space of time, so it will be an intense and exciting assignment, offering a great range of photo opportunities. Can’t wait!
Travel Photography Scholarship Mentor
Due to the sheer amount of applications we receive for our scholarships, we do not provide individual feedback. If you would like to improve your photography in time for your next trip, please make sure to sign up for Richard I'Anson’s Beginner’s Guide to Photographing Festivals.
