World Nomads' Travel Photography Scholarship 2013

Photo © Divya Agrawal-All Rights Reserved

Following my earlier posts which are essentially critical of photography contests, I stumbled on World Nomads' Travel Photography Scholarship 2013 announcing the first place winner as being Divya Agrawal with her photo essay titled Dotma: In The House I Can Live.

Now, this is a different breed of photo contest from those we usually see, and some of you actually participate in.

This photo contest/scholarship is sponsored by WorldNomads.com and National Geographic Channel, and it's giving one aspiring photographer the opportunity to accompany a National Geographic photographer, Jason Edwards, on assignment in Greenland for 10 days. The original invitation to participate is here. 

Although World Nomads is a travel insurance company, and could certainly use all or some of the submissions for promotion purposes, the contest/scholarship was open for non-professionals only, and requires no entry fees. However, there some other terms regarding the usage of the images made during the assignment that are not totally altruistic. 

That said, I think these terms are reasonably fair since the winner will be traveling to Greenland, and will be mentored during that time, for free.

Another reason I am posting about this Travel Photography Scholarship is that Mohit Gupta, a good friend from New Delhi and an attendee of my multimedia class at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop, has earned fifth place in the contest/scholarship, with his lovely The Art of Pigeon Racing.

The whole photo essay can be viewed on Galli Magazine, with the title of Winged Legacy of Old Delhi, which depicts the art of pigeon combat (known as kaboortarbazi) as practiced on the roofs of this old city. Mohit tells us that his photo essays made in Old Delhi are inspired by William Dalrymple's City of Djinn. Many of us feel the same. 

Photo © Mohit Gupta-All Rights Reserved