Aspiring Photographer Deserves Scholarship

Sigma is holding a student scholarship contest… and I’m deviating from my normal “informative” posts to tell you about one of the students you should really, really, consider voting for.

Grace Clark is the daughter of Erin Clark (one of my photographer friends I’ve met through PPA). She’s in the running for the scholarship, but needs lots of votes to be considered as a finalist for Sigma’s $5,000 scholarship. You can either vote for Grace now, or keep reading, I’ll post another link at the end.

I would like to win this scholarship because it would fund my photography internship in Africa that I would really like to attend. The internship would be a great experience to help with my photography skills and would also look great on a college application. My main goal is to become a photographer for National Geographic, but I need tons of experience and have a lot to learn still. The internship would help me succeed in reaching my goals to become a professional photographer. — Grace Clark

Here’s one of Grace’s images. It was taken in Acireale, Italy. Technical specs: 1/80 sec, f/4.0, ISO 3200, 60mm focal length.

Grace’s comments about this image:

As the night got darker I used a longer shutter speed to let in as much light as possible to capture the natural beauty that the lights from the passing floats gave off. As we were walking, I noticed that the back of this float hit just right to cover the blankness of the street and to fill the photo to create an evenly balanced frame with the building and the Carnevale sign. I made a duplicate of this photo in a darker form and merged the two to create silhouettes of the people standing around and to highlight the sign, building, and float to bring your attention there instead of to the crowd.

To see more of Grace’s photographs, visit her page on the Sigma Scholarship site; remember to vote for her while you’re there!

The details from Sigma: Public voting will be open from Feb. 15, 2010 to April 15, 2010, and will determine the top three finalists for the Sigma Corporation of America Scholarship. A judging panel comprised of Sigma executives will then determine the final scholarship winner. The winner’s name will be announced on May 3, 2010.