Maya Robinson’s Photography On Display at The Smithsonian

The National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian has 23 million visitors a year and more than a few will view the work of Bethel teen, Maya Robinson. One of her photographs was selected for the popular Nature’s Best Photography Windland Smith Rice International Awards Exhibition for 2007 which will be on display through next April.

"Photography is a potent medium for exploring the natural world and educating others about its wonders," explained the former Herald photographic intern when she traveled to Washington for the gala opening October 30.

Robinson’s landscape image of a Hill Of Tea was one of 60 selected out of 17,000 entries from 26 countries to document the beauty, variety, and importance of Earth’s wildlife and wild places. She took the image when she was a Rotary International exchange student in India during her junior year of high school.

The exhibit tag reads, "During my year as an exchange student in India, my limited Hindi-speaking abilities prompted me to find another way of expressing how I interpreted the colors, the sights and the landscapes of my host country. I found photography to be the perfect medium for sharing India with Indians and Americans alike. Photos of India often focus on poverty and desperation and eclipse the natural beauty that abounds on the subcontinent. This photo captures a range of greens from subdued to verdant. The landscape is not so different from the rolling hills surrounding my home in Vermont."

Robinson captured the quietly dramatic moment in the photo, but she acknowledges that she had a lot of support in developing the skills and acquiring opportunities before she pressed the shutter.

She was encouraged to pursue her interests in photography by Herald photographers Tim Calabro and Bob Eddy, when they mentored her as a high school intern for the paper. Her teachers at Whitcomb High School and Bethel Elementary helped develop a curiosity about the world and Bethel Rotary provided the opportunity to go on an international exchange.

Photography continues to be part of Maya’s life at Duke University where she is a freshman working as a photographer and photo editor for the daily paper The Chronicle. Her studies in college have been supported by the Tom Spater Scholarship Fund and the Gilman Foundation.

____________