Most Transporting Photo Contest: recent entries

The Most Transporting Photo Contest is off to a great start!

So far, a diverse group of WereYouThere members has uploaded a range of photos documenting meaningful moments in places like Africa, China and even the Arctic!

Here are a few thumbnails of entries we’ve received in recent few days; to see larger, hi-res versions, click the descriptions below each photo.  If you like,  read all of the contest entries at once.

The photo contest is accepting entries through March 14, so you have plenty of time to sort through your hard drives, digital cameras and photo albums to find a picture that tells a story. Enter as many times as you like! (Official rules are here.)

If you have a favorite photo, please share it with our community and enter our contest; in the meantime, feast your eyes on these:

Giving Gifts

The Arctic

Mother and Child

Giving Gifts: “Whenever I take a trip to a foreign country, I bring gifts of some little balls. It makes the children and their parents smile…and gives me the opportunity to take some of my favorite pictures.”

The Arctic: “Twenty-four hour daylight meant it was hard for me to tear myself away from the amazing views. I turned to a fellow passenger one day and said, “have we died and gone to heaven?” We both just stood I silence, it was truly humbling.

Mother and Child: “Walking down an Indian street it is like entering a new dimension…”

Enter the Most Transporting Photo Contest

Upload your photo and enter to win an iPod Nano!

Where have you been, what did you see and how did it change you?

Taking a camera on your travels can be a tricky proposition. I’ve experienced many amazing moments on a journey that I deliberately chose NOT to photograph; a sunset on the South China Sea, the vaulted interior of a hushed Barcelona cathedral, a 10,000 year-old ruin on the Deccan Plains.

For me, some images are just too huge for a camera to capture.

Luckily, there have been many instances in which everything just came together; I took a step back, my hand raised the camera almost automatically, and CLICK!  I preserved something unique — not always a defining moment, but definitely a memory.

WereYouThere wants your Most Transporting Travel Photos for our first contest!  Through March 14, 2010, we’re asking visitors to share travel photos that tell amazing stories.  At the end of the contest, we’ll select four winners who will each a receive an Apple iPod Nano.

Full contest rules are here.

If you have incredible photos gathering dust in an album or stashed on your hard drive, this is a great opportunity to share them with a receptive audience.

Enter WereYouThere’s Most Transporting Travel Photo Contest today!

Advice for ArmyMom?

The emotional impact of having a loved one in harm’s way can’t be underestimated. The spouses, children and parents of soldiers on active duty live with uncertainty 24/7, but at least no one needs to wait weeks for messages to be sent back and forth. Today, a soldier’s day can include a firefight with insurgents and a phone call back home at dinnertime.

Which brings us to a recent post by ArmyMom in WereYouThere’s OurKive:

My son tries to call everyday. Many times when he has called I know his FOB [Forward Operating Base] has been under fire for days. He is stressed and I can hear it. He has lost friends, many friends to IEDs and snipers.. Help me know what to say. I know he wants to talk but he can’t.

I talk about family brothers sisters…is there something I should be saying? I love you is a given…..He is a medic as well so he deals with some really really stressful situations. It is so hard to know what to say.

If you have any suggestions for ArmyMom, log in to WereYouThere and respond to her message.

Help Haiti.

You don’t need to make a major donation to help people who’ve been directly affected by the earthquake that devastated Haiti on January 12. Every little bit helps.

Earlier today, I gave to Yéle Haiti, a foundation that supports cultural and environmental programs — they’ve mobilized and are providing emergency services right now.  Just text “YELE” to 501501 to donate $5.  As I understand it, you may do this up to six times and the donations are added to your cell phone bill.

By no means is this list complete, so if you know of organizations that can help Haitians through this critical time, please add them in the comments.

The Red Cross

Doctors Without Borders

UNICEF

If you or anyone you know is trying to reach family members in Haiti, please visit Family Links, a service of  the International Red Cross Committee.

Thanks for reading.

Wishing you were here… right now!

As I post this, a good friend who lives in Europe is on vacation in Africa.  I know this because my Facebook home page updates once or twice each day with photos and text of Julie being kissed by a giraffe, greeting smiling children in a small school or enjoying a new and exotic dish with friends.

She’s one of the most experienced and independent travelers I know; since we were in college, her work, career and life have brought her to every continent except Antarctica.  The daily updates are quite a contrast to years past, when Julie would return to her hostel or hotel room after a long day with a stack of postcards and a ballpoint pen.  On more than one occasion, she’d arrive home from a trip before her postcards even reached their destinations.

Setting aside my dangling preposition, what’s the most exotic location you’ve ever sent a postcard from?  I’ve scribbled notes from Angkor Wat in Cambodia after a day spent scrabbling over stone ruins; I once used postcards as a distraction from seasickness encountered off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.  If you’ve written family and friends from far-off lands, take a moment to post your story in the Places category of WereYouThere’s OurKive.

Stories wanted: Journalists

In the early 1990s, I wanted to be a journalist — a paid reporter who gathered data and synthesized it into useful information that would be consumed by a large audience.  I had some small success, but by and large, the industry was shrinking.

Living inside the Washington, D.C. beltway, I had a close-up view of the changes:  low entry salaries, more intern slots, the first layoffs in memory.  When United Press International closed its bureaus and laid off almost all of its veterans (nixing pensions and benefits), I reassessed my options and started producing online content instead.  No regrets.

As a news consumer, my habits have changed drastically in the last 15 years.  I can’t remember the last time I held a hard copy of a newspaper, even to read the comics.  When a telemarketer called last year to offer me home delivery, I explained that I (and everyone I know) now reads their news online.  “Maybe you could get it for a neighbor?” he suggested.  No sale.

The rapid upheavals are almost predictable, but I was shocked when I learned that the trade journal Editor & Publisher was being shut down after a run of 108 years.  And how did I learn of this latest reversal for the newspaper industry?

Via a message on Twitter posted by Greg Mitchell, E&P’s former editor-in-chief!

WereYouThere is comprised of personal stories, so I’m inviting any journalists (past or present) who’d like to share their reflections about their livelihood to post their stories on our site.  Whether you worked as a general assignment reporter, in Ad Sales or filing in the morgue, we’re extremely interested in hearing about your experience in the Fourth Estate.

The Organizations section of our OurKive is a good place to share stories about a specific paper, but please feel free to select an OurKive category that’s the best match for your entry.

Remembering the Cold War

It’s strange to think that until the mid-1990s, the world was locked in an existential battle that lasted more than six decades.

Growing up in the seventies and eighties, I read Helen Caldicott’s Nuclear Madness in junior high the same month that the TV movie “The Day After” aired.  For weeks, I was haunted by the notion that an international dispute — or worse, a misunderstanding — could cause a global nuclear war.

I spoke to my aunt about it back then; with a grim smile, she told me about the “Duck and Cover” cartoons that she saw in school when she was my age.  “The idea that our desks would protect us from H-bombs struck me as silly,” she said.  “But I guess they had to give us some sort of story.  People need stories to feel safe.”

We’re not out of the woods when it comes to nuclear weapons.  According to the Federation of American Scientists, there are 23,375 nuclear warheads around the world in nine countries.  Hopefully, with communication that blankets the world at the speed of light, the likelihood of a conflict (or confusion) leading to the end of human life is less likely.

Do you remember living with the threat of annihilation?  How strange was it to go about your life knowing that “they” might drop the bomb at any moment?  If you have specific memories about the Cold War that you’d like to share with others, please share them on WereYouThere!

The Day After, November 1983

Duck and Cover Defense Film, 1951

From the OurKive: Halloween in Fallujah

Some of the stories submitted to WereYouThere’s OurKive must be read to be fully appreciated; Halloween in Fallujah is one of those stories.

Regardless of your personal feelings about the war in Iraq, you can’t deny that the enlisted men and women who’ve volunteered to serve are incredibly brave. As of this posting, there have been 4,371 US military deaths in Iraq; 31,557 have been wounded.

Just numbers? Pause for a moment to imagine the impact on those directly affected. Now, take a step back and widen your frame to include their spouses, children and families. Another step back to include their friends, and one more to include co-workers and employers. Got the picture?

No, we don’t. None of us has the full picture on our own — it’s one of the essential aspects of human consciousness. We’re all connected, but each of us has only a small window on the world. With the advent of the Internet, soldier’s stories can reach more people in a shorter time than ever before. Letters from the front once took months to make it home, but no longer.

10/31/03: I appreciated the glow of the two red flares in the distance for a fraction of a second before all hell broke loose. Popp shhhhhhhuuuuu bammm, it was the sound of an RPG crashing into a wall. Incoming heavy machine gun fire was coming from one direction and small arms fire from another. It was apparent we were getting attacked from three sides, our side being the exception. Time was accelerated. Zero to one hundred in one second. After the first second, the rest of our guys opened up. This made the exchange three times as loud. The sky looked like a scene out of Star Wars. My Platoon Sgt. Screamed to my squad leader, “Let’s go!” I took this as an invitation to run behind them, not liking the idea of getting shot at from my back. “Crack, crack, crack,” flying lead way too close. A blink later, a giant orange fireball screamed ten feet over our heads. Lucky for us, it was fired from a lower position. The scene was complete chaos.

Read about what it was like to be in a firefight in Fallujah on Halloween in 2003.

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What would history be like if the Internet had always existed?

5/12/44: “Sorry I was cut off on Skype last night, but there was heavy shelling near our position outside Naples. Can you believe what Ike is telling people? That slapping incident with the soldier in the hospital is being totally blown out of proportion! You know how rumors spread online!” georgespatton@army.gov.mil

2/13/62: “Can’t sleep; mind keeps turning to White House tour on TV tomorrow night. Sorting through hatboxes now!” @FirstLadyJBK

2/10/90: “Leaving Robben Island in the morning for the first time in 18 years! Many adjustments ahead; Winnie sent over a Kindle to help me catch up with events. The U.S. state of Virginia has a black governor and there’s a McDonald’s in Moscow – truly, the world has changed.” nelsonmandela.wordpress.com

Thanks to the Web, our stories are more easily recorded and shared, which means history is being written (and rewritten) daily. Activists at protest rallies post Twitter updates while running from riot police; soldiers in Afghanistan update their Facebook status when they return from patrols, a tornado is uploaded to YouTube before it even stops spinning. We are more connected to each other than ever before, and as a result, our stories now travel farther than we do.

What stories do you have to share? Where have you been and what have you seen? How did you learn about 9/11, or the death of Princess Diana? Which incredible concert or NFL football game will you never forget? Your perspective on these amazing events, people and places helps others understand what it was like to experience the most memorable moments of our time.

Please support our mission of building a social archive that captures living history. Join WereYouThere today.

Wanted: Followers and Fans

We have a lot of wonderful content and features on WereYouThere.com, and we’re only adding more to the mix.

To keep up with changes, improvements — and some exciting giveaways and contests to come — join us on Facebook and Twitter:

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