Lingua Franca

International Photo Contest 2012

By Jon Aske, department of foreign languages

The department of foreign languages is celebrating this year the 8th edition of its International Photo Contest. From its inception in 2004, the purpose of the contest has been to celebrate and share foreign travel by members of the Salem State community, be they students, faculty, or staff. We ask for photos that Salem State community members have taken themselves during foreign travel of interesting and beautiful sights or people. We have not excluded pictures of domestic travel either, which sometimes has proven to be as exotic and interesting as pictures of foreign travel.

We are particularly pleased with the results of this year’s contest for two reasons. First of all because this time we have received more pictures than ever: 120 pictures, from over 60 different members of the Salem State community (there is a maximum of two entries per person and a few only sent us one picture). Secondly we are very excited that most of the pictures this year are from Salem State students.

Bird and dog at a fountain in Siena, Italy, by Daryl Popper

This year’s pictures transport us to many magical places, from California and Louisiana in the United States, to the Great Wall of China, the cliffs of Normandy, the coastline of Albania, or the beaches of Costa Rica. They also show us people from different countries, from happy boys smiling for the camera in Tanzania, to people exercising on the beach in Spain. Animals are another common theme: from camels in Jordan to grazing llamas in Peru. Several foreign students wanted to share pictures of their countries of origin with us, from pictures of China to one picture of an African village in Kenya.

Every year impartial judges consisting of volunteer students, staff and faculty have the difficult task of choosing 12 of the year’s entries to appear in a paper calendar for the academic year published by the department. The choice is never easy, but this year it was even harder, due to the large number (and the high quality) of entries.

In the past we have always asked contest winners to share with us a description of their pictures to give us an idea of why they took those pictures and what the pictures mean to them. This year we have encouraged all of our participants, and not just the winners of the contest, to share information about the pictures so as to better transport viewers to the place and time when the picture was taken and to better share the experience. You can read them on the contest’s web site: http://lrc.salemstate.edu/ipc.

The winners of this year’s contest are the following:

1. Arenal Volcano viewed from the town of La Fortuna, Costa Rica – Casandra DiFranza (social work, graduate)
2. Ascending to the crater of the Cotopaxi volcano at 19,347 feet – Tomas Cerveny, student (business administration)
3. Bird and dog at a fountain in Siena, Italy – Daryl Popper, student (hospitality & tourism, graduate)
4. Mount Damavand, the highest mountain and volcano in Iran – Shiva Dastjerdi, student (chemistry)
5. Doha Skyline and Islamic Museum of Art – Sarah Lopez, student (geography)
6. Flower and architecture, Huaqiao University, Quanzhou, China – Lin Wei, student (business)
7. Happy boys, Tanzania – Jessica Hammon, student (social work, graduate)
8. Iguazu panorama, Argentina – Richard Strager, faculty (foreign languages, adjunct)
9. Camp Liberty In Baghdad, Iraq (2010) – Andrea Miedzionoski, student (sms)
10. Old couple walking through a lemon grove, Sorrenty, Italy – Annjeannette Forward, student (geography)
11. Old stone lanterns outside a temple in Nara, Japan – Natalie Paine, student (technology in education, graduate)
12. Peruvian woman with child and sheep – Pat Cordeiro, faculty (sms, adjunct)

You can see these pictures as well as of this year’s entries, and all the entries from previous years, by going to the IPC page.

We encourage all members of the Salem State community, students, staff, and faculty, to share pictures of their travel experiences with us every spring. The deadline is usually around the middle of April.