
RMOWP’s 2017 scholarship winner, Heather Androwick of West Chester, Pennsylvania, is having a busy year at college, and has shared some of her favorite photos from one of her assignments.

In this exercise, she was instructed to go to an unfamiliar location with her camera. Her instructions: “The clock starts running when you make your first shot. You can drive to the location, but I want you to park and explore on foot for the 3-hour duration. Just you and your camera (and a pad and pen for notes). Don’t take breaks… just pursue things to photograph and keep your concentration strongly directed to potential shots. This is a quest of sorts – it’s as much an exercise in mindfulness as it is an exercise in photography.”
Ms. Androwick says she was allowed to shoot only 27 frames in the three hours, and was not permitted to delete any shots. The instructor said students should fully consider every image, adding, “think about your subject, think about the light, think about framing, and think about your exposure settings before you shoot.” All images were shot in manual mode and submitted as RAW files.

Majoring in fine arts with a concentration in photography, Ms. Androwick is in her senior year at Kutztown University in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. There were just over 50 applications for the $2,000 scholarship this year, according to scholarship chair Clare Gutierrez. Application deadline for the scholarship is May 30 each year.