Oct. 17, 2012 Dramatic Vatican Photo Wins First Prize
For senior Dylan King, timing was everything. On an evening last February while studying abroad in Rome, King stopped at the Vatican to take a few pictures with his girlfriend's camera. The light was just right; the night sky was stunning.King, an architecture major, submitted three of his pictures to the 2012 CUAbroad Photo Contest. "Vatican Sunset" - a shot of the building's dome against an orange and purple sky - was chosen as the first-place winner last month."I've taken pictures and kept them on my computer as a kind of timeline of the past few years of my life," says King, who spent the fall 2011 semester studying at Oxford University in the U.K. "It was humbling to receive such a nice award and to know that other people enjoy my work."For his winning photo, King received a Panasonic LUMIX DMC-FZ47 digital camera. Junior nursing major Meghan Twomey, who spent last spring in Australia, took second place for a photo titled "Secrets of the Sunrise" that was taken in New Zealand. Junior Chelsea Schoen, a double major in Spanish for international service and theology and religious studies, captured third place for a shot called "Mount Fitz Roy" taken in Argentina. Schoen studied in Buenos Aires last spring.Twomey won a Universal memory card reader; Schoen received a package that included a mix of different photography-related items including a photo album, a lens filter, and a flashlight.Sponsored by the CUAbroad program of the University's Center for Global Education, the contest drew 57 entries from students who had studied abroad during the 2011-2012 academic year in a range of countries that included Argentina, Croatia, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, Switzerland, and Thailand.The CUAbroad staff chose 20 finalists, whose photos were then displayed in the Edward J. Pryzbyla University Center Great Room during the 4th Annual CUA Education Abroad Fair on Sept. 13. Members of the CUA community who attended the fair voted for their favorites. The winners were announced a few days later.Ella Sweigert, director of education abroad, and Grace Schneider, education abroad adviser, organized and ran the contest."All of the photos were wonderful, but Dylan's was immediately recognizable and very striking," says Schneider. "The photo contest is a nice way to honor students' experience abroad and showcase the diversity of CUA education abroad locations," notes Tanith Fowler Corsi, assistant vice president for global education.The Education Abroad Fair is "a great venue" for displaying the photos because CUA is known in the education abroad field for hosting "an excellent fair" that attracts many CUA students and program providers, she adds.To view all the contest entries, visit http://cuabroad.cua.edu/events/fair/photo-contest.cfm .