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Hello soon to be friends!

I´m a 21 years old girl from the northern part of Norway, where we are proud to show off magnificent mountains, ocean and nature. Now I live in the capital city, Oslo, but everyday I miss the mountains and the ocean. I´ve started studying photography for about three years ago, and since then I have just gotten more and more fascinated by this profession and lifestyle. I feel really privileged that I have the chance to meet new people and study environments throughout my cameralens.

I have not been travelling in Asia before, and this is also my first travel that will last over such a long time-period. I am really looking forward to visit and experience Bangladesh and the cultural differences, and to meet new and interesting people and share our views on photography.

During my stay i Bangladesh I hope to see as much as possible, but also to find good and exciting stories to document.

These are two of my ideas so far:

1. The faces of history in Chittagong Hill Tracts:

After reading a lot about CHT I´ve learned how the tribe-people, the Jummas, have been treated during the last century. Under the partition in 1947, the Jummas made up 98% of the population of the CHT. Present day, it´s barely 50%. Settlement programmes have forced the Jummas to give up their land, and religious persecution is also a fact. I want to go into the jungle and meet different tribes and people who can tell me their stories, and I want to see if there is still someone who is clearly marked by history.

2. The swatch of no ground

The bay of bengal is well know for it´s diversity of different cetaceans and they are occupying a quite small area. The Irrawaddy dolphin population in Bangladesh is one of the world´s largest dolphin population.

But the cetaceans suffers a lot of dangers and their future in the bay of bengal is uncertain. The most increasing threat is incidental killing in gill-net fisheries. depletion of prey due to a loss of fish, and to massive non-selective catch of fish. An additional threat is declining freshwater flows upstream abstraction and the compounding effects of the sea-level rise. Since fishing is such a important profession but also dangerous, there is now a great deal of focus on the safety of the fishermen, but also the cetaceans is prioritized. The Bangladesh Cetacean Diversity Project (BCDP), seeks to ensure the long term protection of cetacean and they are educating fishermen about the marine ecosystem. They are also recruiting students, and they work closely with universities

and the government. I wish to go to Khulna and see how BCDP work, and I want to document the diversity of cetaceans. If the threats in the bay of bengal, and the swatch of no ground is not reduced, the population of cetaceans can disappear.

http://shushuk.org/history.php

I really hope that this is ideas that some of you would like to work together with me on, and I would very much appreciate a travel partner.

Send me an email if you have any thoughts or tips.

Looking forward to meet you all.

Best regards,

Maria