Julija

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Julija was my wonderful and gracious host during my week in Latvia.
We met for the first time when I arrived, and I got connected with her in a sort of roundabout way. I was attending Hannah’s (my younger sister) boyfriend’s piano recital in the spring in Durham, NC, and after the concert I was telling his mother about my travels. When I mentioned that I would be in Lithuania and possibly Latvia, she said she had a friend I should meet. So I met Greg Taff, a grad student at UNC, who happened to be at the piano recital, and who had been doing research in Latvia on a Fulbright scholarship recently. We exchanged emails….then two weeks ago I emailed him and he gave me Julija’s email address. So that is how I met Julija.
Julija lives in Riga, Latvia. Of the many interesting things that she does, she is currently very involved in planning and preparing for the International Summer School of Photography that will take place in Eastern Latvia. The school will be the first of its kind in Latvia. There is not much opportunity in Latvia for individuals to explore photography and develop their skills. There are no university programs for photography, and only a handful of professional photographers in the country. Here’s the link to the website for the photo school, for those of you who are interested.

www.photoschool.lv

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