When Minn Htet Khine and Alexandra Vanderschelden aren’t helping businesses invest in Myanmar at their day jobs, they use the art of photography to get the rest of us to fall in love with Yangon.
The pair started the Instagram account @yangonoftheday about a year ago, and since then, they’ve published over 300 photos taken by professional and amateur photographers in Myanmar’s largest city to highlight its most beautiful moments.
Each day, one of the two select and publish one photo that captures a part of the city’s soul. These include photos of sporting events, skylines, sunsets, festivals and quiet moments at a local tea shop.
“We believe that if people fall in love with the city they live in, they will come to respect and take care of it,” said Vanderschelden at the Yangon of the Day exhibition, which displayed the winning photos at the Nawaday Tharlar Gallery on December 10 and 11.
The exhibition displayed hundreds of framed photos of Yangon covering three walls and, according to Vanderschelden, sold almost all of them.
The proceeds went toward Trash Hero Myanmar, an organization that invites Yangon residents to come together and clean up rubbish in public spaces. January’s clean-up event will be funded in part by sales of Yangon of the Day photos.
“This is another way we hope to get people to value and take care of this city,” said Minn Htet Khine.
The Instagram initiative also aims to encourage photography in Yangon, especially at a time when smart phones equip almost everyone to participate.
To submit photos, photographers of all skill levels can use the tag #yangonoftheday to be considered.
The selections are often topical, like the one of a carnival ride during the Thadingyut festival. Others are published to reveal scenes of Yangon that followers may not have a chance to see otherwise, like those taken at the abandoned amusement park just south of the Zoological Garden.
“We try to mention where each photo was taken so that viewers can see the places for themselves,” said Vanderschelden.
Yangon is full of untold histories and unsolved mysteries, and this Instagram account will help you learn how this makes the city so special.
Give @yangonoftheday a follow and gain one more reason to love this city every day.
