Sara O'Brien Callow | The Yangon Loop

Photo © Sara O'Brien Callow-All Rights Reserved

One of my regrets while photographing in Myanmar (twice!) some 10 years ago was missing the Yangon Circular Railway. It's a local commuter rail network that extends for about 30 miles with 39 stations. It has about 200 coaches, runs 20 times and sells 100,000 to 150,000 tickets daily. It takes some three hours to complete, and is a great way to see a cross section of life in Yangon.

The cost of a ticket is the equivalent of $0.09 for the Burmese, and $1.00 for foreigners, regardless of the length of the journey

Like Sara's above photograph and the rest of her photo essay The Yangon Loop, it provides photographers a wonderful opportunity to visually capture the people of Yangon....chatting, sleeping, selling vegetables and tea...etc.

A Foundry Photojournalism Workshop alum, Sara O'Brien Callow started out her photography career in 2011 when working at an Elephant Park in Northern Thailand. It wasn't long before she dedicated herself to documentary photography. Currently based in Melbourne, she has numerous projects in development as well as focusing on the completion of her tertiary studies. 

Also take a look at Sara's Project Grey, which she began during her time at the Elephant Park in 2011 and has been developed further in 2013 with plans to continue in early 2015. It's probably the project closest to her heart.

Sara has taken part in numerous workshops under the guidance of; Andrea Bruce, James Whitlow Delano, Les Walking, Maggie Steber, Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb.