I wanted to create this nice purple lit photo that included the movement of water off of him so after trial and error I landed on using a color changing bulb. I also found that my subject rubbing his eyes in accident made the photo come out really well and added a nice feature to the photo more than what I can think the water could have accomplished. I then put my camera with a tripod standing up in the bathroom sink and faced it toward the shower and took the photo.

You cannot see yourself except for a reflection. To see another's reflection, is to see how they see themselves.

While walking in an outdoor mall, the noise of a piano grabbed my attention. The sound of the instrument was loud and empowering. The pianist moved his hands over the keys gracefully and confidently. Despite the grandiose music, a small audience was around the pianist. I thought he appeared lonely against the powerful sound of the music that surrounded him. I positioned my camera towards the pianist’s backside to capture the strong light that struck him and the piano. I wanted to capture the silhouette of the pianist and the piano while also ensuring that both were contrasted against the background through a strong highlight. The background that lies behind the pianist is desolate of a substantial listening crowd. I wanted to capture a lonely tone as the photo was being edited. The blues in the shadows and a slight orange color in the highlights were amplified to create a distinction between the darks and lights of the image. As the light hit the ground, I wanted to distinguish between the shadows casted by the pianist and the piano with the strong highlights made on the ground to dramatize his playing. The bright light that shines above the pianist is noticeable yet also discreet as its streak of light moves towards the pianist drawing him attention. A light that recognizes the playing of the pianist and provides him a deserved spotlight. The pianist’s back is hunched as he produces a powerful sound that masks him against the mundane, insubstantial audience.

This piece is about changing yourself in order to appear younger and therefore more beautiful. I did the model's makeup very dramatically in order to display the lengths someone would go to change their appearance, even if it meant losing themself. I had the model lay in a pool of water in order to show how desperate they are for the beauty that this fountain could supposedly give them, and how, even though they have already changed themself to meet their image of beauty, they still feel as if they are not enough. They are looking away from the pool as to not see their own reflection, because they know that no matter what they see, it will not be good enough.

When I was looking through my pictures, this photo it instantly stood out to me. I took this photo for an assignment about family and culture in black and white. I always felt like black and white had to have a melancholy feel to it until I took this picture. There was a big sense of emotion and chaos created by the movement and expression and the cat running away.

From the time I was little I loved drawing and taking photos on my mother’s phone. Once I got into high school, I had explored both sides of these different art styles, but it was not until I got into a graphic design class freshman year that I started to merge the two arts together. I began experimenting with self portraiture and drawing over my pictures in photoshop. This made me slowly develop my own personal style that I continue to pursue and change. I enjoy the process of changing the images with my drawings and seeing how the mood of the piece changes depending on the images around them. All of this led to this piece that I made during a time when death was really on my mind. This piece in some ways is my acceptance of death and how it can change my views on the world. In this image I confront death and my own relationship with it.

Shot on DJI Air 2s. I shot these photographs in East Palo Alto right next to Dumbarton Bridge. I believe that these photos show the hidden beauty of the world if one is willing to see it from a different perspective.

I wanted to capture a surreal atmosphere through experimenting with light and focus. The framing of the photograph was set up through an open doorframe to capture a candid and calm behind-the-scenes shot. Using a slow shutter speed and dim lighting, I achieved a ghosting effect through having the subjects move out of frame as the camera was taking the photo, making them partially transparent. I made this choice to give the photograph more of an ethereal atmosphere.

A double exposure, “Sunset on the City” is an image composed of two separate photos I captured while exploring the city. As I watched the light fade from the sky and the sun wash a golden glow over the city, I felt compelled to capture this beautiful moment, and compiled two separate photos to create this image.

Graveyard Shift is a diptych picture of two black and white images, that both contain elements of graffiti. Recently I have been drawn to graffiti and murals, and my goal has been to add to the artwork through other elements in the picture rather than taking a picture of the graffiti head-on. This goal inspired me to create a diptych so that I could relate two pictures together, and make each picture stronger by putting them next to another. When taking these pictures I wanted to capture the essence of graffiti and express an artist's state of mind. I also paid attention to the shape, and textures that surrounded the graffiti, but also to the contrast between the two pictures and the white-to-black ratio to balance the diptych. I am proud that I was able to add to the pictures and create a story by connecting them.

This image captures a solitary moment in the wake of crisis, but also hints at the first stirrings of renewal. San Francisco stands quiet, its rows of windows reflecting impassive skies. The fire escape extends downward, unused, and the building itself appears pristine and untouched—a shell rather than a home. For a time, San Francisco's spirit was dampened by disaster. Its neighborhoods fell silent as residents sheltered in place and its boulevards emptied when the twin engines of tourism and technology faltered. But this city has never been one to wallow; its glow has always come from within. A curtain flutters, a shadow passes by. Signs of life are beginning to wake in the slumbering giants. The stillness captured here is fleeting. San Francisco is gathering strength, ready to emerge and forge ahead once more. San Francisco's trajectory has never been linear. Its history is one of booms and busts, with innovation and resilience rising from the ashes again and again. We stand at an inflection point, a pause between what was and what will be. The stillness is pregnant with possibility. This city's resilience lies in its people, ever optimistic, relentlessly creative. United by hardship, San Franciscans will tap into their pioneering legacy to rebuild and reimagine a more vibrant, equitable future. This photograph captures a single downcast moment, but we know the fog will eventually lift to reveal the city's hills gilded once more by possibility and promise. San Francisco's story does not end here.

This photograph was taken on a rooftop in Rio de Janiero. There was a window that I used to reflect the night time scene to create this mirror image of the city lights.

This photograph shows a math teacher explaining a theorem to a student. The composition consists of rule of thirds to arrange the subjects and framing to create a triangle between the subjects and their hands. Retouching was later applied for vignetting, dodging and burning, reducing and applying noise, minor exposure correction, and removing distractions.

I signed up for a black and white film photography class. During the week long class, I was challenged to take three photos each day. It was a different theme each day, one being architecture. As I was walking in downtown San Francisco with my parents, I noticed this warped looking building and thought it would be an interesting shot. I couldn't understand how they built this building to look so twisted, almost like an intense game of Jenga. To get the perfect shot though, I had to stand on a bench and tilt my head back enough where I could get the full building in the shot. I'm so proud of how the final image turned out.

Billowing clouds after a storm turned pink by a sunset

I was going to the Tilden golf course and I just decided to take this picture when I told my dad to stop the car for a minute because it seemed cool with the lighting and moody.

I took this photograph with my camera while camping with my family in Salt Point State Park, located off the coastline in Northern California. One day, me and my parents went on a hike early in the morning and it was probably the most beautiful hike I've ever been on. The mist from the water was blowing in my face and the brightness of the flowers stunned my vision. When I took this photograph, I had ran through a path in the middle of a field of flowers with my brother. I was showing him how to take a good photograph and in the process I ended up taking the picture I'm submitting today. I'm really happy how it turned out, especially because of the image's tonality and contrast between the flowers and the grass and between the clouds and the sky.

This is one of the best photos I have ever taken. The photo consists of me standing in the shade of the tree leaves while the top half of my head is unshaded. I saw this tree while going for a hike and thought the shadow it created was beautiful. The picture itself felt a little distracting with the greens browns and yellows so I decided to make it black and white to put enfaces on the light and the shadows. I felt that the emotion of the photo really shines through how I wanted it too. The top of my head being lit while the bottom half is dark adds a lot of detail, but the dots going along my shirt really puts it above all of my other photos.

I took this picture in the process of making self portraits for my school project and it came out pretty well, having good contrast and being exactly what I wanted. I tried many different poses and faces, but this one was the best one to me as it seemed unique. I taped my fingers, because I thought it would represent pain or hurt, maybe to match with my expression, and I was also coming out of rowing practice, so I was trying to prevent calluses. I chose to put my hands over my eyes because I thought it would be an interesting expression and I chose to take this photo in the car, because I thought the the dim light of dusk in front of me mixed with the flash of the camera would create great light in a black and white photo, as the background of the car would dark, but I light be bright which would make a contrasty photo.

I made this image for a self portrait assignment in the photography class. As first really struggled to make an interesting image for this assignment, but after some self reflection, I was able to push myself pass surface level thinking. I began to think about what message I wanted to convey to the viewer in addition to thinking about composition, light, and color. At first I thought that this image didn’t qualify as a self portrait becuase my face was not in the image. But I then realized that my face not being in the image actually made the message more powerful. The main concept of this image is that your perception of yourself is often cloudy and not representative of how others see you. It was interesting being both the subject and artist because I had to focus on the composition of the image and also how my hand looked. My finger is positioned pointing accusatorially which shows the ineer turmoil that is represented in this image.