My friends and I went on a day trip to San Francisco, we ended up by the Battery Boutelle/Golden Gate Lookout. It was in the middle of the day and still quite cloudy so the light was quite uninteresting. We were trying to get down to the beach below but ended up walking through the bunkers on the way. While going through the bunkers we found this hallway and on the other side, there was a wall of graffiti. I figured this was my chance to get the best out of the light since the inside of the hallway was in the shadows and the graffiti was in the sun. This let me get a great deal of contrast in the photo. This showed me how you shouldn't wait for the perfect lighting conditions to go shoot as you will miss out on so many moments but try to adapt to it and become a better photographer.

I wanted to show the mess of life simplistically and thought a smart way to do this was with water droplets. The amount of them is distorting and that is the point. It has no focal point, but still the detail of being water droplets. I also made it black and white to highlight how simple but confusing the photo is. It shows my life and how distorted it can be. Photography has always shown how I am feeling and I believe that this photo shows my life through and through.

While watching a motorbiker performing outrageously risky stunts at my local county fair, I shot this photo on an iPhone 10. I was awed at how the man, unflinchingly launching himself and his motorcycle 30-some feet into the air, performing all manners of tricks, was unphased by the danger. Did he have that pit in his stomach? While we, as spectators, stared on, unable to tear our eyes away from him, he very much appeared to be soaring, free in his own way. But, I wondered, when he contorted to be upside down, staring straight at the hard ground below, how could he feel anything but like he was falling? I saw the worst-case scenarios in my mind’s eye. But as I watched him soar into the air time and time again, landing each time eager for more, I considered his bone-deep self-faith and trust in himself - his courage. It was admirable; he had the guts. It inspired me to find that sort of bravery in myself: yes, maybe he did feel like he was falling, but he reframed the moment to feel like he was soaring. After all, courage is a state of mind. I pushed the colors to a saturated point to mirror the biker’s boldness. The shot places the subject in the center of the frame before an uninteresting background, forcing the viewer to look only at the biker and consider the inherent risk, and evident courage, showcased in his position.