My photo is of a babydoll head lamp in my room. I feel it exemplifies my interests and is taken in the style I really enjoy. I love vintage looking photos, old tintypes and medium format photos, which I would love to shoot (with) someday. That is also combined with my love for capturing the space around me. When I need a reframe or things just feel mundane, I like to view it through my camera, at different angles and through a different lens (no pun intended), to change my perspective or make things more interesting. I appreciate the little things in my space I may see all the time, but never really acknowledge, and I feel taking photos helps me do that. For me, art is a helpful form of processing my feelings or to find some joy in my life when I may not be experiencing it. I feel my camera gives me a voice, gives me new perspectives to view things through, and is a great outlet for my emotions. I love taking photos and I’m so lucky to have been able to continue that work but in a new format.

Life is complex. But it can be as simple as light and dark. Good and bad. Opposites – those are

the realities of our world. Contrast is beautiful. Imperfections are beautiful.

We laugh. We cry. People say their hi’s and goodbye’s. We're always learning. And failing.

That's just life.

I wanted to express complexity and contrast in my photo of a chandelier – except at a different

perspective, from underneath the light fixture. From that view, you can clearly see all the

intricate components of how the chandelier is built.

This photo goes to show how we might feel about life: how confusing or simple it may be to

each one of us. But forget that.

Let's have fun and enjoy life while we can :)

Parker, 14 years old. My photo is a double exposure of one of my friends and a photo I took on a walk not far from here with my class. The first image was taken in my school near a windowsill. But alone this image was boring so I decided to try double exposure and I really enjoyed the results. The second image was really me trying to get a good photo of the crow while on a walk. However my camera wouldn’t zoom further, but this picture ended up being perfect for layering. I’m still unsure what I wanted this to represent. It was really just me experimenting with darkroom photography having not done it before. I really enjoy experimenting with my art and my photos. I feel like that’s the best part of the process. The most fun part of photography art and overall life is experimenting, testing the waters, learning through life. That’s how I see it anyway.

Hello, im Sarai, this is my third class at youth in focus and my first darkroom class. Taking darkroom for the first time has been a completely different experience from digital. Throughout this class i’ve become more patient and forgiving with my work, and i’ve learned to work with with what I have. In my previous photography work, i’ve always focused on portraits of people because I like how you can capture someone’s essence. But in my work with darkroom, I realized that I take photos to humanize things (meaning making them more relatable and emotion holding). I hope you can see these themes i’ve put into my photos and that you can feel the emotion my images hold. :3

‍