Contest Entries

What started out as a way to observe the work of other artists, in my case, Irving Penn, slowly turned into the symbolism of life, death, and most importantly, growth. My image was created as a part of a photography assignment, to examine the work of other photographers, inferring the possible techniques they used and determining what made their image so captivating. I bought withering flowers and used a small whiteboard as my background. Laying in the corner of my living room, the light hitting perfectly from the window facing the backyard, I shifted in any position needed to prevent shadows. Using a digital camera, I took a few shots, uploaded my photos, and hit submit. 

 

A few months later, I realized why I was truly drawn to Penn’s work, why I replicated his work out of all the artists in the world, and why I genuinely loved doing it. Penn’s work, and now mine, illustrated an “in between.” It showed a flower, it’s outer petals slowly wilting away, but the center was still unfolding, yet to expose us to its beauty. Similarly, our generation was forced to grow a lot sooner than expected. The pandemic, bringing themes of illness, fear of the unknown, and loneliness required a sense of gravity itself, and so did many other historical moments that overlapped. Events such as police brutality against people of color or the raid on Capitol Hill are a few examples. 

 

At the same time, we were and still are only kids. We have so much that we have not gone through yet, not only physically but emotionally as well. We still have much to learn about, mistakes to make, and spontaneous actions to commit. We still care about our friends deeply, desperate to spend any spare moment with them and fight with our families yet can only go to them for comfort. Although we’re grateful to be in person and most definitely would never like to do “zoom-school” again, we dread waking up in the morning and getting through our classes. 

 

Essentially, we’re stuck. We’re stuck between childish behavior and carelessness along with stupid and seemingly dramtic incidents yet to come our way and the maturity and wisdom that we obtained. We’re ready to be free and impulsive but at the same time prepared to apply our newly gained knowledge and ideas to our lives and the world.