High School Dream

This is something very different from me.

      I've been thinking a lot recently about being more intentional with what I create, especially when it comes to my photographs. I want my work to revolve more around an ideas and concepts and plans than simply being spontaneous; I feel I've reached a point where my spontaneity just produces the same result every time, with little variation or improvement. I want my pictures to be worth more than that.

       The first photos I've taken in this mindset were something out of my comfort zone. I brought my camera to the homecoming football game with the idea of capturing part of a quintessential experience as a high schooler from my point of view, and my feelings for the project continued to become stronger as the overwhelming night wore on.

        Initially, I wanted to leave. I was cold and tired. This was my third high school football game (I only go to the homecoming games and this is my third year of high school), but my first where everyone in my circles was hammered out of their mind. I'm not a drinker, and while I leave the decision up to other people as to whether they want to do it themselves, being around hordes of intoxicated people makes me uncomfortable. I can never tell exactly what's going on or whether they're serious or not. It's overwhelming, and I'm just not used to it. But I stayed, for god knows what reason, and it was a rollercoaster.

        I had a strange experience in the bathroom. I had a short conversation with a group of drunk, popular (so to speak) girls who were comforting a crying friend. As the group left, one of the girls, who I'd barely spoken to before, stayed behind and started talking to me as she stood in the doorway of the cement bathroom. 

         She told me that she'd otherwise never tell me this, but wanted to say then that I should be proud of myself, proud of myself for my photography and for my instagram. Not even because of how many followers I have, because followers don't really matter in the end, she said, but because I just put myself out there and do what I want to. And despite the fact she was probably drunk off her ass, that was a strange, profound moment for me that elicited some tears in my eyes. It felt like the kind of thing that happens in books, like some weird metaphor. (ok, sue me for being cliché/cheesy/whatever). 

        I found people I could be with, some friends I really felt like myself around, and I'm so happy to have spent the evening with them. But boyfriend issues also managed to cast a shadow over the whole night and render me ill-tempered and worn down. I took to using photography as a release, and finished my objective of chronicling this overwhelming high school dream.

(Everything is alright now, and I'm elated I figured out how to do double exposures on my d7000!)