This photograph depicts the power of the eyes in expressing oneself. As an opera singer, my mentors trained me to use my face and my eyes to communicate my music. I became enthralled with communicating expressions and emotions through the eyes in all art, from music to 2D media. While capturing this photograph, I used a high aperture to draw the viewer’s attention to the clear focus on the iris. Furthermore, I edited this photograph to enhance the contrast between the vibrant colors of the girl’s eye and the muted colors around it. I used online editing tools to add red and green hues to her iris. This photograph has been used as an example for hundreds of AP Photography students in my school.

This photograph depicts the distortion of reality and stories. The title, Magic Mirror on the Wall, is a common example of the Mandela Effect, which describes the phenomenon in which people have false memories of a popular idea. I used a mirror to illustrate the soccer player’s own Mandela Effect. Although she remains clear, I edited her surroundings, and therefore her story, to be blurred and distorted. In my own life, I’ve often been perceived with distortions of my story and identity. As an Asian American Pacific Islander, the harmful Model Minority Myth caused many adults to ignore or belittle my struggles. I was forced to look after my little brother alone because we were rejected from education support programs despite my parent’s financial situation. While creating this photograph, I communicated the similar harm of distorting a person’s struggles.

I photographed a dandelion, called タンポポ (pronunciation: tan-po-po) in Japanese, to symbolize my childhood. As a first-generation Japanese-Taiwanese American whose family had immigrated to the United States alone, I often felt disconnected from my Japanese heritage. I gathered and dried simple flowers, such as dandelions and poppies, to send to my family in Japan. This dandelion growing alone in an empty parking lot captured my isolation from my culture in the United States. To create this photograph, I illuminated the dandelion with light to create the illusion of a glowing flower. This increased the contrast between the dandelion and its dark background to emphasize its isolation.

I photographed this self-portrait to illustrate the Impostor Syndrome I felt when I started speaking in government spaces. I used the photography technique of ghosting to capture the two different sides of me. On the left is the side of me that believed that I didn’t belong in political rooms. They rarely had other youth, leaders of color, or women to uplift me. On the right is the side of me that worked to assert myself and tell my stories to those who had never heard from diverse youth before.

I created this photograph in response to the rise in social justice protests for Black Lives Matter, Stop Asian Hate, and Fridays for Future during 2020. As an advocate who led many of these protests, I put up many flyers asking people to join our work. I believe that grassroots resistance from the community is the most powerful kind of activism. My photograph of the empty thumbtack on a telephone pole leaves space for another flyer to call for change. I also captured the back lighting of sun rays to illustrate the hope carried by protesters.

I photographed this self-portrait to represent the dimensional journey of my passion in STEM. My hands cover the background, showing only my face. This illustrates how my peers and teachers assumed that my excellence in STEM was purely based on my identity as an Asian American, a misconception fueled by the Model Minority Myth. However, my math work in the background illustrates the amount of effort I invested into my studies outside of school to achieve my STEM goals. The contrast between my dark hands covering my hard work and the brightness of the background demonstrates the difference between perception and reality.

This photograph illustrates the life of teenagers such as myself in the COVID-19 pandemic. I captured an array of colorful, bright lights to embody the vibrancy of the teenage years depicted in media and cultural expectations. Using a slow shutter speed, I blurred the lights in my piece to demonstrate how these teenage years passed right by us during the pandemic. My teacher has used this photograph as an example of abstract art to hundreds of art students at my school.

This photograph symbolizes the need for climate justice and sustainability. I captured this work while leading the creation of my school district’s first-ever climate justice and sustainability resolution. During this time, it became clear to me that many leaders weren’t convinced that climate change directly impacted humans. In this photograph, I wanted to communicate the message that nature supported human existence by placing a mirror behind the flower. This reflected its life source to the viewer and illustrated its connection to them. I also edited the photograph to colorize only the flower to capture the viewer’s attention. Through art pieces like Life Source, I aim to promote the message of social justice in beautiful and potent ways.