The End…

I have lived in New Jersey, my whole life. While growing up and going to school, I didn’t have many close friends, but during my senior year in high school, I built up the reputation that I was a crazy person who would go anywhere and do anything. My friends and I would visit abandoned buildings and the city, just because. Once I graduated high school and went to college, all of that disappeared. Everyone left or moved on, and I was left in a state of depression, where I was constantly reminiscing about the past, but also always focused on the future, never satisfied with the present.
This is a feeling that I thought I was dealing with by myself, but this is something that millions of people go through. New Jersey was ranked #1 for Mental Illness and even though we have the best pizza, bagels, and Wawa, not everything is what it seems.
For this project, I went out into Jersey with the desire to capture its essence, but also contrast it with surreal scenes. I included the use of a Polaroid camera because with that medium I’m able to capture special moments. This collection of images is an expression of how I view the world, the people it includes, and places that once had meaning to me.

I had so much fun with this project. Just being able to go out and shoot something that mattered to me, while being constantly challenged at the same time is an experience I couldn't have gotten on my own. I loved the course, the professor, and my classmates!!!