Voyages and Beginnings
Beginnings and Voyages invites students to focus on process, curiosity, and exploration. Rooted in the idea that the journey is more meaningful than the destination, students are using analog and digital photography to capture moments of growth, discovery, and change within their teenage lives.
Through experimentation in the darkroom and Photoshop, students are creating personal stories about Los Angeles and community, recognizing that life — and art — is built through small but meaningful moments along the way.
The work of our guest artists, Mackenzie Calle and Genesis Baez exemplifies the power of personal narrative in photography, creating images that speak to viewers while conveying layered personal stories and emotions.
AJ
My final project is about sports photography, but not just the normal action shots people usually see. I wanted to focus on close-up photos of athletes to show their emotion, pressure, and determination in ways people might miss during a game. By getting closer to my subjects, I was able to capture facial expressions and small details that show what sports really feel like.
I also used double exposure to make my photos more creative and meaningful. This helped me combine action with emotion to show both the physical and mental side of sports. Through this project, I wanted to show that sports are about more than just winning or losing. They are also about passion, hard work, and the personal moments that often go unseen.
Harry
In this project, I explored the ideas of community and family while living in the United States without my parents. I wanted to show what it feels like to move between different communities but never fully feeling like I belong to either one. I also explored the impact of being separated from my parents, and how that distance affects my sense of identity. Although my family appears in some of the photos, these images represent both connection and absence at the same time. I wanted to show that while my family can still provide a sense of identity, reminding me of who I am, that connection can also feel distant and difficult sometimes, especially because of their absence in my everyday life.
I also included landscapes of Hong Kong to connect the project to the community where I grew up. These images represent memory and familiarity. I included them to show the contrast between my past and present life. I wanted to capture my own feeling of living between two worlds while searching for belonging and identity within both through this project.
Nico
I wanted to use different photo techniques to talk about ICE and how it effected people of color. I tried self portraits, black and white film photography in a studio, double exposures and making portraits of people who resemble those who have been racial profiled by ICE.
Kasra
This series is about my family and Persian culture. The goal is to explain my relationships with different members of my family, as well as my adoption of both Iranian and American culture, in a world ridden by conflict and war between the two countries' governments. I shot in black and white in-camera for both my digital work and analog photography. I approached the project so a diverse group of viewers might see something of themselves or find “space” in the series regardless of their ethnicity or social status
I love all the images here equally, as they each serve a different purpose in communicating the message of this series.
Henry
I took cameras on a journey to show the landscapes I am part of : Los Angeles , School and my past neighborhood destroyed by fire.I also included landscapes of Hong Kong to connect the project to the community where I grew up. These images represent memory and familiarity. I included them to show the contrast between my past and present life. I wanted to capture my own feeling of living between two worlds while searching for belonging and identity within both through this project.
Woorin
Inspired by the idea of the red string theory—often used to symbolize unseen emotional ties—I developed this project as a way to understand my father. His childhood lacked the stability and affection needed to learn how to express love, creating an emotional imbalance that shaped our relationship.
This absence is explored through family archives, as well as through symbols I created both in the studio and within my home. Growing up, I struggled to make sense of my connection with him; his love felt unfamiliar, especially in contrast to my mother’s.
Over time, however, I began to recognize the sacrifices he made and the quieter, less visible ways he showed care. These experimental photographs reflect that complexity, tracing both the distance I once felt and the deeper understanding I continue to build
