My favorite characteristic about art is the way it speaks for itself. As someone who has always found it mentally straining to express my creativity with words, I let visual arts do the speaking for me. Almost all of my art is centered around nature. My earliest work reflects my magnetism towards the natural world, I let the environment and my surroundings be the foundation of my inspiration. No matter what I was working on, the goal of my creations has always been to recreate how I saw the world– filled with magic. It seemed as if in every corner I looked there was life; from the fragile greenery peeking out of a crack in the concrete to the rare sight of a prancing deer, I adored observing it. I used to stare for an uncomfortable amount of time at my surroundings as if to ingrain them in my brain, so that I could later recreate that same image with my hands. When my hands did not serve my vision justice, I turned to photography. I believe that nature is the purest form of art, and through photography I am able to appreciate and capture a subject in all its effortless elegance. A lot of photography online is staged to fit a certain standard, but photographing nature is simply documenting it, raw beauty. My amazement for planet earth stemmed from watching nature documentaries as a child and it has flourished well into my adulthood. I become so absorbed and fixated on the television as it plays footage of earth’s breathtaking wonders. What I love most about watching nature documentaries is the storytelling element. It allows the viewer to get a more immersive experience despite the fact they never leave the room. The narration combined with the exceptional cinematography provide a personal connection between the animals and the spectator. Not only does this make me empathetic towards them, it is invaluable educational content. For the longest time my mindset restricted the possibility that I could be part of the team of those programs. I knew that I wanted to pursue art– but when I envisioned myself as a studio artist I saw myself struggling to make ends meet. The summer of 2024 was when I seriously had to consider my future…what could I possibly do that I was passionate about and would allow me to make money? The answer: Wildlife photography. It is the perfect opportunity for me to use my artistic vision and give back to the world at the same time. The purpose of my work would be to share the ethereal beauty of nature to the next generation. I take pictures for myself, but becoming a wildlife photographer would allow me to share my perspective with the world, let my camera open eyes and open minds. The earth has immeasurable value and more people need to understand how every being has a vital role in our planet. I would love to inspire a multitude of people to care about nature through documentaries, just like they inspired me.

Stepping outside of my comfort zone is one of the biggest internal challenges I have faced. I am a person who is accustomed to routine and familiarity, and my history shows that I struggle with major changes. I am a more reserved and quiet person who watches other people succeed and wishes they could have the same ambition as them. It was only as of last year where the reality of being aware of my future truly sunk in. I felt insignificant when others would ask me what I wanted to do for a living and I would respond, “I don’t know”. In my mind living my dream life was unrealistic, and that made me scared to even try to work towards my goals. The thought of getting to work in a field I enjoyed felt more like a daydream than a possibility. I felt guilty when I thought about my immigrant parents and how they both dropped college due to financial problems. After several talks with them about my plans they gave me advice that opened my eyes: It hurts you more to not try. They did not understand why I was so afraid of pursuing what I wanted when I have shown that I am very capable of succeeding when I put the effort into it. The truth is that I did not know the reason either, going to college just seemed like too big of a goal, and I felt like I did not deserve it. I had a blind fear of simply being doomed to fail, because trying was too outside of my comfort zone. As of now I am learning to go past my boundaries by seizing opportunities to make my dreams come true. I got accepted into college and plan to pursue photography with an associate’s degree. My dream job is to work for a studio that focuses on nature documentaries because I want to share my love for the planet to the public. I believe that more people should be educated about the biodiversity of the world and why it is so important. I plan to achieve this by researching and learning about the natural world, studying photography and mastering it, and focusing on photographing animals and nature. I am very enthusiastic about beginning my journey to work towards my career, the only issue that I am facing right now are financial struggles. I would like to pay for college through scholarships and I am hoping to obtain that by sharing my story. I am no longer letting fear determine how I live my life, and I am seizing the opportunities I come across. I am grateful to have my family support my decisions and help me to get over my fear, and because of that I want to make them proud. I do not want to try, I want to triumph.

Ever since I was a kid I would get easily distracted and look at random things in my surroundings. I found myself staring at these things and just looking at the way the light affected them, the contrast, the colors, the perspective, and the way the object would look different if the environment around it changed. I was simply fascinated by the world around me that I had to get a good look at everything, and I would not get bored of staring. This child-like wonder only grew as I got older and became more involved in the arts. I loved expressing myself artistically because I always struggled to express myself verbally. Oftentimes I couldn’t form a connection with my peers because I was so immersed in my own world, and I could never share with them what I was thinking because, how could I? To me, words could never fully capture what my imagination and creativity allowed me to. However, during my early relationship with visual arts I felt like my lack of skills was hindering my ability to show others how I saw the world. I used to hate my paintings because they never looked the way I wanted them to. It made me feel like I couldn’t even explain my vision to myself. For a while I took a break from art. It wasn’t until I got my very own cell phone that I was able to rekindle my interest. When I used to go out I would take photos of things that caught my eye. It was very arbitrary, I would take photos of a flower when there was a large monument in the background, or I would hate taking portrait photos when there was a beautiful background people were blocking. For the first time I was finally able to fully illustrate how I saw the world. My parents thought that my photos were strangely unique, which proved the power of photography: seeing through someone else’s eyes. No other art medium has particularly been able to illustrate how I experience my environment. It was liberating to see my mind being represented so effortlessly. Although I have only done photography as a hobby, I want to now pursue it professionally. I want to use my skills to provoke a connection between the viewer and the subject of the photos, which I believe will lead to more positive human-nature relationships. I strive to take photographs that are distinct and original, but I understand that it is also important to learn the basics of photography, and with this scholarship I will use it to pay for the photography program at college.

Hello, my name is Agueda, and I, along with my parents, am a first generation immigrant. We left our home country and came to America in order to be more financially stable and obtain more educational opportunities. Language barriers were initially a huge burden for us, but over time we learned how to overcome them in order to be more successful at managing our lives, without needing to depend on translators. Growing up, my parents would tell me about the sacrifices they made to be able to afford college during their youth, but the tuition was so high that neither of them could afford to finish, so they ended up living from paycheck to paycheck. This motivated me to pursue higher education to assure my parents that moving to another country was worth it. My parents are very supportive but I am funding my own education through scholarships because I know that they should not have to worry about their cost of living along with the cost of my education. I want to show them that I am going to be alright on my own, and they should not re-live the stress of having to pay for college. I am planning to study photography to photograph human-nature relationships because I am interested in arts and environmental sciences. It would be immensely rewarding to show my parents my dedication to seizing the window of opportunity and to pursue something I love during the process.

Hello, my name is Agueda and I’m committed to becoming a photographer! Currently I am a high school senior and plan to seek higher education at MATC. I have always been interested in the arts–particularly photography– and environmental sciences, and as a result I want to dedicate my work to raise awareness of environmental issues and how humans are impacted. Initially I wanted to devote my career to making beautiful art, but I felt as though I could use my artistic value for a bigger cause. I live in an area that is close to one of the most valuable sources of freshwater, but the urbanization has caused major issues to the water quality, and that is what inspired me to change my course of action toward conservation photography. I find the relationship between humanity and nature very interesting because our species depends so much on nature but our innovations are harming the planet. We are exhausting the earth’s natural resources in order to accommodate our modern lifestyle. In doing so, we (unintentionally) pollute the air, water, and natural habitats. With that being said, if I had the opportunity to start my own charity, the funds would be dedicated to aiding communities that have been affected by natural disasters. Natural disasters are predicted to worsen and occur more frequently at the rate in which we pollute the planet, due to the warming of the atmosphere and higher evaporation rates. They have already been severely impacting people by destroying their homes, resources, and health. If I had a charity, the money would be used to provide necessities such as nutrition, shelter, and modes of communication to contact loved ones. Volunteers would be in charge of preparing food and ensuring everyone has a temporary place to rest. Employees would be made up of healthcare professionals that would tend to the medical emergencies of injured people. Additionally, long term volunteers would have the chance to be educated on the subject of climate change and how it impacts the severity of natural disasters, they would then be able to educate others and share awareness through social media, protests, flyers, or meeting with local government officials. Taking action to prevent the problem is half the battle. Self-sustainable action would be encouraged as well. By this I mean sharing knowledge with the refugees about how to be eco-friendly in a way that benefits them as well. For example, learning how to start an environmentally friendly garden is not only reducing their individual carbon footprint, but it also directly provides food and teaches responsibilities. Environmental sciences teach us that everything is connected, and that solving the issue takes a team effort. The overall mission of the charity is to provide immediate help to people who have been affected by natural disasters, and to educate the public on how global warming affects the entire world, therefore we must all come together to prevent the conditions from worsening.

The surface of an egg begins to crack; its fragile skin peels whilst a small head peeks out, avidly rushing to be free. As it emerges, it isn’t long before there are more sounds of hatching at once. The firstborn hurriedly leaves the nest, its siblings following behind. They use the moonlight to guide them towards the crashing waves: their endless home. As the baby sea turtles swim in the vast blue, the soothing music in the background is muffled by a voice narrating their journey. The visuals of the natural world become smaller in size as the foreground turns into the background; a seated watcher takes its place instead. The person is a child captivated by a projector screen showcasing a nature documentary. A sudden flash of light reveals the rest of the surroundings. The child squints her eyes and blinks a few times as she glances around the room after being brought back to reality. Her classroom looks like a concrete enclosure after having witnessed the marvels of the world. There is no dialogue or music in the background anymore. We see her getting up, exiting school, and getting inside a car. She has a conversation with her mother we cannot hear, and then drives off. The camera follows the car, and from a side view we see the urban setting– it is less saturated with dull colors– and then the title screen fades into existence: Frame of Mind. Slowly, the setting transitions into shots of a local lake and park. As they step outside, they are met once again with the natural sounds of the waves crashing, birds chirping, and an undertone of tranquil music. The mother and daughter walk through a trail in the park down to the lake. The girl looks up and sees the warm sunlight in between the tree’s branches, blurs of birds flying quickly from one spot to another. Suddenly the focus is on the girl’s eyes. She blinks and there is a flash-forward. The focus is still in her eyes, but as the view zooms out, we see she is now older. She holds up a camera and starts taking pictures of the environment. Then there is a shift in perspective, we see a first person point of view from her, looking around, and as she holds the camera to capture the scene the visuals are more dynamic; they resemble the nature documentary at the very beginning. Every photograph has a visual “pop”, though the rest of the world looks bland in comparison. She takes pictures of the birds up above, but as she looks down there is a change in the mood. Burn out cigars, plastic wrappers, and broken bottles grab her attention, yet she continues to walk. As she reaches the end of the path she can see a lake in the distance. Excitedly, she rushes towards the lake but stops as she spots mounds of dead fish on the shore. Disturbed, she walks along the entirety of the shore, and there are piles among piles of rotting fish. It isn’t long before there is a clearing with a sign in front of the lake, it reads, “Water Quality Notice …this area is being monitored for E. coli bacteria..”. As she’s stepping back a seagull lands by the lake and pecks the sand. It finds plastic and eats it. These issues are very clear and hard to ignore, so why wasn’t anything being done to prevent them? She sees that there is virtually no one else in the park. We see a 50/50 shot of her crouching down to take another picture, but this time it isn’t meant to be visually pleasing. It was taken to document the effects of human activity and neglect. The sign between the girl and seagull shows the divide between human-nature relationships.

We all remember the change. Ask any immigrant, and they will tell you how their life changed drastically when they moved to the United States. Any immigrant including myself can tell you how it felt to leave everything we knew for something we wished for. Every immigrant I know can tell you two stories of two different lives lived in one. Every immigrant I know had to adapt and keep their head up no matter the circumstances. A challenge worth the sacrifice; that is how I define the American Dream. It was truly a strange and isolating experience growing up as first generation immigrants with my family in the United States. All of my peers were second generation and could speak two languages, while I was very dependent on translators. This was collectively our biggest obstacle: language barriers. It was an obstacle that limited understanding and connection with others, not just to communicate but to have opportunities. Learning English was challenging but the more we learned the more we were able to put our ideas out, the more we were being listened to, and the more we were able to do. Pushing the limits to what we could learn allowed us to grow and was very rewarding. I saw my parents grow with me and in a new setting. We managed to make a new life without regrets. Throughout the years we have been making more cherished memories that might not have been possible if we had stayed, and my parents are very vocal about how important it is to not take everything for granted. Neither of my parents were able to finish university due to low income. They placed a great value in education and encouraged me to be academically responsible. The stories they told me of life in their past made me realize how lucky I was to have the chance to grow up here with more possibilities to be successful. I realized that I was lucky I did not have to choose between riding the bus or eating lunch, choose between a job or a career, or sacrifice anything like they did before they moved. Therefore, I want to attend college not only for myself but for my parents as well. I want to show my parents that leaving everything behind to live here was worth it. I believe that I should seize this opportunity to accomplish what my parents could not, and make them proud. If we immigrated as a family to live a more fulfilling life, I don’t see why I should let my immigration status discourage me from accomplishing our American Dream.