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Grayson Rawlings

1x

Finalist

1x

Winner

Bio

Hello! I'm a freshman Digital Media Production major at UTEP, with a passion for analog photography. My goal in life is to use film and prints to capture and archive life around the world today. I've spent a lot of my life observing the beauty in the lives of others. I want to spend the rest of my life exposing stories from around the world and preserving them in a tangible way.

Education

The University of Texas at El Paso

Bachelor's degree program
2025 - 2029
  • Majors:
    • Film/Video and Photographic Arts

Miscellaneous

  • Desired degree level:

    Master's degree program

  • Graduate schools of interest:

  • Transfer schools of interest:

  • Majors of interest:

    • Film/Video and Photographic Arts
  • Not planning to go to medical school
  • Career

    • Dream career field:

      • Photography
    • Dream career goals:

      Photograph and archive contemporary life around the world. Publishing the work in magazines and books for education and art.

    • Founder

      Antidote
      2023 – 20241 year
    • Media production intern

      Sandstone Real Estate
      2026 – Present7 months
    • Shift Manager/Detailer

      MetroTech Automotive
      2025 – 20261 year

    Sports

    Skateboarding

    Intramural
    2023 – Present3 years

    Karate

    Club
    2013 – 20207 years

    Awards

    • First Place, National Sparring Tournament Champion
    • Black Belt 1st Degree

    Arts

    • The University of Texas El Paso Digital Media Production Association

      Videography
      Madeline 2026
      2026 – 2026
    • Antidote

      Photography
      2022 – 2025
    • Antidote

      Graphic Art
      2023 – 2025

    Public services

    • Volunteering

      Antidote — Co-Founder
      2023 – 2025

    Future Interests

    Advocacy

    Volunteering

    Philanthropy

    Entrepreneurship

    WCEJ Thornton Foundation Music & Art Scholarship
    Winner
    During the end of high school and what should have been my starting college years, I was spending my time looking through the lens of a cheap camera I got for my 17th birthday. The nature of taking photographs astounded me, I was able to record history, create art, provide evidence and entertainment. I took initiative to learn all I could about the history of cameras and their significance to the history of the world. For the past 100 years, there has been a camera at almost every significant event around the world, recording reality and preserving it. Every photograph was tangible, a physical piece of history with the power to perfectly retell a story. That is not the case anymore and something should be done about it. Photography needs help. As an art form and a recorder of history, it is being pushed out by the use of generative AI and smartphone cameras. It is my goal to present photography with the esteemed respect it deserves, which has become a formidable task. Taking a picture with any respect to the medium has become inaccessible to the general public. Digital photography is unreasonably costly to pursue, film photography will cost you a pound of flesh. This initial bias within the art has diluted the real value of a photograph and its ability to preserve history so perfectly. I want to shine a spotlight on the significance of photography through the most obvious route, taking pictures! And teaching others to do the same. I’d do anything to make sure art isn’t lost in a digital landscape, and photography is falling off the path into a void of artificially generated pixels. I’ve dedicated my life to preventing this. Help me do so.