I am an English major pursuing minors in both marketing and documentary story-making. To me, life is about both seeking and following your passions, helping to discover who you are to the very core. I believe that literature holds the ability to put raw human emotion into words, evoking some type of emotional response from the reader allowing them to better understand themselves and their world, and, for that reason, it is unlike any other subject or major. I like to approach issues or topics slowly, grasping every angle different people involved and understanding the setting and background of the story. I am intrigued by many issues and stories both locally and globally, but I am always drawn to stories about peoples’ backgrounds and personal stories—similar to the “Humans of New York” series. I think the power of documentary could be useful to do similar stories of students and their backgrounds, especially those on a college campus. If I were to tell a story of a specific place in the Lehigh Valley, it would be comparing the lives of both the students at Lehigh and the students and families who attend Broughal Middle School next to Lehigh’s campus. There is a huge class divide in South Bethlehem – people living only feet away from each other yet leading exceptionally different lives – that I think a documentary could capture well.

There is rarely a second when I am not taking in my surrounding, eyeing people, nature, lighting, and movement. I am constantly taking pictures, mainly candids, of others who are in perfect lighting, a state of calmness or happiness that I want to capture, or are living in a moment that I know I will want to remember. I frequently take videos of family and friends that I put together and can look back on; it helps me to keep my memories close and to recreate the emotions I had at that time. I also love to photograph nature and my surroundings – sometimes the sun is hitting the ocean perfectly or an old abandoned building has a certain look to it that makes it look beautifully artistic. With these pictures I edit, print, post and give to those who are in the pictures, or I just keep them for myself. I get a both a sense of self-pride from my ability to capture these moments in an artistic way, as well as a sense of warmth that comes with being able to capture moments that can resurface feelings for certain times, people, or places.

The place I chose to tell my story is the water. I think that being on or in the water brings out a sense of inner peace and contentment from within that is hard to find elsewhere.