Whitney Young

It was a spring afternoon; the only light in the room was that showing through the blinds of the window, leaving bright stripes of light and shadow on the blue shag carpet where my father and I sat. His father, my grandfather, had recently passed and we were going through a few of his old treasures. Even as a child I had a natural love of the arts, but this day was the epiphany that lead me toward photography: I unzipped the top of the dusty, old camera case, gently pulled out my grandfather\'s film SLR, looked through the view finder, focused, and gave it a few dry fires. The tension of the advance, the sound of the shutter release, the way the world looked through that dusty lens-- I knew. I took my first photography class my sophomore year of high school and haven\'t strayed since. Now, as a senior photography major at Webster University, I can almost taste my future as a professional photographer, and I just hope that someday I will be able to truly make a living from what I love.