Last spring, while I was a freshman at Andrews University, I was in an Advanced Photography class. We had a final project we needed to do for class, and it had to be between 20-30 images.

I spent my spring break visiting a close friend in Boston, Massachusetts. He was attending school there, and another friend of ours was going to school close by. It was wonderful exploring this place they had both come to hold so dear.

While I was there, I became interested in the architecture and the architectural elements throughout the city and surrounding areas. I would stop every three minutes just to shoot more photos of the gorgeous buildings and little things I would notice along the way.

As I explored, I noticed that this city would be the perfect subject for my final project. I started to notice some repeating forms and the stunning contrast of the old stone and the new glass skyscrapers.

Fast forward a few months, and I had completed my final project. I decided to edit the images in both color and black in white just to see what looked best, and ultimately decided to finalize the black and white images. They were stronger compositionally in black and white since the colors were faded originally due to it being late winter at the time.

I edited them originally in Adobe Lightroom Classic CC, and then imported them into Silver Efex Pro 2, which allowed me to add some more details to the images. After that, I added them into Adobe Photoshop, where I did some touch ups, like removing some distracting poles or branches, and then added a border.

The final step was creating an artist’s statement. For those of you that may not be familiar, an artist’s statement is a piece that accompanies the title of the piece/series and explains it. Sometimes it provides some background information, other times it is simply a poetic statement of types, or leaves the reader to add their own interpretation.

Since I captured these images and the project was completed, a lot has changed in my heart and in my life. It has been over a year, after all. I will only slightly adjust the statement in order for it to be more clear, but I hope you will enjoy the artist’s statement as well as the images nonetheless.

“I Wish I Could See the World Through Your Eyes”

Those words echo through my mind to this day.

When I was asked why I wanted to become a photographer, I would say I wanted to show people how I view the world and all of the little things I would notice in day-to-day life.

With the jobs I have been presented with in my field, I have been so focused on capturing events that I no longer saw photography as an art form and I lost sight of my original purpose in what I wanted to do as a photographer.

While shooting in Boston over spring break, I was amazed by the artistic side of me coming back to life. I would walk down the street and have to stop every few seconds just to capture something new that caught my eye.

As I stood there, I had someone I cared very deeply for standing patiently beside me. As I started to shoot, I heard him say, “I wish I could see the world through your eyes.”

Since then, that has been my goal every day.

If you would like to view more of my work, please follow me on Instagram and Twitter, @kirstenimages.