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Photographed on 7/27/2023-9/7/2023

Published on 9/12/2023

I moved to the big city recently. As someone who has only ever lived in towns with less than 10,000 people in them, moving to a city with a population approaching half a million came as a bit of a shock. There's so many people here! The people are more diverse. Within my first two weeks of living in Raleigh I encountered far more people from different cultures and backgrounds than my small college town could hold.

To be honest, I felt a little overwhelmed at just how many people were here. In my first couple weeks after moving in I felt confused and out of place compared to the hustle and bustle of the city. These photos come from the first couple of months of moving in, setting up my room, getting aquainted with the city and my new job. I sat on these a lot longer than I normally sit on pictures because I did not feel confident in their quality.

I guess I decided to release them now because I feel they represent the strange and tumultuous process of being a new face in an unfamiliar place. I felt the same way when I started college. Gradually, I got used to my new environment and began to make things work. I suppose I'm doing the same thing now, just in a different way. Life has changed and I have changed, we adapt and we survive.

These photos come from several sessions over the course of my first couple months of being in a new home in a new city. I used an old digital camera passed down from my parents and got more experimental with some of the objects in my room. I took pictures of myself without a shirt on. I don't normally do that, and I probably won't do it again in the near future lol. However, it was a good exercise to photograph myself in a different way than I normally would.

Ultimately, what I'm trying to say is, idk man. It's hard being in the big city. It's hard to be anywhere or do anything. I feel unsure of myself a lot and I get discouraged easily, but when I take photos I am able to document in some form or fashion the way that I am thinking or feeling at that moment in time. Not only am I preserving an image of what is physically there at the moment the shutter clicks, I am also capturing my mental state. I enjoy sharing that with people, and I hope that others can gleam their own meaning from it. Anyways, welcome to my new home.

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