To Struggle is to Grow by Aaron

To Struggle is to Grow by Aaron - August 2026 Scholarship Essay

I think back to a time in high school, when I had just started my Sophomore year. That year I had decided I was going to try joining the photography class, mostly for the added benefit of being able to use the Adobe products provided to all members of the Digital Media classes. Now it was somewhere in the first semester, probably late August, where we had our very first major project - Multiplicity. The goal of the project was to create an image in Photoshop where we took multiple pictures of whatever we wanted, be it people, pets, random objects, as long as we could mix it all into one image with the exact same subject in multiple different positions in the same area. About a week into the project, I still had no idea what I really wanted to use as a subject, much less where to take the pictures. I realized I had spent more time helping others with their projects as either subject or assistant photographer and hadn’t actually put any thought into what I should be doing. My photography teacher then came up to me to ask where I was and, seeing I was struggling with ideas, recommended I take a look at what others had done with my help to try and get an idea for what I could do. Looking around, I started seeing the ways people were putting entire scenes together, and slowly began coming up with new ideas for what I should do. That day, I went home with a camera and a light setup and got to work, throwing myself in bizarre poses and situations with myself and just barely getting the assignment done on time. This experience taught me not to look at what I do as is, stubbornly following a rail with no end, but rather find unique ways of approaching situations, using the struggle to rip myself free from the rail and carve my own path forwards.