The Story

I’m still figuring out where this goes.

I grew up in Pueblo, Colorado, mostly raised by my grandparents.

My parents left when I was a baby. My dad came in and out of my life as I got older, but addiction made having much of a relationship with him difficult. I don't remember huge parts of my childhood. What I do remember comes in pieces — some really good, some really bad.

School was a struggle pretty early on. By fourth or fifth grade, I had mostly stopped participating, and that continued for years. I've always struggled socially too. Meeting people, knowing what to say, or just feeling comfortable around people I don't know has never come naturally to me.

Eventually, I ended up in foster care.

I actually left that completely out of the first version of this story. Not because I'm ashamed of it. I just don't really think of myself as “a foster kid.” It's part of my life, but it isn't the thing that defines me.

And in a weird way, it's a part of my life that never completely ended. I eventually left my foster home and moved back in with my grandparents, but I've had a caseworker through almost every part of my life since. I still have one today.

My time in foster care was complicated. There were parts I hated, and eventually there were parts I actually started to like. One of the hardest parts was being separated from the people I was close to.

I was especially close with my grandpa. Even when I was making decisions he didn't agree with or probably didn't understand, he had a way of showing up anyway. He was someone I knew I could count on.

After I eventually moved back home, life went on for a while.

Then, the day before Christmas, our house burned down.

Two days later, the day after Christmas, my grandpa died.

I never got to say goodbye.

After the fire, my grandma and I moved in with family. That's where my cousin became a much bigger part of my life.

Somewhere along the way, she became a lot more like a sister than a cousin. She was there through some of the hardest and most confusing years that came afterward. She helped me see situations differently when I couldn't always see them clearly myself, pushed me to see that there was more I could do with my life, and gave me someone I knew I could turn to.

Life still wasn't suddenly figured out. For a long time, I mostly just lived. I played a lot of video games. I made plenty of bad decisions. I spent a lot of time doing nothing particularly productive and had very little idea what I wanted my future to look like.

School had been something I'd barely participated in since elementary school. Eventually, I started trying again.

I had around 20 credits left to finish.

I finished them in less than a year.

And I graduated.

Photography had started becoming part of my life around the end of 2023. At first, it was mostly my phone.

Cars were probably my favorite thing to photograph. Then buildings, streets, random details — basically anything that made me stop and think it might make a good picture.

I liked it. I could go out alone, walk around for hours, take pictures and come home without needing anybody else to be involved.

Eventually, I bought my first real camera. And eventually, I sold it.

I got discouraged. I wasn't progressing as quickly as I wanted. I questioned whether I was actually any good, and I started wondering if photography was just another thing I was excited about that wasn't actually going anywhere.

For a while, I pretty much quit.

But I kept thinking about it. I'd see something and immediately think about how I'd photograph it. I'd look at other people's work. I'd start looking at cameras again.

I missed it.

So I came back.

And somewhere after that first year of photography, I started becoming pretty sure about one thing.

If I was going to build something around my work, I wanted it to help people somehow.

I didn't know what that looked like. Maybe it meant giving some of what I earned away. Maybe using my work to support causes I cared about. Maybe creating opportunities for somebody else someday. Maybe it would become something I hadn't thought of yet.

I didn't have a detailed mission. I just knew I wanted whatever I built to eventually be about more than me.

That's part of where Witnessed started taking shape.

Years after I'd left my foster home, my caseworker told me about an organization called Dream Makers.

While I was still living in Pueblo, I put in a request for help getting another camera. And then I waited.

The request sat there for almost a year.

A lot changed while I was waiting. I graduated. Not long afterward, my cousin brought up the idea of moving to Reno. It started almost as a joke. Then somehow it became real.

So I left Pueblo.

And while I was living in Reno, I found out my dream had finally been funded.

A donor I'd never met funded my camera request. Not long after that, a camera showed up in Reno.

I don't know who that person was. I don't know why they chose my request. And they may never know where any of this ends up going.

But they helped put a camera back in my hands.

What I didn't expect was everything that came afterward.

Dream Makers kept showing up.

Sometimes that meant something significant. Other times it was something small — an affirmation, a package in the mail, some treats, a gift card, or simply somebody reaching out.

More recently, they've helped me with equipment as I've started exploring filmmaking and other kinds of video work.

All of those things have mattered. But I think the consistency has mattered even more.

They cared about what happened after the camera.

They didn't give me the idea that I wanted my work to help people. That was already becoming part of what I wanted Witnessed to be.

They supported it while I was still trying to figure out what it meant.

Eventually, I left Reno and moved to Denver on my own.

At first, it felt exciting. I had my own apartment. I explored the city. Tried new places. Started college. Worked. Started trying to build this completely different life for myself.

But I was also doing most of it alone.

I don't really have anyone here. I don't have a friend I can text and ask if they want to go somewhere. I don't have somebody local I can call when I need company. The people I'm closest to are somewhere else.

For a while, exploring a new city by myself was enough.

Eventually, I stopped going out much at all.

Money got tight. I sold my car. My first semester of college went badly. I left jobs.

And there were stretches where I barely went outside my apartment.

Days became weeks.

Sometimes I'd sleep. Sometimes I'd play games.

A lot of the time, I just sat there and thought about how badly I felt like I'd failed.

Photography disappeared with everything else.

By around February or March, I had basically stopped using my camera. Eventually, I even listed some of my gear for sale.

I was thinking about letting photography go.

Again.

Then Dream Makers reached out with an opportunity to photograph an event for them.

And I said yes.

There was just one problem.

I'd never photographed an event like that before. And I had barely touched my camera in months.

I was nervous. Now people were depending on me to photograph something that was only going to happen once.

I couldn't come back tomorrow because I missed something. I couldn't wait for better light.

I just had to figure it out.

So I showed up.

And I shot.

Groups. Details. People talking. People laughing. Little moments happening around me that I probably would've ignored when I first started photography.

And somehow, I loved it.

I liked looking for the moments people weren't posing for. I liked watching what was happening around me and trying to figure out where I needed to be. I liked knowing the photographs had a reason to exist for somebody other than me.

And I liked photographing people more than I expected.

That doesn't mean people suddenly became easy for me.

They aren't.

Eye contact is hard. Holding conversations can be hard. Reading how somebody is feeling or knowing how I'm supposed to respond can be hard. Sometimes figuring out what I'm feeling is hard too.

That's just something I've always dealt with.

A camera doesn't make it disappear.

But I've realized I really like photographing people anyway.

Photography started as something I could comfortably do mostly by myself. Now I'm curious about what happens when I point the camera toward people too.

The event didn't suddenly make me want to use my work to help people. That part was already there.

But it helped me understand a little more of what that could actually look like.

For the first time, I wasn't just thinking that someday my work could support something I cared about.

I was actually doing it.

And that made some of the ideas I'd had for Witnessed feel a little more real.

Maybe helping people through my work isn't only about what I can donate someday. Maybe some of it can be the work itself.

Maybe it's working with organizations I believe in. Maybe it's helping somebody tell a story. Maybe it's creating something that makes another person stop for a second and care about something they otherwise might have passed by.

Maybe it's eventually being able to give somebody else an opportunity because other people gave opportunities to me.

I'm still figuring that part out.

And somehow, while all of this has been happening, I've started getting interested in something I used to want absolutely nothing to do with.

Filmmaking.

Now I'm putting together my first real video rig and learning what it actually takes to create something beyond a photograph.

I want to make documentaries someday.

I've never made one. I don't really know how to make one yet. I have a ridiculous amount to learn.

But I want to learn.

I want to travel. I want to meet people I never would've met otherwise. I want to learn about places, lives and experiences completely different from mine.

Some of those stories may involve foster youth because that's a world I actually know. Others may have absolutely nothing to do with anything I've experienced.

I don't know what those stories are yet.

I think I need to go find them.

And that's pretty much where I am now.

I'm 22 years old. I live in Denver. I'm in college.

I'm trying to turn photography into real work. I'm learning filmmaking and video work from basically zero.

And I'm building Witnessed while still figuring out exactly what Witnessed is capable of becoming.

A few months ago, I wasn't even sure photography was something I wanted to keep doing.

Now I'm excited about it again.

I'm taking on work I would've been terrified to take not that long ago. I'm learning things I used to have no interest in learning. And for the first time in a while, I actually want to see how far I can take this.

Maybe this time it sticks.

Maybe the direction changes again.

I've learned enough about my own life to know I'm probably not going to predict it correctly.

What I do know is that I've had people show up for me at points when it mattered.

My grandpa. My cousin. Caseworkers. A donor I've never met. People at Dream Makers who kept checking in long after the camera was already in my hands.

None of them magically fixed my life.

But all of them, in different ways, helped me keep moving.

I think that's part of why I care so much about what Witnessed eventually becomes.

I want to build something successful.

I want to make work I'm proud of. I want to travel. I want to make films. I want to build a business that gives me the chance to experience things I never thought I'd get to experience.

But I don't want success to end with me.

If Witnessed ever gives me money, access, opportunities, a platform, or anything else worth sharing, I want to find ways to pass some of that forward.

I don't have a perfect plan for how.

I don't think I need one yet.

Right now, I'm still near the beginning.

There are photographs I haven't taken.

Films I don't know how to make yet.

People I haven't met.

Places I've never been.

And a version of myself I'm still trying to become.

For the first time in a while, I'm excited to find out what happens next.

So I guess we'll see where this goes.