This past quarter was a busy one. I was hired at Seattle U’s Recreation Department as a marketing manager/ photographer. I was also recently hired as a photographer for my school’s paper, the Spectator. My first assignment was to photograph a student protest dealing with the merging the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the International Student Center. Students of all ethnicities, genders and identities came to protest this move by administrators, arguing that this assumes that multicultural and international mean the same thing. 

After submitting my photos, the photo editor praised me for my work and I felt pretty accomplished. But a couple days later, my roommate texted me a picture of the latest edition of the Spectator. To my surprise, my photo was on the front page. The pride I felt for having one of my photos printed and published was indescribable. It’s something I hope to experience again very soon.

Back in high school, I started an Instagram page called “Kotagraphy” that I used to post some of my more ambitious photography. “Kotagraphy” was born from a pun that my friend had made with my last name in high school photography, and I just ran with it. It didn’t get much traction in high school, and I almost forgot about it. But recently I decided to try to revamp the page and see if I could get more exposure from social media. I’ve never been good at getting attention through social media, so we’ll see how this goes. Hopefully utilizing the enormous scope of social media today will allow me to share my work on a larger scale. In the meantime, follow my Instagram account @kotagraphy to look at more of my photos and support my work! Fingers crossed…