Amandeep Kaur

amandeepMy name is Amandeep Kaur and I attend The Young Women’s Leadership School of Queens. Being a woman from a family with high expectations, the things that I want to do always comes second compared to the demands of my family members. I desire to take the path to the future that not everyone is willing to take. In this big world of billions, I want people to recognize me as a unique individual. I show people my point of view of the world and society through my photography. Everyone has a way of expression that makes them who they are and I use photography as mine. I want people that don’t know me to understand my way of thought and the type of person I am by looking at my images. I want to send out a message through my pictures and influence people to think out of the box.

 

As a 15 year old teenager, living in a big city like New York, life doesn’t exactly go the typical way as anyone would think. When thinking of New York the first thing that would pop into someone’s head are the massively huge building or the twinkling lights of Time Square. But there’s so much more to the place than just the flourishing exterior. The real beauty or may I say the reality of New York can not be seen through a tourists lens. There are the little everyday things that we see around us all the time, but ignore when compared to the big city attractions. Through my project you can see the everyday norms that get hidden behind the extravagance of the city.

While growing up in New York, I sometimes feel like a tourist myself. Whenever I sit down with my father, who drives a taxicab, and talk about some of the passengers, most of them are tourists with their flashing cameras. Those are the moments when I can’t help but find myself comparing my life to the way a tourist experiences the city. In my photographs, I combine the two sides of New York City. On one side is the tourist New York, where people go to see the endless tourist attractions, whereas the other side is the point of view of someone that’s been in New York their whole life and has distinctive memories. Putting these two kind of pictures together may just give me the image that expresses the truth of what New York is all about. By pairing the bigger and extravagant images with the small and precious ones, a priceless image emerges that puts two perspectives together to create a satiated thought.

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