As a teenager, I often pass by my school's cafeteria--crowded, loud, and commonplace. A common place, it wasn't a golden plaque in honor of our school's founder; it wasn't a landmark of longevity like our school's oldest tree. Too mass-produced for consideration, the cafeteria was a living space made by machines to comfort and rest lonely and hungry teens. As a teenager, I often sit and eat here in the rush of lunch time, talking about the great works of Michelangelo or da Vinci without ever realizing I sat in one.

While it can never be like a marble sculpture carved delicately with human hands, the cafeteria will always be a symbol of the thousands of enduring human connections made right here--the thousands of friendships that began with the simplest of hello's.

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I took this picture after lunch when the janitor was hosing down area. I liked the idea of black-and-white for this piece because it represents the triteness and dullness we often associate with the cafeteria. It is a space for not only eating and laughing, but also a space for growing and learning. I played around with the exposure to create a sort of reflective, dreamy appearance to the piece because the cafeteria seems like a dream in and of itself. It is a dream we have something so impacting in every school, and yet it's misty and fuzzy because its a dream not many realize as significant.