Sarah Edwards: Personal Statement

 
 
Growing up, my mother would always have her camera on hand. I grew up watching her take photos of
everything and spend hours editing them for fun. Later on in life, she created her own business for
photography. Growing up watching her turn her passion into a business is what made me fall in love with
photography. The first time I picked up a camera, I went into my mother’s closet and took hers all
throughout the house. I was taking photos of everything from bandaids to the shoes in my closet. I fell in
love with being able to take a photo of something to later see the sharp image on the screen. After my
younger years of stealing her camera, she bought me my own Canon EOS Rebel T5. From that day
forward, I have learned so much. I have fallen in love with more things about photography than I had ever
imagined. The process of planning a shoot, picking out props and outfits, posing the model,
photographing and editing. The entire process of making an idea come to life through photography, is
what made me want to turn my passion for photography into a career.

Currently, I am a student at State College of Florida: Online Campus, pursuing an Associate of Science in
Digital Photography. I had started my college education a bit late, due to being indecisive with what I
wanted to do. After many months of debating whether I wanted to pursue an education that would get me
a high paying job, or if I wanted to do what I was passionate about; I chose to follow in my mother’s
footsteps to take my dream and make it a reality. I have done hundreds of unpaid photo shoots to be able
to build my portfolio, simply because I don’t care about the money. Outside of my courses at school, I am
currently working a full-time job at a loaning facility as a CSR giving customers payday loans. Although I
work full-time and take classes online, I always seem to make time for my photography. I have done
weddings, senior pictures, product photography, landscape photography and portrait photography (my
favorite), all in the past year to build my portfolio and experience myself in different settings.

I plan to stick with my education until I achieve my degree in Digital Photography. I plan to continue
building my portfolio as a freelance photographer, build my skill set and acquire a job where I can be
apart of capturing important events and memories forever. After receiving my Associates, I would like to
continue my education and earn my Bachelors of Fine Arts in Photography. After graduating, my goal is
to earn a spot working for my dream job. My dream job is to work for the biggest hip-hop music festival
in the world, Rolling Loud, as a photographer. While working my way towards accomplishing these
goals, I plan to continue volunteering my time assisting other photographers and market my work a bit
more to build clientele.