Blog
Why I Built Generation One
There were moments in my own life where I had done the work, crossed the threshold and no one marked it. That absence stays with you. First-generation college students deserve better than that. Generation One is my answer to that feeling and this is the story behind why it exists.
I know what it feels like when a moment passes without anyone marking it.
There were times in my own life, moments where I had done the work, made the climb, crossed a threshold and the recognition just wasn’t there. No one captured it. No one held it up and said: this matters, you matter, what you did here matters. And in that absence, something strange happens. You don’t stop needing the recognition. You just start chasing it somewhere else. You carry the unfinished feeling forward, looking for the moment that will finally make it real.
I started People In This City as a project. A way of seeing people, really seeing them, through photography. Over time it became a business. But the original instinct never left: that being seen is not a luxury. It’s something people need.
First-generation college students are some of the most accomplished people I can think of. They did something no one in their immediate family had done before. They navigated systems without a map, figured out what no one taught them, and got somewhere no one in their family had been. That is a milestone. That is a story. And so often, it gets documented with a phone camera in a parking lot, or not at all.
Generation One exists because I believe that void is worth filling.
Not with a scholarship. Not with a contest. With a portrait session, the same care, the same attention, the same intention I bring to every client I work with. Because the student who is the first in their family to go deserves to see themselves the way they actually are: someone who got somewhere, and whose story is worth preserving.
Recognition doesn’t have to be loud. Sometimes it’s just a photograph that says: I see you. What you did was real. And it happened.
If you’re a first-generation student in the DMV, the program is here.
That’s what I’m trying to give. That’s why this program exists.
Generation One is a complimentary portrait session offered each year to first-generation college students in the DC, Maryland, and Northern Virginia area. If that’s you, or someone you know, learn more and apply here.
