It started off as something to show off to my friends. I was tugging around a little point-and-shoot Kodak and grabbing the quick moments of what turned out to be the end of our lives as we knew them. Had I known the later memories of youth and innocence were worth more than a lifetime of success as an adult I would have printed and stored those cheap blurry and imperfect snapshots; cherished them for as long as I could. What few remain are taken for granted like many of the precious things in life.

The last real Summer together, West Covina, circa Summer 2017. Photographer: Janel Sepulveda

But those are photos for another story. Higher education, draining as it may be, has given me the opportunity to be a photojournalist: a storyteller with a few extra steps. It’s a different kind of occupation and it takes a lot from a person. Time and again have I dragged some poor friend to a gig and wasted efforts to immerse them into my world; try as I may, I always end up holding their head under the surface for just a minute too long.

What follows is a series of published and unpublished portraits of various context — ranging from painstakingly journalistic photography to blurry, hideously beautiful snapshots. The one thing they all have in common is that they are an inside look into the beautiful and greedy world I call home. It is beautiful because it is mine, and greedy because it might possibly never let me share it in its entirety.