Artist's Statement

For my 16th birthday, I spent the night in Santa Cruz with two of my best friends. I took this photo from the balcony of our hotel room. At 7 a.m., the fog hadn't lifted yet, and the pier looked as if it disappeared into the clouds. From first glance, it's a simplistic concept, but the drama of the black and white and the light-dark gradient from one end of the pier to the other add a surreal, mysterious aura.