The Six Fifty Peninsula Photo Contest is presented by the Palo Alto Weekly and the Palo Alto Art Center and is open to photographers who live, work, or attend school in the 650 area code. Entries are judged across six categories—Abstract, Landscapes, Moments, Portraits, Travel, and Wildlife—with separate Youth and Adult divisions. In total there were over 1200 entries.
I received Second Prize / Honorable Mention in the Youth Division (“Moments” category) at the 2025 Peninsula Art Contest.
My winning photo, Cinderello, was taken at the Mosque–Madrasa of Sultan Ḥasan in Historic Cairo. A man was sweeping the carpets, and the light caught the dust just right—he looked like he needed a fairy godmother, which made me think of Cinderella. I tried to frame the scale of the space against a single everyday gesture, so the scene feels both grand and human.
The photograph was exhibited at the Palo Alto Art Center from September–December 2025 as part of the contest showcase. I was the youngest winner; the other Youth Division awardees were mostly juniors and seniors from Paly, Menlo-Atherton, and St. Francis. It was exciting (and a little intimidating!) to be shown alongside older students whose work I admire.
This recognition encourages me to keep building longer photo series around small moments in large places—where light, scale, and everyday life overlap. Cinderello is part of an ongoing set of images from Egypt that explores quiet work, ritual spaces, and the way a single figure can turn a vast interior into a story.
The results from the competition were written up in The Almanac, our local paper, From California to Kyrgyzstan, the 2025 Peninsula Photo Contest winners capture the joys and mysteries of everyday life.