I've been a street photographer on the University of California, Davis campus since 2021. The University of California, Davis is known as the world's preeminent agricultural university, yet the university has relentlessly raised costs for students and the University of California system has historically underpaid their student workers, an issue that came to the fore last year in the widespread grad student strikes for better pay. My partner is finishing her doctorate at UC Davis in December, we are expecting our third child, and I am a freelance photographer making 26,000 a year, understandably this is an issue that is not only close to my heart, but representative of the plight of Millennials and Gen Z across the country, as states and universities socialize debt burdens and maintain an increasingly unequal and unfair status quo. As of writing my instagram has 23 followers. I have never shown my artistic work anywhere before this submission.
