These days it’s rare to meet someone who takes their creativity above and beyond expectations. For Aarik Googe, a sophomore at Hall High School, his artistic vision as a photographer does just that. Every week, he’s always taking pictures, filming, and working on practically any project he desires. He credits his motivation to his mother who, “gave me [Aarik] my camera for my birthday last year…it was a big pivot for me because I had really nothing to do.” His first experience using a pro camera was at a concert, and he describes it as “funny…I was just fumbling the entire time because I kept asking ‘wait what does this mode do?’ And all the pictures came out so good when I was done.”

While there are plenty of photographers out there, posting aesthetic Instagram pictures of beaches, flowers, and monuments, Aarik prefers to photograph people, stating that “there’s so much you can capture of a person and an action…posing, or really anything in general.” His admiration of human subjects has led him to his work on his current project: “it’s where I replicate people: I take a picture of a person in three different poses and I put them all together. I try to make it look as best as possible, and right now I’m working on a small collection of those to show for a gallery purpose.” His second project is more long-term, as it is a silent film about depression. He believes he can do “great things with it,” but is “taking his time” as he hopes that it will end up becoming something bigger.

Unlike other students who participate in clubs as comparably small hobbies in their filled up schedules throughout the duration of their high school careers, Aarik plans to exceed beyond that. In fact, he intends on continuing his photography for a “long, long time.” He sees it as a viable career option that he fully wants to pursue. To him, nothing more stands out in his life than his photography. He states, “I’m not good at much else. I mean I am but I don’t see myself with as much talent…like I played football for nine years and I didn’t show the talent to be good enough to go pro…I was pretty good but I wasn’t the best; I didn’t stand out. I feel that in photography, I stand out quite a bit.” He goes on to describe why photography is meaningful to him: “Photography to me is something where I can express myself and show something that people wouldn’t see normally like you’re not going to see three of the same person lined up, interacting with each other…that’s a mind trip right there.”

While Aarik does both photography and film, he sees photography as his primary talent and something he knows a great deal about. He’s in the process of educating himself about film, and is hopeful to learn more, especially now with his silent film about depression in the works. He craves to learn as much as he can about both activities, and explains that he learned to edit on Adobe with the help of his friend’s older brother (Shoutout to Nick @thesupremewolff on Instagram).

In addition to being an independent photographer, Aarik uses his platform as an entrepreneurship endeavor as well. He has created his own business, which thrived greatly over this past summer. Some of his most notable photography shoots include those of kids, art, and rap artists. His style is becoming more refined, and he especially wants to display this with his replication photography project. He charges $20 for a shoot of 15 pictures, and many of his pictures can be found on @toeless.media on Instagram.