Kayla Rosenberg

Category: Story Telling

  • Culture(s)

    A vibrant teal-painted wall densely decorated with an eclectic mix of vintage framed paintings, small wooden crates holding knick-knacks, handcrafted ornaments, and an electrical utility box covered in graffiti, with wooden storage chests resting on the floor below.

    24mm, 1/100, F 2.4, ISO 100

    Growing up in the U.S. with Hungarian, Romanian, and Russian roots, my sense of identity has never been just one single thing—it is a collage of traditions, memories, and inherited histories. While walking through the market with my family, this vibrant turquoise wall stopped me in my tracks because it felt like a mirror of that experience. Filled with mismatched wooden crates, antique landscape paintings, handmade crafts, and weathered trinkets, it was a space where completely different eras and origins shared the same frame without clashing. Standing there with my aunt and other close family, pointing out curious little details tucked into every corner, I realized my culture looks a lot like this wall: layered, collected from all over, a little chaotic, but full of warmth, character, and history living side by side.

  • Flowers

    A close-up photo of a large, densely packed floral arrangement outside a flower shop. The bouquet contains a mix of pink and white alstroemeria lilies, orange safflower pompoms, pink garden roses, white roses, red carnations, and various green foliage. The arrangement is shot at a slight upward angle, with bare branches, tall green stalks, and a grey building wall visible in the background. Natural daylight illuminates the flowers from above.

    24mm, 1/160, F 1/5.6, ISO 100

    This was outside a flower shop and the arrangement was just overflowing onto the sidewalk, so I got close and shot it at a slight angle to capture how dense and layered it was. I didn’t want a clean, centered shot — the chaos of it was the point. Getting close let the different textures and colors overlap without any single flower taking over, which felt truer to what it actually looked like standing in front of it.

  • Stranger

    A photo of Mt. Fuji in the center background, its snow-covered peak rising above a band of clouds under a blue sky. In the lower right corner, the back of a person's head is visible — dark hair, glasses — as they look toward the mountain. Bare tree branches extend across the upper left of the frame, and a few evergreen trees are visible at the base of the mountain.

    50mm, 1/500, F 1/11, ISO 100

    The theme here isn’t really Mt. Fuji — it’s the person who can’t look away from it. It was almost accidental; framing a stranger in the corner of the shot while they’re completely absorbed in the view turns the mountain into something more than a landmark; it becomes a moment of someone else’s awe that I’ve happened to catch.

  • Aging

    A handmade wind chime hanging outside in front of a blue-painted building. The top is a large oval metal serving tray, darkened and patinated with age, with a hole corroded through its center. Suspended from it by white string are various old utensils — spoons, forks, and knives in different sizes — each heavily rusted or tarnished to different shades of brown, black, and dark grey. A orange fabric item is partially visible on the left.

    24mm, 1/160, F 1/5.6, ISO 400

    What I liked about this was that it’s technically junk — old rusted spoons, bent forks, a tray with a hole eaten through it — but someone saw something worth making in all of it. I wanted to shoot it straight on so you could really see the wear on each piece, the different stages of rust and tarnish, the way no two utensils aged the same way. The fact that it’s a wind chime felt important too; something this worn out is still functional, still making noise, still hanging there.

  • Self-Portrait

    Kayla holding a vintage, brown-leather-cased TDC Stereo Colorist camera up to her face, obscuring her eyes, while standing in a bright, grassy field.

    24 mm, 1/4000, F/3.2, ISO 1250

    In this self-portrait, I wanted to express my love and passion for photography. I had the help of my dad, who pressed the shutter button for me once I found my framing and camera settings to my liking. I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to use to convey what I felt was an accurate representation of my identity, I then stumbled upon my late grandfather’s camera form the 1950’s and knew it would work perfectly.