Lauren.

So this is the page where I talk about myself.

Well, I'm 17 years old, living in a podunk community called Cheyenne, Wyoming. If you have not heard of it, I suggest you retake your 50 state capital test.

There hasn't been a time in my life where I have not been in love with films and photography.

When I was five years old I reinacted movies such as The Mask in my living room infront of an audience of no one.

When I was 7, my parents bought a video camera, something basic that they would take to football games and Christmas recitals. I made hundreds and hundreds of home movies on that camera, one of them being a horror film.

When I was 9, my mom let me borrow her Canon film camera, and being the naive little 9 year old I was, I rewound all the film back into the canister when I tried opening the back door. But I would use up all of the 35mm film she bought me in one day, and would be incredibly happy when we picked up the photos from Target's 1 hour photo center. I mostly took photos of my cat and flowers.

When I was 14, I took a drama class at my junior high, where I learned what directing was really like, and even learned how to be dramatic. Go figure.

When I was 16, just last year, I was sitting in Bubba-Gump Shrimp Co. in Times Square New York. I was in the city with my mom and my friend Liz, and Liz was staying with a guy she met through Teen Vogue Fashion University. We were making small talk when he asked, "What do you plan to do after High School?"

It was a simple question that every high school student will be asked a million times before they graduate. I had always answered with "Become an English teacher, or a Nurse."

But this time was different. I was sitting in a restaurant with Forest Gump memorabilia on the walls, looking out the windows at the gigantic screens of Times Square. I had seen hundreds of hundreds of movies with the setting being right out that window. I had always wanted to go to New York City ever since I had watched Home Alone 2: Lost in New York when I was 8.

So when he asked "What do you plan to do after High School?", my heart answered.

"I wanna be a filmmaker."

That was the first time I had ever said that, and yet it felt like I had always wanted that. And in a way, I always have.

Photo by Liz Osban.