Petrilla — See Me Because

A young woman in a white dress stands in a field of sunflowers. She smiles and her skin glows as the sun sets in the background. — Portrait with Ken Pao

“It felt amazing to be photographed because you get to see the different sides of me. Sometimes people see me as being mean, from just looking at me. The theme of my portrait is to not judge a book by its cover. Once you get to know me, you'll see me as being a nice, leveled person that you can get along with. If I could change one thing about the world, it would probably be to change people’s perspective on people. I want people to understand that, yes, a person might have gone through some things in life, but stop assuming things about her. Just because I make a certain face, doesn't mean I'm this type of way. Some people just need to have their guard up, and they make that face. People assume she’s mean. But the minute that you start talking to that person ( I'm the person ) they're like, “Oh, wow, you're so sweet. You're so nice.” That is a misinterpretation that people pin on me a lot. Sometimes I feel like, saying, “Hey, I'm different. I'm different.” And that gets tiring, so I stopped doing that. I'm realizing that you don't have to do that. If they want to be around you, they’ll be around you.

The inspiration I was getting for this portrait was just be yourself and be confident. Sometimes I get this little feeling of not feeling like I'm good enough. It's that little inner person demeaning us and really be talking. I'm like, “Girl, shush. Stop. Whatever!” It took a while to get to being able to say that because I used to get bullied a lot when I was a little kid. So, it went from me being bullied to me finally having a voice and saying, “I’m tired of this. Listen, you’re not going to treat me this way.”

I'm eighteen years old. I was born and raised in the Bronx and then I moved to Brooklyn, to Florida, and back to Brooklyn. How do I see myself? I'm a female. I am African-American. I am an introvert. I can come off like a tiger on the outside but I’m a koala bear on the inside. My mom was a mama bear on the outside and on the inside she was the same thing as me. One of my strongest memories was when me and my mom went to Dave and Busters and we just chilled and played games. She's inspired me because she was like always my cheerleader, always making sure that I had everything that I needed. Even if it was a long game or audition for acting, she always made sure I was good.

My goal is to basically have my own tour all around the world and have a million people watching me. I’ve had that goal since I was a little kid. I am also interested in nursing. My mom got very ill and I needed to take care of her. Sometimes I missed school to be home and take care of her. I was all she had and I knew everything that she needed. This was when I was in middle school. When she passed away, I had to repeat eighth grade and I went to live with my grandma. I finally made it to ninth grade after that and now I’m on the right track of trying to graduate early.

I keep praying and keep doing what I got to do. I'm proud of where I am right now. It’s been a minute because I didn't know how to start working on my dream. Now I'm like, yes, I’ve finally started.”

New York, 2020