The Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, located in Japan, hosts a Young Portfolio exhibition each year for new and emerging photographers. I entered the competition during college but did not make the cut. More than a decade later, I decided to apply again while I still qualified. To my delight, I made the semifinalists round! In total, 278 people from 27 countries applied, and 55 people from 15 countries passed the first selection. This was meaningful to me because the director of the museum, and one of the judges, is Eikoh Hosoe. He's a renowned Japanese photographer whose gritty and surreal BW portraits inspired me as a teenager.

As a finalist, I was asked to mail a box of my prints to the museum (not cheap!) for the judges to review in person. I wasn't accepted in the end, but I felt honored to have Hosoe review my work.