About Tanya Wilcox

Tanya Wilcox, a junior at Palo Alto High School, is a bicoastal photographer. Well, somewhat. The teenager's favorite place to photograph is New York City, and luckily, she visits her muse a few times a year - her sister attends New York University.

Inspiration for her first prize photo in the Youth 16 and Under category, "Canonization," came during a trip back east during spring break of her freshman year at Paly. It was late in the evening and Tanya and her friend Rachel, who is the woman in the photo, were shopping when the moment struck. It was a good thing she was on assignment: Tanya was carrying an old family point-and-shoot camera with her for a beginning photography class she was taking that semester in school.

Click on photo for larger image.

"The lighting looked good when you looked down certain avenues or streets. There was a full reflection off the Hudson River," said Tanya, who just celebrated her 17th birthday.

The title comes from a poem she read called "Canonization," which is to declare a deceased person a saint. "I just thought it was a cool word," she said.

Students at Paly are required to take one year of fine art, and because Tanya doesn't like to draw, she decided to take photography instead. She has taken it every year since.