What motivates Melody Joy to create? “I am a movie buff, so cinema has always inspired me…maybe because thrillers, crime stories and suspense are my favorites, I tend to have a darker editing palette!” Melody also loves to travel and says that her most recent trip, to Mexico City, involved eight days of “taking photos nonstop as I ate my way through the tacos of the city and found new ways to shoot light. I don’t wait for weddings or even paid work to ‘practice’ my art and love of photography. It constantly challenges me and grows me creatively as a photographer.”

Check out the behind-the-scenes stories on some of the photos from her submission.