On campus, Kshithija “KJ” Mulam (12) makes a distinctive figure. Just over five feet tall, she can usually be spotted pounding up and down hallways in a sassy tee-shirt, camera slung around her neck, mouth open to shout a salutation or order. She is, in a word, loud, hard to miss and impossible to forget. But this, she explains, wasn’t always the case.

“The KJ you would have met 10 or 11 years ago is not the KJ you would meet now. I had a completely opposite personality. Even when I was 1 or 2, everyone in my family knew me as the kid who never smiled,” she said. “I didn’t have any confidence, I was super socially anxious, I had trouble putting myself out there. Now, I always enjoy being the loudest voice in the room. Back then, I would have loved nothing better than to sink into the wall and not be part of the room at all.”

Even still, some things never change.

“When I was a kid, from the age of four, I really, really wanted to be a journalist,” she said.

KJ, who currently serves as the Editor-in-chief of The Winged Post, has worked on journalism all four years of high school, a feat her younger self aspired to.

“My parents have videos of me carrying a mic around and pretending I was a reporter traveling the world. I always used to look at the news anchors on TV,” she continued. “One of my greatest concerns as a kid was how are they going to pronounce my name when they said ‘back to you, Kshithija!'”

One thing did change, though. Instead of being in front of the camera, KJ operates mostly behind it. Having worked as Photo Editor her sophomore year, KJ remains an ardent photojournalist, toting her camera wherever she goes and shooting events on and off campus for fun. But, she reveals, it wasn’t always a perfect fit.

“Photojournalism is what’s driven my entire high school journalism experience, and it essentially goes against my entire nature,” KJ said. “My whole thing is about action, and not being quiet, and being heard in a room. Photojournalism is all about being silent, being observant, not being a part of the story.”

But if there’s one thing KJ hates, it’s failure, and she wasn’t willing to give up photography once she started.

“Photography challenges me. I don’t think I’m naturally artistic,” she said. “But, I went against all my natural inclinations and urges, and I sat down. I learned to be patient, I learned how to blend in, I learned how to be graceful with the camera.”

KJ’s hard work paid off – before long, she discovered things she loved about photojournalism, like action photography.

“I do it for the adrenaline. The rush of being on the sidelines, being in the middle of the action, but not really being part of the action, is like nothing else,” she said. “I love shooting sports games. If I wasn’t an EIC, you’d see me at a sports game every week.”

In some ways, photography represents a compromise between who KJ was and who she is now, between being the loudest voice in the room and not a part of it. As a photographer, she’s a fly on the wall – an amalgam of her past and future selves.

“Even if I can’t be on the field with the athletes,” she said. “It’s almost the same for me. That’s my brand of adrenaline.”