Twice As Hard

Her life is picture-perfect. Her negatives tell a different story.

Sixteen-year-old Zola Robinson is the blueprint. She is a first-chair cellist, a straight-A student at the prestigious Vanguard Academy, and the pride of her high-achieving parents. In the Robinson household, the rule is absolute: You have to work twice as hard to get half as far.

But Zola has a secret.

When the metronome stops ticking, Zola trades her cello bow for a battered Canon AE-1 camera. Under the alias "Refraction," she prowls the streets of New York City, capturing the gritty, unpolished reality that her parents try so hard to rise above. Her anonymous photos are going viral, sparking a cult following she never asked for.

Zola thinks she can keep her two lives separate-the perfect daughter by day, the guerilla artist by night. But when a risky underground exhibition threatens to expose her true identity, the lens cracks.

Caught between the crushing weight of expectation and the intoxicating freedom of the darkroom, Zola must decide: Will she be the masterpiece her parents designed, or the artist of her own life?