Tejasvi Manoj for @Time Cover - Read online now and in print on september 29th
In 2024, the FBlâs Internet Crime Complaint Center received nearly 860,000 reports of scams, with potential losses exceeding $16 billion. Of those, acts of fraud targeting people over the age of 60 accounted for nearly $5 billion.
Thatâs why 17-year-old Tejasvi Manoj - TIMEâs 2025 Kid of the Year - created Shield Seniors, a website designed to educate the 60-plus demographic on how to detect, report, and protect themselves against online scams.
CREDITSâŁ
Photographs by Zerb Mellish for TIME (@obzerb )
Photo Assistanance by (@eddiedonross / @jacxbcarroll )
Degitec by Luis Govea ( @luiisgovea )
Grooming by (@vivemakeup )âŁ
âŁ
Thank you so much for your trust @time
Photograph by Zerb Mellish for TIME
Presented by @allstatefoundation
30.
Feels less like a milestone and more like a pause in the long night of becoming. A quiet checkpoint. A moment to look back and realize how far Iâve walked without always knowing where I was going. Iâve learned that rushing never saves time. That curiosity is a discipline. That real joy lives in small, sacred detailsâshared meals, late conversations, long drives, familiar laughter. The people in my life are my true archive. Friends who grew beside me. Family who never let me disappear. Connections that refused to fade.
Every year, I sit in front of the Mamiya RZ67 and document myselfânot for perfection, not for proof, but for truth. Like a confession to time. Those portraits have taught me patience. Theyâve shown me who I was trying to be, who I was hiding from, and who I was slowly becoming. Frame by frame, Iâve learned to listen. To remember. To forgive.
At thirty, I choose depth over speed. Presence over noise. Curiosity over comfort. I choose to live deliberately. To feel fully. To honor the long story Iâm still writing. Still learning. Still grateful. Sill studying light were one and the same. Still committed to becoming.
ââ- 30th birthday Feb 1st 2026
Self portrait âââ as I am series
In need of silence ââ
Moments in studio with Steve , January 2026
@_stevestevesteve : âSometimes the world is too much, the noise, my children, the raging obligations, the news, my feed, feels like itâs feeding on me. When I sit in silence I can hear, when I close my eyes and listen I can see.â
ââ every little shortcut makes the journey longer.
One cup at a time.
As the year closes, I find myself returning to the darkroom, slowly archiving what Iâve made. Printing becomes a way of listening. Of separating what truly speaks to me from what I once mistook as important. Each image asks its own quiet question: why did you stop here?
In these prints, I see the distance between intention and outcome. Missed opportunities sit beside milestones. Faces of good friends surface again, carrying memories that feel heavier nowâbecause theyâre real, because they stayed. The process isnât about judgment, only clarity. About learning which moments asked for patience, and which ones asked to be let go.
This is less about closing a chapter and more about understanding how I moved through it. What I rushed. What I honored. What I was afraid to wait for.
I want to remember this feeling next yearâthe honesty of slowing down, of choosing connection over convenience, of trusting that the longer path is the one that teaches.
cup made by : @paolamonreall
â the soul speaks of rivers â
model: @ti.mi__
film: @kodak ⢠portra 400
We were born in water,
lived our lives reaching for its memory,
crossed long dry lands in forgettingâ
until the absence itself
carried us back
to what first knew our name.
The Soul Speaks of Rivers is a series I started many years ago, exploring this idea and the obvious significance of water in all of our lives. Iâm hoping to return to this series soon
