For Daniel Jones, the art on which he hopes to spend a lifetime is equal parts technical expertise, creative expression and puzzle solving in terms of pulling all the aspects together into a finished product.

Jones said he loves to play with light, with angles, with concepts, with the thousands of options offered by computerized photography.

“I just want to try it all,” he said. “There’s so many possibilities.”

The experimenting he’s been doing for the last two years already is starting to pay dividends. A-soon-to-graduate senior at Inglemoor High, Jones, 18, took first place in the statewide Professional Photographers of Washington annual scholarship contest.

Jones won a $2,000 prize he’ll put toward attending the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. Out of about 600 applications, he was one of 60 who earned early acceptance to the school, where he spent eight weeks last summer taking college-level classes.

Jones’ first real experience with photography arrived how you might expect it would have, that is by his signing up for a high-school class. He also has worked on the Inglemoor yearbook. Still, Jones clearly has taken his photography a step further than most high-school students. He said most of his early photos were landscapes, but he soon decided people were a more interesting focus.

“I try to catch a different perspective on people, a different view of life,” he said.

Jones’ scholarship-winning shots are all highly stylized portraits of one kind or another. Someone who apparently is one of Jones’ favorite subjects, his sister, Mika, 22, is featured in two of the photos. One is what Daniel Jones described as a sort of fantasy or fairy-tale portrait, with Mika in the arms of a mysterious and muscular masked figure.

Jones said his sister is a painter and artist who often helps him dream up the settings for his work.

What Jones describes as one of his favorite photos also features Mika, this time covered with a reflective gold paint, dressed like a fashion model and half-submerged in what her brother said are the waters off St. Edward State Park. Jones talked about having a sort of mermaid motif in mind and wanting to play with the light that bounced off the gold paint and the water.

“I wanted it kind of to be like she was drawing you in,” Jones said.

He adds that no one besides his sister probably would have had the patience to pose for the picture.

“It was August and the water was still freezing,” he said. “You can’t see them in the photo, but she has goose bumps up and down her legs.”

You can clearly hear the laughter in Jones’ voice as he talks about taking the shot, but there is no possibility of an accompanying smile. Muscular dystrophy robbed Jones of control of the muscles in his face and he admits he wears a perpetual frown.

“Sometimes people think I’m angry or sad, when I’m happy,” he said.

But Jones also adds he thinks not being able to express himself with a smile or a look somehow feeds into his photography, allowing him an outlet for emotions he can’t otherwise show. Jones also credits his success to supportive parents, especially mom Gail, who suffers from substantial health problems.

“She needs a lot of help … I’ve had to step up,” Jones said, insisting flatly that his challenges have made him a better person.

“I don’t judge people,” he stated.

While Jones talks a lot about his mom, he doesn’t forget dad, Guy, who, among other things, took him last year to a professional photography seminar in Wenatchee.

“I think a lot of my creativity came from my mom,” Jones said. “My dad provided the focus.”

Jones believes that at first his parents treated his photography as a hobby, not something he would ever do for a living. They now fully back his intention to someday open his own studio and earn a living with a camera, a path even he admits might not always make for smooth sailing.

“I’m going to make it work,” Jones said with absolutely no hint of doubt in his voice.