Ever since I was a kid, I always loved seeing behind the scenes. It’s one of the reasons I was drawn to commercial work in my early career. I couldn’t get enough of steel mills and factories. Besides my love of seeing behind the scenes, I always felt that you could appreciate the things around you better if you knew a bit more of what went into making them. When I’m photographing a graduate, I work to get past the surface to show what is really important to that young adult.
We will often use items for our graduate portraits that best represent the student’s past four years. Whether these items are from their academic, sports, or other activities it’s a great way of telling something about how they have changed and grown in that time.
Sometimes we’re lucky to have a location that can really help the portrait to tell that story. Matthew had many interests in high school, but his most passionate was and is the theater. Not on the stage but dressed all in black with a headset making it happen from behind the curtain. I know he was excited to photograph backstage. I could see while we were shooting that this was a place he felt a great deal of attachment to.
I believe the real value to Matthew will come years down the road when he sees himself in that familiar location. It will transport him back in time. Think back to when you were in high school. Do you still have things or pictures that show what was meaningful to you? How do they make you feel when you see them?
The most valued images of my high school years at Culver are those of me in my uniform. The photos from when I was first there are fun, but the essential images are from my senior year, with my final rank and the medals I earned.
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