My role as our school's journalism teacher includes overseeing yearbook production. Design and deadlines are not my strengths. Photography is not my friend. But over the past nine years, I've learned a lot through brutal mistakes.
One struggle we always have is gathering a portrait photo from every senior. There are some students who dream of Vogue-style photoshoots from middle school on, then spend hundreds of dollars, and travel across the state to pose in sunflower fields or on Omaha's Old Market cobblestones.
But other students do not have the funds (not to mention the style confidence, positive self-image, and organizational wherewithal) to orchestrate a senior photo session.
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I want to find a way for all AHS seniors to be featured in the portrait section. We ask students to send in selfies they like, and we have also had yearbook staff take senior pics.
This year a local photographer reached out to me. She offered students in need a no-cost, no-obligation photoshoot, a picture for the yearbook, and an 8x10 print. She said high-school seniors are at a beautiful place in their lives, at the cusp of adulthood. They deserve to capture who they are at this time.
I was wowed by her generosity.
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When our photo submission deadline came and passed, I approached students individually to extend the photographer's offer.
I immediately hit a snag:
"Couldn't she just come up to the high school and take my picture here?" a boy asked.
His request sounded on the surface unappreciative, surly even. But I sensed unknowable layers beneath his words: Did he have transportation? Did he feel self-conscious? Overwhelmed? Did he not understand the generosity of the photographer's offer? Or was he defensive in accepting "charity"?
"I'll ask," I said. And I did.
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So on Friday, the photographer took a half-day off work. She brought lights and backdrops and stools and cameras into the school and set up a studio in an open classroom. She'd printed off sample photos to let kids select styles and positions they liked. She varied the seating and background to make sure each student's photo was unique.
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It was an exhausting but uplifting day. Students who lined up for their photos nervously left with happy smiles.
The COVID moment? The photographer had positioned a Hawaiian-shirted beauty in a pose designed to look casual, but which had actually taken significant adjustments to achieve.
"Oh! Your mask!" the photographer blurted. We all laughed. The student removed her mask, and the photographer repeated her multi-step process for the just-right photo.
Enough.
Be well.
Write.
Allison
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