Picture day is an anxiety inducing day for a number of students every year. Fearful that their single take will ruin their class photo for the rest of that school year, micromanaging appearances is a common response. Whether your hair is not fixed in time or it rained all morning leaving you soggy and bitter, picture day tends to leave a sour taste on students tongues.
Though students dislike getting their photo taken, the yearbook feels differently.Planning and organizing for the next yearbook begins the year prior. Yearbook supervisor Alecia Bear coordinates with the school’s contracted photographers, setting up a day in which they will come and take all A NUMBER students’ pictures.
The process of using every photo that is taken appears daunting in the fact that there are so many, however, it is quite simple. Bear explains how “they are very large digital files. We check through those digital files, and then using our programs can flow all of the pictures in… it’s not bad at all.” As technology has improved and increased funding has been given to the yearbook, the process of transferring the photos from picture day has grown easier every year.
Though Bear handles most of the technicalities, picture day could not function as smoothly as it does without the yearbook staff. Senior Averie Fuller, an editor for the yearbook, also elaborates on how the yearbook manages their two most important days of the year, “Staff sits here and [organizes] for [the] students, and then editors are traffic control… other editors are… customer service or [at] the employee desk.” Each student in yearbook plays an important part in the coordination of picture days.
Seniors are the outliers when it comes to their photos in the yearbook. Their pictures instead are portraits done off campus by Loucoopey. Formal clothes are required and seniors are given multiple poses to choose from. Senior Penny Parsons took her portraits Aug. 5 and voiced how portraits “[are] necessary. It is the last year of high school and the process is supposed to be special.” Parsons also elaborated how students should “make sure [they’re] prepared. It’s not the biggest deal in the world… just make sure that you dress nice, [and] make sure you look good.”
Bear and her yearbook staff rely heavily on picture day to carry their book each and every year. Sports and events play a crucial role, however, as Fuller commented, “Yearbooks are things that you keep forever… [Students] reflect back on that.”
