In Commercial Photography, students have the chance to enhance their ability to take more effective pictures and obtain a unique opportunity to expose their creative edge.

Commercial Photography is a class where students “go out and take pictures, depending on a prompt, or [of] pretty much whatever [they] see [that is] cool” according to photographer junior Sarah Sharp.

Creativity and skills are tested frequently in the class by the wide variety of prompts that are given to the students that take the class. This could include taking pictures of metal, specifically “different” environments, or even window blinds.

Elizabeth Tompkins, the course teacher, claims that “just like on the baseball team; they do strength training on their legs and their arms independently so that it all comes together as a complete athlete. I’m trying to make a complete photographer.”

Commercial Photography serves the overall purpose of teaching “students learn how to make a living taking pictures,” says Tompkins. “The goal is that they leave the class and they can go support themselves in college.”

Snapping pictures on a camera is not a simple task, which is why students in commercial photography are required to take photos of many different situations and items in order to obtain a more complete understanding the art of photography.

Something highly unlikely has occurred in this class as well. Four out of 16 students in the class of mixed ages share the same birthday of May 18. Three of those four students were also born in the same year, 1998, and all four of them are girls. The odds of that happening are far more rare than one in a million, with the odds coming down to 1 in 26,848,690.

The goal of the class is not to get a good grade, but to prepare these people for this potential career or hobby that they may take part in for the rest of their lives.