Embedded Files
For as long as I have been on Regulus, we have never had a photographer we could depend on. Sure, we've had some photographers who would occasionally take pictures of games and school events, but were those pictures exceptional? I'm not so sure.
There is one thing I find in common with every award-winning yearbook: they all have crisp, exemplary photos that enhance the book's quality. I was mainly a designer in my team, but I knew that to be satisfied with the finished spreads, not only did I need a good design and content, but a good, eye-catching photos.
My dad works at Fujifilm, a camera company, and for that, I had access to some great cameras at my house. I started taking pictures using the cameras we had at home when we took family trips to places like Montreal and San Diego. That alone enhanced my photography skills, as different tourist sites had different lighting that I had to adjust the setting to.
In the fall of my junior year, I joined cross country just to get a head start working out for the upcoming winter track season. My coach was generally fine with me not racing at the meets with one condition: I had to show up to every meet, even if I was not running, to support my teammates.
So I told myself, if I'm there at the meet and I have nothing to do but cheer for my teammates, why don't I take pictures for the cross-country spread?
Through this cross-country season, not only was I able to train for winter track, but I was able to significantly improve my photography skills. The photos I take when I travel are of still objects. So when it comes to moving objects like people running at a 5-7 min mile pace, you better learn to adjust the ISO and shutter speed, or else you will end up with blurry figures.
Travel
Travel
My family is originally from Japan, and due to my father's transfer to an American company, we have been living in the U.S. since 2016. Since we do not know when my father's company will tell him to move back to Japan, my family takes every opportunity to travel around the U.S. and nearby countries while we are still here. Documenting the beautiful places we visit became my unofficial job within my family.
Athletics
Athletics
I am on the Varsity Track and Field team at my school. As the photographer on my team, I try my best to capture every single person on my team running or at their field events.
However, since no one else knows how to work the camera, I go through the season without a single photo of myself hurdling. Every time I see my teammates post pictures that I took of them running, I feel very proud of my photography skills but also feel unseen. Where were the pictures that I could post of myself hurdling? How am I supposed to look back at my high school years in the future and bring back memories of me hurdling without a picture of myself hurdling?
As I know how it feels to not have a picture of yourself in your sport, whenever I go to a sports game at South, I try to capture every player. Of course, my goal is to take photos that we can use on our spreads. But at the same time, I want these players to have photos of themselves playing in their uniform with their teammates, genuinely having fun and doing something they feel passionate about. (All pictures are available to everyone through a link on our Instagram bio).
For the Yearbook
For the Yearbook
"Should I go get photos for the yearbook?" This is what I say for literally every single school event. In my mind, everything that happened at the school is yearbook-worthy, and I do not hesitate to bring myself over to these events and capture the moments, even if there weren't spreads designated for them.
The Digi-Cam Friend
The Digi-Cam Friend
I am the digicam friend. Everywhere I go, I have a digicam in my pocket. After every hangout, I get a "Have you downloaded your photos yet?" or "Can I have the photos once you download them?" text.
Ever since digicams became a trend, like so many other teenage girls, I fell in love with their quality and portable nature. I have always been the kind of person who wants to capture everything in a photo since no moment happens twice in the same way. With the re-emergence of digicams, I became more immersed in capturing small yet significant moments.
Sports Media Day
Sports Media Day
For the first time in Regulus history, Regulus held a sports media day.
One of the most problematic and time-consuming tasks of the yearbook is getting a group photo of every single sports team, including JV and freshman teams, and getting the name of everyone in the picture. At times, some of our fall sports pages were still empty/needed names as late as January.
To combat this issue that arises every single year, we have talked about and planned sports media day since the spring of 2024. As I knew that the experience of going up to teams was often very intimidating, even if I knew the people there, I prayed that we could make Sports Media Day happen.
On Aug 27, 2024, the weight that was on my shoulders for so long was finally lifted with one email from our advisor:
To get names for each photo, we had clipboards and papers for each row and made everyone write their names.
All we had to do was type them up on a Google doc, and later when we were ready to put them on spreads, copy and paste them into the spread.
The yellow highlight means that each person's name was spell-checked on the all-school alpha.
Although we could not get all of the fall sports teams (the dance team and jvb girls' volleyball team did not show up), and we failed to get names for every team (time did not allow us), it was a very successful first sports media day.
Sports Media Day!.movMy co-EiC, Mia Lahav, made this video featuring us at Sports Media Day to post on our Instagram. For some reason, I don't remember why, we never ended up posting this on our Instagram, which I now regret because it is simply such a cute video.
Club Photo Day
Club Photo Day
Contrasting the Sports Media Day, we have had club photo day every year. For volume 63 (my junior year), Mia (my now co-EiC, my then co-Managing Editor) and I initiated the club photo day in February because, even though we tend to do club photo day around Thanksgiving break, the EiCs then never got to work on it. The deadline to submit pages was nearing, so Mia and I decided to take action and set up club photo day on 2/14/2024.
This year, for volume 64, we held our club photo day on 11/20/2024.
Let me roughly take you through the process.
Our first set of clubs was from 9:00 a.m, but to start setting up cameras, sticks with club names, clipboards, etc, I woke up at 6:30 and got to school by 8:00.
For each block (C, WIN, D, E, and F), we had about 25-30 clubs get their photos taken. There were four camera stations, each responsible for taking a photo and getting everyone's names on the clipboard for about seven clubs. Each camera had one photographer and a few helpers.
Our goal was to send everyone back to class in 15 minutes.
As students filled in the gym, finding their clubs (Regulus staff held up sticks with club names), it got very loud in there to the point where I was screaming, "Synthetic Biology Club, you guys are next," for example.
The struggle during club photo day that happens every year is when people say, "We're still waiting for people to come." Although we would love to wait for everyone from each club to show up, that rarely happens, as some people have tests during their block that they can't miss or simply don't know that this is happening. And since we have a time limit, we have to put our mean faces on and tell them, "We can't wait anymore, you guys are going now." The names of the people who couldn't make the photo are listed as "not pictured" on the spreads as long as they tell us who those are, so it's really not the end of the world if they miss the photo.
Since each block is 75 minutes long, and we manage to get everyone out of there in 15-20 minutes, we have about 55-60 minutes to download all the pictures from each camera and type up everyone's names from each club onto a Google doc.
This year, I was specifically in charge of collecting all of the photos from each camera's SD card, which was a pain. I had to rename all of the photos with the club names that the photo was of so that we don't get confused.
Our next step was to put everything on the pages.
I made a template and was ready to start inserting photos and captions.
However, the EiCs decided that it would be a great opportunity for the juniors to work on this. We wanted to see more commitments from the juniors, partly so that we can set up the 2025-26 editors to succeed.
Page updated
Report abuse