Author Spotlight
Caroline Wood
Crawling under a ping pong table with a Nikon D500 camera, Hauberk Assistant Photo Editor and junior Katherine Hamilton tries to find a space in the small basement, making sure to stay out of everyone’s way. She’s taking pictures of five freshmen girls doing their own workouts to prepare for the volleyball season since their conditioning camp was canceled.
Between the district restricting the number of Hauberk photographers for COVID-19 safety when shooting sports, less events to take pictures of and not being in-person most of the year to take pictures of students during school, Hauberk photographers like Hamilton have had to alter the way they capture the year.
The staff has pushed themselves beyond solely taking pictures of classes and athletics like in previous years to focusing on how the pandemic affects students socially. Photographers have captured distanced Fantasy Football draft parties, virtual Speech and Debate tournaments, students shoveling their driveway and students working the drive-thru outside at Chick-Fil-A.
“We’ve definitely reached out to more people about little group hangouts,” Hamilton said. “It sounds like something where it’s nothing, but it kind of represents this year. We’ve really wanted to cover the small moments, like friend groups hanging out in someone’s backyard or walking together in a park.”
With students not being in-person for the first part of the year, a lot of clubs haven’t met. Editor of the club section and senior Ava Peters, along with her other co-club editors, anticipated this would be the case, but have continued to reach out to club sponsors throughout the year to cover the clubs that are meeting.
“With clubs, it’s pretty difficult because a lot of clubs just aren’t happening in the first place anymore,” Peters said. “And then, the ones that are happening, some of them only meet virtually or some of them just haven’t met more than once, and so getting pictures of clubs meeting has to be really organized and we have to just be really aware of what’s happening so that we don’t miss anything.”
The Hauberk also held club photo day during seminar four times — when it typically only takes them two days — because they had to take two separate photos of each cohort for every club. Plus, with seminar now being at the end of the day, the turnout was lower because many students don’t stay for the full length of seminar.
“We didn’t get as big of a turnout as last year [for club photo day], but we did have a lot of people show up for club pictures,” Peters said. “It was nice to see people still being passionate about their clubs and being involved even in such a weird situation.”
Sports will still be covered in the yearbook, as they were one of the only consistencies of this year. However, since SMSD only allowed one yearbook photographer to shoot solely from the bleachers at all fall and winter sports events besides cross country, Hauberk has struggled to get enough quality pictures.
These restrictions also made it difficult for Hauberk to train new photographers because so much of their learning process comes from watching experienced photographers omit. So, Hauberk and Harbinger photographers emailed a list of 21 reasons they deserve more photographers at events and should be allowed to shoot from the sidelines to 13 district employees. The district did eventually grant photographers permission to be on the sidelines, even though they were still limited to only one photographer per staff.
“It’s a lot harder to learn and explain through Webex, and we did try to have a brunch over the summer and teach them stuff,” co-Head Photo Editor and senior Lucy Hartman said. “But, it’s really hard to learn without the process of trial and error, and it’s a lot easier if someone’s there to help you.”
Now with spring sports, students are allowed to come and watch the games, and there is no limit on the number of photographers. But with the yearbook deadline set for April 2, they won’t be able to cover much of the season.
The yearbook deadline was originally a week later, but they pushed it up when the end of the year was moved because they want the seniors to have their yearbooks before graduating.
With the entire book being due on April 2, the Hauberk staff is rushing to get the rest of their photos, captions and designs together while also proofing the pages.
“Getting the yearbook turned in is stressful any year, but especially this year, when things have been so hard to complete and there’s still a bunch of missing holes,” Peters said. “We just really have to pick up the pace … and put [in] a lot of time and just a lot of extra work to communicate with each other and contact people.”
Hauberk had their first “Late Night” on March 10 — which typically happen every other week throughout the year — where everyone on staff meets at the school for at least two hours to work on the yearbook, print off pages, proof writing and edit photos. Staffers have also been coming after school and on their asynchronous days to work on the yearbook.
“One of the best parts about yearbook is everyone being together in class and getting to work together, be creative and give a bunch of feedback or just share information they’ve heard or share ideas,” Peters said. “It’s definitely not the same when half the class is on Webex and the other half is in person. You just don’t get that flow, that same flow of feedback and creativity.”
Peters feels this year has been challenging and has tested the staff’s creativity in trying to capture the ways the school has adjusted to the pandemic — as well as the Hauberk.
“[The yearbook] is the one thing we can make normal this year, even though it’s obviously not normal,” Hartman said. “There won’t be all the same events and in a lot of pictures people are wearing masks, but the yearbook is one thing that can just show us … the highlights of our school year. There’s been so much craziness happening, and everyone still wants to remember this year.”
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