Over the past four years, senior Emma Beecher has dedicated her time to the art of photography, which began with the creation of the photo club.

“I started taking photos around freshman year; my friends and I started a photo club that would meet once a week. We were all really interested in film and the darkroom,” Beecher said.

After experimenting with multiple different mediums of art, she found that she did not enjoy painting or drawing as much as photography, leading to the development of her passion.

“I was never great at painting or drawing, but photography was something that I was good at and was really interested in. It was one of the things that I really had the patience to learn and research about,” Beecher said.

After finding this new passion, Beecher began to discover her own style, preferring photos that use the philosophy of conceptual art. This form had to do with the meaning or idea behind the photograph, as the artist believes the concept of the photo is extremely important.

“I would consider my style more fine art and conceptual; most of my photos have some type of conceptual meaning behind them, and I really try to create art with it,” Beecher said.

Along with this style of photos, Beecher’s most preferred type of pictures are portraits that have an element of composition incorporated. In order to take her photographs, she uses a Canon 6D camera, editing them with either Lightroom or Photoshop
to achieve the desired look.

Senior Haley Royal has worked with Beecher throughout high school and has seen her develop and grow as an artist. Royal also feels that Beecher has been a source of aid and influence in her own art.

“Emma has been my supporter throughout the college application process. She provided an outside perspective to my portfolio and helped me to see my work through a new light. [Emma and I] express our art in different ways. She is a photographer and I am a painter. Seeing how she handles photography gives me new inspiration and pushes me, creatively,”
Royal said.

To further pursue her interest, Beecher has created a platform to present photos on, this in hopes of obtaining requests from others to take pictures.

“I’ve had a website up since my sophomore year. It’s emmaebphoto.com. I try to tell as many people about it so I can get some exposure. I also have a photography Instagram which is @emmaebphoto, which I post on to get my work out there,” Beecher said.

As Beecher has committed to photography throughout high school, she intends to pursue it in college and, hopefully, as an overall career.

“I would love to become a photographer and hope that it is my future. I really like fine art photography, but also am aware that it isn’t completely realistic for me to just be making art photography,” Beecher said.