COMMANDING THE ROOM

Lila Henningsen ’23

If you have been on campus this semester for an event, you have probably seen Lila Henningsen buzzing around with her Canon 6D taking photographs of school activities and traditions we hold dear at EHS. Careful to catch her subjects in their element, she softly steps through the crowds to capture candid moments of her classmates. If you are enthralled in your conversation, listening intently to whatever speaker is holding a microphone or watching the dancers perform their hearts out, you might miss her. Lila is like a photography ninja in the way she is able to capture images without disturbing the scene.

Lila will be graduating at the end of the school year. With her final year at EHS under way, she has acquired quite the list of accomplishments. She is the Varsity Cheer Captain, co-founder of the Swag Club (the one-stop-shop for EHS club merchandise) and editor of Photo-J. Topping off success in all Four Pillars, Lila is active in the faith-based organization Young Life, where she serves as an officer and runs their Instagram page.

Lila has an old soul. I noticed this when she was still a freshman in Beginning

Her photography journey began as a subject for her older brother when he was a student at EHS more than ten years ago. Growing up in a creative family with three older siblings gave Lila a foundation to begin her appreciation for photography. It was rather serendipitous that she walked into her first class, first-period of her freshman year to find herself with a camera in hand. She fell in love.

It was not until her sophomore year that she could take a second photography class. Assignments, by design, were a little all over the place. “We have an assignment each week which changes a lot and so we get a wide variety of images to see what we enjoy shooting. I especially like football games, as well as dance, because I am involved in those things,” she says. She worked briefly in editorial photography but discovered her passion in other areas of photography. Luckily, Mr. Storlie allows all of his students to try out different types of photography to see where they are happiest.

By her junior year, Lila was co-editor and, as a senior, the editor of Photo-J. Lila manages a staff of ten Photo-J photographers. With the help of her assistant editor, Jules Weinstein ’24, Lila sets the weekly assignment shooting schedule, prepares and uploads photographs to an online server system for publications and communication use, covers weekly shooting assignments herself, and consistently produces dynamite personal passion projects.

She looks through her lens to see her subjects, but how does she see herself? “What I tell people when I describe myself is what my dad tells me. If you’re looking at an orchestra, you’re looking at the people playing the instruments. I have always tried to be the conductor of the orchestra, where I can stand back and look at it and not be in the spotlight. I like to lead by example and that has helped me in my EHS experience.”

— Jessica Brown

Photography. The class was a mix of all grade levels, and Lila was one of the youngest students. One day, the students were being extra rowdy and struggling to pay attention. Out of nowhere, this tiny, blonde-headed girl, Lila Henningsen, shouted, “would you guys just be quiet so that Mr. Storlie can teach us how to do this?!” I knew right then that she would eventually be an editor of Photo-J. Four years later and she is still commanding the room.

— Mr. Storlie