Putting Down the Camera

The last moment of high school has arrived. Seniors get up on stage to take their final bow as the last four years flash before their eyes: arriving on campus, their first homecoming, all the football games played on the very field students are standing on. Seniors finally see all their hard work pay off when handed that diploma and have the privilege to say goodbye to Rocklin High School for the last time. At that moment everything comes full circle, and it feels bittersweet. One senior is truly seeing everything come to a close, as she passes the baton (or camera) to the next photographers of RHS. Hana Madson has been one of the photographers for graduation for the last two years, and has made her mark at RHS by being one of the graphic design editors for the yearbook. When thinking back to past graduations, Madson reminisces, “some of the editor groups went to the graduations for the class of 2021 and class of 2022. We had our EICs, editor in chiefs, graduating both years. I remember that me and a couple of the editors were on the field taking pictures of them and the rest of graduation. It was a very emotional day because we were watching the people we looked up to and the people we spent our whole entire year bonding with, leaving basically.

The first graduation I took pictures at, the class of 2021, We were standing in front of the gym doors as they opened as all of the graduates were walking out of them and onto the football field throughout the back entrance. I remember taking pictures of one of our best photographers as he graduated, Riley Williams-West. I sent him the pictures after they were done being uploaded and done being edited, he really liked them and I felt really really proud because I looked up to him a lot. But [the next year] it felt a little more professional, because we had done it before, and we had shot the year before, and we knew where to stand, and the same thing we went back to the room to upload all the pictures. It was a cool moment and it was weird to think that this would be us next year. It’s weird to think that I am going to be in the role of the people that I took pictures of. I remember their names being called and staking out the perfect spot to specifically take pictures of them because I just loved them so much.” One of the most personal elements of this year’s yearbook is the handwritten segments, and, little to the reader’s knowledge, Madson was behind the handwritten notes. “The theme of Take Note calls for lots of real organic elements and using real handwriting is a way we represent that in the book. I got the honor of writing the actual book title on the cover and the section names along with many more elements in chronological spreads.” The yearbook would feel incomplete without Madson, as a piece of her is seen on almost every page.