Year after year, as Archer’s seniors graduate, a tradition has occurred most years, where students take it upon themselves to commemorate their high school experience by photographing their departing class. The tradition originally began with portraits taken by Kayry Gonzalez (’16), who photographed each member of her class.

Beginning in February, seniors Sophie Altemus, Olivia Torrington and Mia Makower began working on continuing this tradition. Altemus and Torrington photographed each student in the class of 2023, while Makower took it a step further and began individually drawing members of the graduating class.

Makower said the inspiration behind her portion of the project was inspired from differing from traditional senior portraits.

“Senior portraits are a big deal, and I’ve never heard of a school doing another form of art besides photography when ties to senior portraits, so I hope it’s a unique thing to remember Archer by,” Makower said. “I hope that it’s a little extra memory to hold onto like ‘This is what I looked like as a senior’ turned into a drawing. I think it would be a cool memory to hold onto for years to come.”

Initially, Torrington and Altemus were working on the portraits alone, but soon inquired about students participating in the project. Makower agreed to be a part of the project because of her passion for art.

“Earlier in the year, I was drawing a couple of people from our grade for fun, and I was like ‘What if I did this for everybody?,’ and [Torrington and Altemus] were like ‘You can work with us on the senior portraits, where everyone can get a photo and a drawing,’ and I was like, ‘This sounds like a good idea,’ so I decided to do it,” Makower said. “It’s going to be a lot of work, but, ultimately, I think it’s something people will have forever — I hope.”

Torrington sent an email to seniors Feb. 1 proposing the project. The message included a Google Form for students to provide feedback about the idea with a text box for suggestions regarding a potential theme for the photos. The photographers took each portrait in black and white.

Once they organized their schedule, the pair created a Google Sheet with time-slots for students to sign up to have their portrait taken. Torrington and Altemus reserved the lighting room for each portrait, and students were required to wear a plain top.

According to Torrington and Altemus, it took five-10 minutes to photograph each person. Altemus said they played music while taking the portraits to make students feel relaxed.

“We take their photo, play some music — snap — and made sure they liked it too,” Altemus said. “We do it as many times as they want until they like it because we don’t want to use something they don’t like.”

The two faced challenges while completing the project. Students occasionally missed their appointed timeslot, the two had to adjust and re-adjust the lighting and camera.

“People not showing up for their times was hard. Life gets in the way, but when they would not show up and not let us know, we’d kind of just be waiting there,” Altemus said. “Eventually, we got them all done with rescheduling.”

Now that all of the photographs have been completed, students will be invited back to draw on their photo with phrases and doodles that encapsulate their Archer experience.

Similar to the difficulties Torrington and Altemus faced, because Makower has been drawing each senior, she noted timeliness as an obstacle to the completion of her project. Makower is individually drawing the class, and earlier this year, she sent an email with a shared Google Folder for students to upload photos of themselves for her to sketch.

“Each portrait takes about an hour and a half. The second [portrait] took about an hour; the first one took longer. I was like ‘I cannot put this much detail into it,’ so I think as I keep going they’re going to lose a bit of detail,” Makower said, laughing. “People will be like, ‘That doesn’t look like me,’ and I’ll be like, ‘It’s close enough.’ They take a long time.”

Torrington said they will host a show in the Eastern Star Gallery displaying the photographed portraits, while Makower said she will potentially turn the sketched portraits into a booklet they will gift to everyone in the class.

“I hope that if we do turn it into a booklet, people can hold onto that in the same way they would their yearbook, or even more-so because it’s more personal to our grade,” Makower said.

Torrington said she hopes this project allows the graduating seniors to be grateful for their peers.

“I hope they can look to this wall of their classmates and be grateful and appreciative of the beautiful, wonderful people they’ve spent the past few years with as they move on to college,” she said. “And appreciate these different faces that have come together to form each other’s experiences.”