Drexel held its first in-person, school-wide graduation this weekend, a year after COVID-19 shut the university and the world down. Set right before the city lifts its mask mandate, the graduation was held at Citizens Bank Park. Guests were advised to wear masks when not sitting in their seats but there was an exception for those who had been vaccinated. The school combined 2020’s graduating class, who graduated over Zoom the year before, and this year’s graduating class.
Graduates gather outside the stadium with the required equipment, many wearing masks. There was no clear direction on whether or not masks were required. An email went out from Drexel to the graduates about regulations, but there was no reinforcement at the event.
Most attendants only wore masks when entering the ballpark, but some chose to keep them on at all times.
The masks didn’t seem to deter people from celebrating how they usually would. People still gave flowers, embraced each other and took pictures with friends and family around the ballpark throughout the event.
Some people were irritated with the lack of direction and clear guidelines about masks and distancing.
Drexel’s guidelines said attendants were free to remove their masks once they were seated, but many continued to wear them because there was no staggering to the seating and many people were seated close together.
Even though the graduation was two combined classes, many didn’t attend. This could be because they had left the city because of the pandemic, or because some still didn’t feel safe gathering in large groups.
Most of the graduation took place on the jumbotron. This is how it would have happened even in a normal year, but there was something strange about having the crowd face away from the graduates to see what was happening.
Despite the air of not-quite-back-to-normal, the graduates seemed to be in high spirits, whether masked or not.
Even through all the uncertainty and confusion, it was a joyous event that meant a lot to a lot of people.
People have stated throughout the pandemic that things will never really go “back to normal”, and it’s possible they won’t, but as the world slowly reopens it’s comforting to see some important things can still happen.
Personal process:
I’m in the middle of moving out of my current apartment so I haven’t been doing much outside the house. My brother’s college graduation was a welcomed break from the stress and an interesting event to attend in a city that is slowly reopening. I decided to document the air of uncertainty I felt going into the event, along with the pride and the happiness of those participating.
Photo essays are usually a collection of photos that have an overall topic or theme. The pictures enhance the narrative and, while the pictures support the text, the audience can assume the story based on the pictures alone. I set out to try and follow a series of events and tell a story with what I saw as honestly as I could. I tried to follow the WED model of writing, editing, and design in the sense that I had the idea for the story, took the pictures, and then began writing once I had everything researched and photographed. The images I took are specific to this event.
I also tried to be authentic with the pictures I took, trying to capture the emotions of the day. I kept the principles of visual storytelling in mind as I took pictures. I attempted to highlight the happiness of this day along with all the uncertainty and oddness. I wanted the images to have an authentic feeling, to be something people could understand and relate to. That, combined with the sensory experience of wearing a mask and the pride of a graduation, felt like a story that most people right now could relate to. I kept all the images tight and close, projecting a feeling of intimacy in this giant stadium. It was a personal moment for my family and for thousands of families around us.
So much of the pandemic coverage has been dark, for obvious reasons, and with more people being vaccinated and things opening back up there is still a lot of debate and uncertainty. I wanted to capture that conflict but also highlight the hope that things will eventually be okay. It may not be a solution story – none of my pictures really offer any solution to the general problem in the pictures – but I tried to capture the feeling of hope one might bring. It was a little difficult because the area to take pictures was limited and I didn’t really want to take too many pictures of strangers, but I think the masks and the stadium do a good job of pinpointing the narrative.
Photographs, when curated into a series, can takes a story to another level. They increase engagement with the audience and add an extra dimension to the text. The photos may not be complicated or fancy, but they will always tell a story when paired with the right caption. The combination of writing, editing, and design come together to produce something more powerful than any one of those elements on their own. Each picture has something to say and when put together they can tell a truly immersive story.
Campbell, D. (2019, September 17). Why It’s Time for Visual Journalism to Include a Solutions Focus. Medium. https://witness.worldpressphoto.org/why-it-is-time-for-visual-journalism-to-include-a-solutions-focus-5be15aec3afc.
Dahmen, N. (2017, December 2). How to Do Better Visual Journalism for Solutions Stories. MediaShift. http://mediashift.org/2017/11/visually-reporting-solutions-stories-newsrooms-classrooms/.
Lien, J. (2019, November 21). Worth 1,000 Words: The 4 Principles of Visual Storytelling. amplifi. https://amplifinp.com/blog/4-principles-visual-storytelling/.
Reason, R. (2002, August 20). WED: The Integration of Writing/Editing/Design. Poynter. https://www.poynter.org/archive/2002/wed-the-integration-of-writingeditingdesign/.
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