The Advanced Placement (AP) standard of the College Board is one that many Cooper students face at one point or another. The College Board rates students’ abilities to “…tackle college-level work while they’re still in high school and earn college credit and placement.” (College Board) As a result, AP Photography students took an assortment of photos throughout the summer to expand their breadth and concentration. To understand the details of these projects, we interviewed seniors Peyton Tague and Natalie Osmond.

When asked about the amount of photos that she took for her summer work, Peyton responded that she had created, “around 200 photos.” She said one of the reasons she had captured so many moments was because she needed to fill a “breadth.” “Everything (content wise) is up to you,” she pointed out. Mentioning that she tended to gravitate towards “…architecture, scenery, plants and flowers.” The breadth is a chance for the student to show “really good photos that don’t work with your concentration. It’s kind of just to show the varying levels of photography that you’ve done,” she explained.

According to the College Board, in AP Art, a concentration is defined as “…a body of related works that demonstrate a student’s sustained and thoughtful investigation of a specific visual idea.”

Peyton’s concentration focused on “vulnerability, especially in people.” She highlights this aspect through a series of photos of “portraiture, body shapes, and odd features of people that make them who they are, and make them unique. Showcasing your feet, and your hands, and your stomach, and your elbows, and how all of that makes one cohesive human being.”

Natalie Osmond, on the other hand, attended a two week course on a merit scholarship at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) to develop her artistic skills while completing her summer work.

Natalie’s concentration for her AP portfolio centered around “body image.” She chose this theme because it is a topic that “I can really relate to, and a lot of people can as well.” In the process of developing her concentration, one of her photos was awarded a Scholastic Gold Key award. It is still “one of my favorite images I’ve ever taken,” she said about that photo, which inspired her to follow this theme.

As a result of their work, both students learned something about themselves, and found a way to share that experience with their community through the medium of photography.