Lights, Camera, Graduation!
They’re crouched down at the bottom of the steps, their lens is focused on the beaming student in front of them, the sound of the shutter goes off and they’ve captured a moment years in the making.
Graduation is on its way, but before these graduates get their diplomas, they’re posing at some of their favorite locations on campus for pictures. But a photo is nothing without the person who took it. Who are the ones getting on the ground for that perfect shot? Here are some of UT’s sharpest photographers and the story of their photography journey.
UT alum Casey Tang graduated in 2019 with a degree in biology. Tang began taking pictures for her student organization, Longhorn Pre-Pharmacy Association, events which led her to take graduation photos for her fellow members. Although Tang admits in the beginning, she was not all that great.
“The more I started learning I was like ‘I really like doing photography,” Tang said. “It’s really cool to learn about what people are passionate about, and I try to reflect peoples’ personalities through the pictures.”
Usually you’ll find students taking their pictures at the legendary blue door, the UT tower or the UT sign on University Avenue. Tang says these popular sites also garner a lot of attention — in a bad way.
“Everyone always wants to take their pictures there [the blue door] and it always has the longest line,” Tang said. “I personally think a lot of the popular spots on campus don’t necessarily always have the most flattering lighting.”
Tang says poor lighting is due to these spots being covered by shadows or facing direct sunlight, making it difficult to get a good back light.
Some of Tang’s favorite unique spots for pictures include the roof of the William C. Powers student activity center and the Red McCombs School of Business. Tang says the windows of McCombs school have a great reflective surface allowing for a shot of the buildings in front.
“Because of photography, I go to places that I probably wouldn’t have gone otherwise,” Tang said. “I’ll just drive around aimlessly in my car until I find a cool place and I found so many hidden places in Austin just because of this.”
5th-year civil engineering major, Afolabi Oyewuwo, began taking photos in his sophomore year of high school. But it wasn’t until his first year at UT that he got a professional camera and started Afo’s Photos.
“As a college student, the easiest market to get into is graduation photos,” Oyewuwo said. “I had a friend, who is my mentor, his name is James Durand and he used to go to UT. He was the main photographer and he would always take graduation pictures, and I was like ‘whoa I want to get into that’.”
For Oyewuwo, photography is a chance to see what his clients have planned for the future by asking their majors and what jobs they have lined up. But it’s all fun and games until you need to strike the perfect pose.
“The vast majority of the people that take graduation pictures are not models, so posing definitely becomes an issue,” Oyewuwo said. “I have generic poses that I give everybody, but after so many, you’re just repeating the same poses for different people.”
From an outsider’s perspective, taking photos is as simple as clicking a button but there’s a lot more effort to it. The greater the effort, the higher the price. For instance, things like cost of equipment, and editing are a big factor in pricing for Oyewuwo and Tang.
Tang charges $175 to $300 for photo sessions; this price includes the time to commute to photoshoot sites, the allotted time for shoots and consultation time.
“I take into account the editing as well because I only deliver edited final pictures to clients,” Tang said. “I do spend a lot of time making sure that the client is getting what they’re wanting.”
Oyewuwo puts quality over quantity going through each photo he takes, retouching his clients’ skin, eyes and teeth making sure the photo looks near perfect.
“My price starts at $275 for two outfits, one hour, but you only get five edited images back,” Oyewuwo said. “However, when you see the images that you’re getting back, they’re way higher quality.”
Oyewuwo’s most expensive package costs $600 and includes 3 outfits, a two-hour time slot, 12 final edited images, a 15-second clip of your graduation shoot, a champagne bottle, confetti cannon and all unedited photos.
These photographers do a lot to make sure each click of the camera will result in their best work, but it’s not something they learned overnight. As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a photographer.
Tang looks to online communities to help her make important decisions about her career.
“Because I’m pretty new at this, oftentimes it’s really uncomfortable raising prices,” Tang Said. “But I think being a part of an online community really helps. I’m a part of this community called Build and Bloom on Facebook, a group where younger photographers help each other out.”
For Oyewuwo, there’s no better teacher than the famous video-sharing platform — YouTube.
“I basically was just watching hella YouTube videos and doing hella research on everything there is to know about photography,” Oyewuwo said.
Whatever they’re doing, it’s working because these two photographers have amassed a gorgeous clientele.
Graduating senior Delaney Davis met Tang during their time in Afterglow ATX, a student-run music publication at UT. Davis thought Tang would be the perfect choice for her graduation photos.
“I wanted the classic campus photos,” Davis said. “I’ve made so many memories on campus that it made the most sense to take my photos here.”
Davis wanted to get graduation pictures to commemorate the hard work she’s done over the past four years. Fellow graduating senior, Julia Percy has the same sentiment.
“This degree was hard to get, especially in the middle of a pandemic,” Percy said. “But I’m proud of myself for doing the work and these pictures show that.”
Percy chose Afo’s Photos for her graduation pictures because she wanted to support Black photographers, and the quality of his work impressed her.
In the future, Oyewuwo has hopes to get into wedding photography and open up his own studio.
“I’m lowkey kind of getting bored of shooting outside all the time,” Oyewuwo said. “Getting into wedding photography, opening my own studio and doing more studio photography are my three biggest goals.”
For now, Tang looks to focus on her career as a user experience designer, but if something bigger comes knocking, she’ll be happy to answer the door.
“I really want to do editorial fashion photography because that’s what I’m most interested in,” Tang said. “But no matter what I do, I’ll always really enjoy doing portrait photography and doing grad photos.”