Photographer Rebecca Yale ’06 spoke to Photography III students about her work as a professional wedding and fashion photographer and critiqued the students’ most recent project on Jan. 23.

While visiting, Yale showed students some of her wedding and fashion photographs and discussed the struggles and rewards of being a professional photographer. 

“My favorite part of photography is telling stories,” Yale said. “I love taking photos that I know are going to outlive me and people will care about for generations.”

Yale said she became passionate about photography during her time at Harvard-Westlake, which inspired her to pursue it at the professional level.

“Photography got me out of my shell,” Yale said. “I was really shy, but with a camera in my hand, I felt confident.”

Students also showed Yale their senior photography project on the Vietnam War, which is currently on display in Feldman Horn Center for the Arts. Students said that they were grateful for the opportunity to receive critique on their work.

“It is really interesting to have a professional perspective,” Mycah Mattin ’18 said. “We have been working on this project for a long time, so it is really cool to see it all realized and have [Yale] talk about it.”

Visual arts teacher Kevin O’Malley said that was proud to have his former student speak about her success in photography and hopes that his students benefited from the presentation.

“I try to have my students experience a panoply of different photography careers, so they have an idea that if you go into the visual arts, there are lots of different venues,” O’Malley said. “They say it does not matter the size of the rock, it is how far the ripples go. [Yale] is one of my ripples.”

As Vice Chair of UNICEF’s 2018 Next Generation Art Party, Yale also invited all Harvard-Westlake artists to submit their work to the show. Interested students can find out more information on Nextgenartparty.com or by contacting O’Malley.