There are many electives and extracurricular activities available to students at Mount Greylock Regional School, but few are growing as rapidly as the photography offerings.
Karin Stack, an art teacher at Mount Greylock, is teaching three Intro into Photography classes this year, mostly consisting of ninth graders. Some of them signed up after having taken it in middle school as an enrichment course. While enrichment courses primarily serve to help middle school students learn about the arts, music or other creative outlets, Stack also hopes that the students in enrichments see previous students’ work and find inspiration to sign up for other photography classes.
Photography is not only popular among younger students. In addition to Intro to Photography, Portfolio Photography will be offered during the 2025-2026 school year to juniors and seniors. Students will be able to “pursue their projects outside of school…do a fair amount of [photo editing in] Lightroom, and work in Photoshop as well,” Stack explained. Stack hopes that the photography interest continues to build and that “we start to bring back a lot of these upper level classes that dwindled.”
Alec Sills, senior president of Mount Greylock’s Photo Club, believes that the rising interest is partially due to cultural shifts. “Photography is the most relevant artistic medium nowadays, given how digital our world is,” said Sills.
Photo Club has embraced this, creating an Instagram account to showcase the work of its members. Instagram is a heavily visual social media app on which many Mount Greylock students run their own photography accounts.
Evy Clairmont, an 8th grade photographer, runs a photography-focused Instagram account. Clairmont explained that she mainly takes photos of sporting events: “most of my friends play sports and since I was already at the games, I decided to take pictures.”
Junior photographers and Photo Club members Krishiv Malhotra and Jack Uhas also both have Instagram accounts where, similarly to Clairmont, they post photos of Mount Greylock events.
These private endeavors coexist with the Photo Club, which Sills is hoping to shape into a learning environment to hone interest and talent in photography. “Our club mission in general is to encourage and develop both the technical and artistic aspects of photography…through collaboration and mutual critique,” said Sills.
This culture of constructive criticism and dialogue can be very productive: “I showed a photo the other day I had taken of a horizon from a game, and they said, ‘Oh, maybe we should crop it a little here.’ You know, things like that, just to make the photo look even better,” said Uhas.
Stack encourages detail and technique focused work in the classroom as well. “It’s a technical area and it’s also an aesthetic pursuit, so people have to learn to think visually… it’s also pretty demanding in terms of the pace of content,” said Stack.
As photography at Mount Greylock grows, so too does the enthusiasm of its proponents. “I’m so happy more people are interested this year,” said Sills. Uhas agreed, adding, “I think photography is a really cool concept, and I think anyone who’s interested in it should definitely check out Photo Club or opportunities around the school to take their own photos.” Malhotra echoed the sentiments: “for anyone who is starting, experience will teach you the most – just continue to learn and have fun with the camera.”
