School’s Out 

Essay 150 • May 26th 2017

This series of photographs was taken after hours at a local high school in a small town in Texas, while the buildings were resting in the late afternoon light. Tumbleweed blows in the wind. A football field without the football players, pencils dropped on the ground. High schools are the structural centers of growing up, the homes of first hope and disappointment. I cut my hand climbing over the metal fence of the school, and was immediately sixteen again, hanging out at my high school on the weekends. The high school experience is so specific, and somehow the people you meet there can hang around for years, in the back corners of your mind. There’s a magic in seeing a place that’s filled with people, with memories, bursting with feelings, at ease, empty and resting. These were taken on film over the course of a few days, a nostalgic ode to the fading light and clear mornings. 


























 

Bea Helman is a writer and photographer based out of Brooklyn, NY. She started taking film photographs when she was fifteen and never stopped. She likes plants and writes short stories about the tender moments, usually while snacking on the couch. She can usually be found drawing her friends or sorting her negatives. Her camera has stickers on it. 

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