Capturing the first day of school put an Inquirer photographer back in students’ shoes

Every Monday, we present a gallery of pictures of the week that just passed, taken by our staff photojournalists — and tell you the story behind one of them. This week Margo Reed talks about capturing the first day of school.

It was back-to-school time last week, both for students around the region and photographer Margo Reed, who graduated with a journalism degree from Temple University in 2018.

Just finishing up a month-long stint with The Inquirer, she was assigned to photograph the first day of classes at Camden High School.

“It was interesting being an adult now, watching students instead of being the one walking into school,” Reed said.

At Camden High she saw volunteers lined up to welcome arriving students with roses and bracelets. It was easy to put herself back in the students' shoes. “I can remember the first day being kind of nervous. But we never had flowers given to us,” Reed said.

She initially approached the assignment in a straight forward manner, focusing on the handing out of flowers. But as the greeters offered encouraging words, Reed’s attention turned to the positivity on display, because, she said, “that’s something I hadn’t seen before.”

» SEE MORE: Last week’s staff photo gallery and the staff photography page