In 1982, when I was a member of the New Mexico Artist-In-The-Schools program, I taught photography at Robertson High School, in Las Vegas. The school principal asked me if I would like to photograph students at the senior prom. Without hesitation, I said yes. On the night of the prom, I set up lights and my camera. The couples posed themselves. I asked each couple to look into the lens, but gave no other instructions. A fancy chair—Peacock I think it’s called—and background paper were in place when I got there.
Forty years later, in 2022, I was invited to exhibit the prom photos at New Mexico Highlands University, also in Las Vegas. When I looked at the images after all the time that had passed, I realized the young people frozen in my photos were now close to sixty. The girls were elegant and the boys were entertaining in their fantasy getups. I try to imagine who these young people were and how their lives evolved in the ensuing decades.
