Senior Liam Darcy, who was awarded a Silver Key in Photography, has been drawing since he was little, but “it was never real,” he said — just playground chalk art and class projects. Though his mom enrolled him in art classes, they were never something that Darcy took very seriously, and they focused mainly on drawing rather than exploring other mediums.

“The first time where I actually felt super passionate about one, I took a photography camp, because I kind of just tried everything growing up,” Darcy said. “I really liked it, and the stuff I did turned out pretty solid for a fifth grader.”

He kept that interest in the back of his mind until he eventually expressed it to his mom, who in response gifted him a camera for Christmas in 2024.

“Since then, I’ve taken it with me everywhere when I do something cool,” Darcy said, highlighting in particular La Salle’s Spain immersion trip this summer. “That was when it got real. The pictures I took there actually made me feel like I could make things that were artistic.”

Rather than something planned or professional, he likes to chase a more “natural” feeling in his photography.

“I just take pictures of stuff that feels real,” Darcy said.

He took this photo, called “Night Sky at Wallowa Lake,” at Wallowa Lake, Oregon, lying on his back in the grass. To him, it’s an example of exactly that “real” feeling.

“A lot of it boils down to just the emotion you feel when you look at a picture,” Darcy said. “I can’t speak for everyone, but when I look at this, it just makes me wonder … that’s just what space invokes.”

When producing this photo, ultimately, Darcy wanted to bring out the Milky Way’s real colors so the viewer could experience it for themselves.

“Nobody sees this when they look up,” he said. “I’m out in random places in the middle of nowhere a lot, but not many people get to see this view. I think I just wanted to make it look as cool as possible for people that didn’t get to see it themselves.”

Senior Max Deggendorfer entered Art Foundations last year as a means of getting his required art credit; he wasn’t expecting to like the class as much as he did or to be in AP Studio Art the next year. But with every piece he created in art class, his appreciation for the craft grew.

“It was just a way of showing a different side of who I am,” he said.

Deggendorfer — who was awarded a Silver Key in Photography for his piece, “Big Fern” — appreciates the independence of the class, with its flexible schedule and simple directive: “produce art.”

“It’s not like any other class I’ve taken before,” Deggendorfer said. “It’s stuff that I’ve always had an interest in, but I’ve never really had the time to tap into that interest as much.”

For Deggendorfer, the Silver Key has sparked more confidence in his work, as he was not expecting his submission to be recognized at that level. Last year, he submitted a piece which he thought was “a lot better,” but which only earned an honorable mention.

“My favorite part was realizing that maybe there’s a bigger path for me for this,” he said. “I just thought it was an average photo, but apparently some people liked it.”

The most important part of his photography, he said, is capturing how the subject looks to him in real life. When editing, he tries not to change the raw image too much, mostly making small tweaks in saturation and exposure to get it as close to the way he sees it as possible.

“I’ll never change it dramatically, or too much to where it doesn’t feel real anymore,” Deggendorfer said.

Going back, he would have liked to submit more pieces to the competition, to see what else might be recognized.

“In my mind, it was just a photo,” Deggendorfer said. “It made me think about what other people might see in it and how they might perceive it.”

Senior Kellen Fisher-Lutes was “dumbfounded” to discover that he had won a Gold Key in Photography for his piece, “End of Time.”

“I was having kind of a bad morning … and I went on my account, and I was elated, because I had no idea,” Fisher-Lutes said. “I didn’t think I was going to get anything.”

The photo, which automatically proceeds to the national competition, was taken after a walk with his mom at Cannon Beach, when he decided to return later that night to capture the moonlit view.

He took several photos, some of which featured Haystack Rock more prominently, but he ultimately chose one of his landscape images to display more of the beach.

“I liked it, but I didn’t really think it was something that was worth getting an award or anything like that,” Fisher-Lutes said. “It’s got so much praise from my family, peers, and just random people at the school that noticed my name and put two and two together. So that kind of thing has really surprised me.”

Growing up, while Fisher-Lutes always had very visually artistic friends, music was more his speed. Then he took Art Foundations last year.

“I was like, ‘Oh, this is actually really fun, and I can be good at it, because I’m actually getting the tools I need to be good at it,’” Fisher-Lutes said. “Because I had that direction … I felt competent enough to start actually liking the stuff I made.”

Receiving this award has caused Fisher-Lutes to begin taking photography more seriously, he said. Where before, he had focused more on the kinds of work he does in his Advanced Art 3D class, he now wants to be more intentional with his photography.

“I’ve never really thought of it as an art form, so getting recognition for it has definitely made me think about it more,” Fisher-Lutes said. “Like, ‘am I just taking this for the sake of the photo, or am I doing this to edit it later and make it look good?’”

Though he’s been more focused on art this year, Fisher-Lutes wouldn’t call himself an artist yet. To him, creating art and being an artist are two different things — he needs to spend some more time with it and invest more of himself into his art, he said.

Though she has been drawing since kindergarten, junior Mercy Gobana — who won a Silver Key in Illustration — said she only began to recognize herself as an artist in sixth grade and during COVID-19. Quarantine provided her with a wealth of free time that she used to draw almost constantly, usually on her iPad.

While digital art remains her favorite medium, at La Salle, Gobana has begun to explore more physical methods such as cardboard, clay, and oil pastel.

“It’s really nice being able to hold your drawings,” Gobana said.

Since starting at La Salle, the focus of her art has also shifted.

“I used to just draw for fun … but now I barely do that,” she said. “I draw for the school, but then I also draw things that try to show who I am and things that I find interesting.”

For Gobana, that means including more Black women in her art, and generally showing people embracing their culture. She especially highlights her own Ethiopian heritage in her art, wanting to feel more connected with it.

“Throughout my life, I didn’t really feel connected with my culture that much, so I want to try doing more art like that,” she said.

This piece, titled “Look, It’s Me,” is one such reflection, a drawing of Gobana when she was younger. She recalled going to a school where she was one of few Black kids, making her feel perpetually excluded.

“Me and my sister would always feel like we would stand out everywhere,” Gobana said. “So I grew up hating my hair and all that. I hated the hairstyle [my dad] gave me, and I hated the clothes I was wearing too.”

Overlaying her real appearance in the image is a child’s drawing of what she wanted to look like when she was younger, with straight hair and lighter skin.

Additionally, her younger self’s ideal version wears a soft blue dress, in contrast to the bright red coat her real self wears. The difference in color reflects “how people see Black people as too intense,” she said.

“I genuinely saw being Black as a bad thing, so I thought if I was whiter, then I’d be more pretty and calm,” she said.

With the amount of personal reflection that went into this work, Gobana is proud that it was recognized.

“I feel like this is the one art piece that I’m really happy about,” she said. “I’m glad that I was able to give the message I wanted to with it.”

When Ms. Cha told junior Amelia Todd what she’d won — two Silver Keys in Digital Painting, one Silver Key in Photography, and one Honorable Mention in Photography — she was “elated,” she said.

“I think the Scholastic awards are pretty subjective, but I think it’s still pretty cool that someone else recognized my work and also thought it was awesome,” she said.

Todd only began art at La Salle last year, but she has been drawing for most of her life, she said. Her favorite mediums are digital art and painting, specifically acrylic and gouache paints.

“I’ve kind of always been drawing, but I really like birds,” Todd said. “I started drawing birds, and then it kind of just exploded from there.”

She likes to watch birds as well as draw, with some of her favorites being osprey and turkey vultures.

While last year, she painted something specifically for the awards, Todd drew from her existing body of work when deciding what to submit for the 2025 awards.

“I just chose the work that I was most proud of and that I thought would do well this year,” Todd said.

Of the four submissions she received recognition for, one in particular carries personal weight for Todd. Titled “Missing You,” this piece — which was awarded a silver key in the digital painting category — was drawn shortly after the passing of her neighbor, whom Todd was close friends with, from old age.

“The biggest thing I was thinking about was the value of the color — how light or dark it was — and the colors used specifically,” Todd said.

For example, she used a complimentary orange and blue palette to make the deer stand out against the snow. Additionally, Todd chose pink to highlight the animals on the deer’s back, a wolf chasing a deer.

“I wanted that to represent my neighbor and me being sad that he was gone,” Todd said. The wolf, she explained, represents how the reality of life and death chases everyone.

Her advice to hopeful students next year is to “just create a lot of art and have fun creating it.”