Caria Taylor, a recent graduate of Detroit’s Cass Tech High School, spent much of the last year documenting the pandemic with her camera. (Caria Taylor for Chalkbeat)
First Person is where Chalkbeat features personal essays by educators, students, parents, and others thinking and writing about public education.
Caria Taylor, a member of Cass Tech High School’s Class of 2021, used the isolation of COVID as an opportunity to develop her hobbies: reading, writing, and photography.
When George Floyd was murdered, and racial justice protests swept across the country, she was out in the streets with her camera. Caria leaned on organizations such as Capturing Belief, a Detroit-based photography program, and the Detroit Youth Choir — groups that helped to develop her creative vision and voice long before the pandemic began.
After watching the Class of 2020 miss out on their proms and traditional graduation ceremonies, among other rites of passage, Caria and her class had the opportunity to attend those milestone events together. It was the first time she had seen many of her classmates since March 2020, and they managed to pick up just where they left off.
In these pictures and an original poem, titled “Fantasy Turns Into Reality,” Caria gives a first-hand account of her journey in three parts: watching her creative voice blossom at the height of the pandemic, experiencing the joy of prom and graduation, and returning to some level of normalcy as she and her friends spend time together before they venture into adulthood.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, there was lots of time, too much time. Days morphed into weeks, and weeks morphed into months. But the time gave me the opportunity to discover my creativity once again.” (Caria Taylor for Chalkbeat)
Fantasy Turns Into Reality
Looking back at this year leaves a funny feeling.
I feel like I’ve grown so much in a year of quietness.
I’ve learned some lessons,
I became a student to change,
“A year had gone by since our choir performed at the highest level: competing on ‘America’s Got Talent.’ During the pandemic, we spent months apart. When we reunited, it felt magical to be surrounded by like-minded performance artists.” (Caria Taylor for Chalkbeat)
Without even sitting in a classroom
Living in a virtual world that left me wondering:
“Is this really all that is left?”
“After months of isolation and silence, that silence was disturbed by the killing of unarmed Black people. The world felt the adrenaline of the protests taking place right in our backyards. Finally, the silence broke, and I wanted my voice to be heard.” (Caria Taylor for Chalkbeat) “COVID changed the course of my high school experience. It created a barrier in the way that my friends and I could interact, both physically and spiritually.” (Caria Taylor for Chalkbeat)
Feelings of hopelessness pointed me towards a higher power:
I became more curious,
The world left my mind yearning,
As I looked for inspiration around me:
I found it in the church,
“Being able to go to the drive-in again brought back intense feelings of nostalgia. Making this photograph there made me think back to my childhood and distracted me from the reality of the pandemic.” (Caria Taylor for Chalkbeat)
In the books I was reading,
In the music I was singing,
In the gym when I could make it,
In my plants that taught me patience,
“When my friend Caleb asked me to take these pictures, I told him to do his thing, allowing me to organically capture him doing what he loved the most. I tried to photograph him in a way that felt cinematic, larger than life itself.” (Caria Taylor for Chalkbeat)
In my camera that gave me a voice,
In myself when I had no choice.
“This was after prom, right before the ‘Part Two’ of the event. We decided to stop at the gas station before going to our hotel room to continue the celebration.”
“After another year of online learning, we finally made it to our prom. I decided to document the night, which was the first time in months we got to see each other in person.”
“When I took this picture of my prom date, I wanted to document the behind-the-scenes moments that make up the experience of prom: the send-off, taking pictures as our family looked on before we went to celebrate.”
“Everything about this background and this setting felt perfect. I wanted to make this moment for my friends.”
“I made this selfie of my friend and me on my point-and-shoot, just hoping that the moment would come out like this. Our friend photo-bombed us, which shows how much fun we had that night.”
“This moment reminded me about things I saw in magazines and pop culture; being dressed up in a random place like a gas station made me feel like we were characters in a movie.”
“When Malik was crowned Prom King, I was so thrilled because I love him so much. High school wasn’t always like how it’s portrayed in movies, but this moment made it feel like it was.”
“Relationships in high school feel permanent in that moment, but I realize that we are in some kind of bubble in how we see them. I wonder if it’ll be that way in the ‘real world’ away from school.”
“This is the moment just after the Prom King and Queen were announced. Here we see not only the two of them, but our principal, the D.J., and the whole class together behind them on the screen.”
“This was after prom, right before the ‘Part Two’ of the event. We decided to stop at the gas station before going to our hotel room to continue the celebration.”
“After another year of online learning, we finally made it to our prom. I decided to document the night, which was the first time in months we got to see each other in person.”
“When I took this picture of my prom date, I wanted to document the behind-the-scenes moments that make up the experience of prom: the send-off, taking pictures as our family looked on before we went to celebrate.”
“Everything about this background and this setting felt perfect. I wanted to make this moment for my friends.”
“I made this selfie of my friend and me on my point-and-shoot, just hoping that the moment would come out like this. Our friend photo-bombed us, which shows how much fun we had that night.”
“This moment reminded me about things I saw in magazines and pop culture; being dressed up in a random place like a gas station made me feel like we were characters in a movie.”
“When Malik was crowned Prom King, I was so thrilled because I love him so much. High school wasn’t always like how it’s portrayed in movies, but this moment made it feel like it was.”
“Relationships in high school feel permanent in that moment, but I realize that we are in some kind of bubble in how we see them. I wonder if it’ll be that way in the ‘real world’ away from school.”
“This is the moment just after the Prom King and Queen were announced. Here we see not only the two of them, but our principal, the D.J., and the whole class together behind them on the screen.”
“This was after prom, right before the ‘Part Two’ of the event. We decided to stop at the gas station before going to our hotel room to continue the celebration.”
“The entire graduation ceremony was chaotic, with over 500 students needing to be coordinated.This moment of calm before the ceremony gave me a chance to take everything in as we prepared to take the stage.”
“Finally, I made it to the end. It was the end of a four-year journey and a goodbye to the crowded halls. Although I couldn’t spend my last days in the building that gave me so much anxiety as an incoming freshman, I still experienced graduation and wanted to commemorate it in the only way I know how.”
“I feel like almost all of us had a moment like this; taking the moment in and processing everything that is about to change in our lives.”
“I made this photograph on my way to get my diploma. My teacher and guidance counselor are smiling back at me. You can see here that their care is what made this moment for us.”
“These two struck me because they truly felt like they were celebrating their graduation: one with a cigar and the other with his dog.”
“This was my point of view for the entire graduation. It felt amazing being able to see everyone show their creativity with their caps. They went all out.”
“Everyone in the crowd, each doing different things or looking in different directions, looks like a cohesive group in our graduation gowns.”
“After the ceremony, everyone had to go back to the school for pictures and their diplomas. These moments speak to our experience being students at Cass Tech High School. The place had a way of making us feel small at first, but we grew into it by the end of our time there.”
“There are different stories within this one picture. You can look at this scene and see the time that we’re living in, but also that we have this moment where it felt like time stopped for our graduation.”
“The entire graduation ceremony was chaotic, with over 500 students needing to be coordinated.This moment of calm before the ceremony gave me a chance to take everything in as we prepared to take the stage.”
“Finally, I made it to the end. It was the end of a four-year journey and a goodbye to the crowded halls. Although I couldn’t spend my last days in the building that gave me so much anxiety as an incoming freshman, I still experienced graduation and wanted to commemorate it in the only way I know how.”
“I feel like almost all of us had a moment like this; taking the moment in and processing everything that is about to change in our lives.”
“I made this photograph on my way to get my diploma. My teacher and guidance counselor are smiling back at me. You can see here that their care is what made this moment for us.”
“These two struck me because they truly felt like they were celebrating their graduation: one with a cigar and the other with his dog.”
“This was my point of view for the entire graduation. It felt amazing being able to see everyone show their creativity with their caps. They went all out.”
“Everyone in the crowd, each doing different things or looking in different directions, looks like a cohesive group in our graduation gowns.”
“After the ceremony, everyone had to go back to the school for pictures and their diplomas. These moments speak to our experience being students at Cass Tech High School. The place had a way of making us feel small at first, but we grew into it by the end of our time there.”
“There are different stories within this one picture. You can look at this scene and see the time that we’re living in, but also that we have this moment where it felt like time stopped for our graduation.”
“The entire graduation ceremony was chaotic, with over 500 students needing to be coordinated.This moment of calm before the ceremony gave me a chance to take everything in as we prepared to take the stage.”
Could this be the end?
The thought of seeing friends face-to-face became a possibility,
“It’s been a long-held tradition for graduating seniors to travel for spring break, and it became safe enough to travel to see my childhood friend Dwayne in Atlanta. I wanted to document this time to see how we’ve grown together after so much time apart, and how we have always managed to pick up where we left off.” (Caria Taylor for Chalkbeat)
And we picked up right where we left off: together.
It is quite confusing after a pandemic year,
“I made this picture because, in that moment, it gave me the feeling of being transported to another place — a place that felt familiar without physically being there.” (Caria Taylor for Chalkbeat) “I wanted to make these pictures to keep these memories alive, to create a living document of the time that my friends and I spent together during this time.” (Caria Taylor for Chalkbeat)
But I nonetheless I embraced it,
And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss it.
So in these moments, everything becomes normal.
Everything becomes what it was supposed to be:
A few days of fantasy
A return to normalcy.
“This moment is very special to me. Because of COVID, my friends and I hadn’t seen each other in such a long time. It felt amazing being able to share a day with each other, reminiscing about how we had come into each other’s lives in the first place. We didn’t know when we would be able to see each other again.” (Caria Taylor for Chalkbeat)
Caria Taylor is a recent graduate of Cass Tech High School in Detroit. Caria has been experimenting with photography for the past few years and participates in the Detroit-based visual storytelling program Capturing Belief. She will continue to make pictures as a hobby while attending Wayne State University in the fall. Caria is currently interning with Ford and hopes to pursue a career in STEM after college.
