School Friends: Mather House

I have photographed many many groups of school friends. Mather House at Harvard, the Commonwealth School, Jamaica Plain High School, the John F. Kennedy Library Corps.

Taking a picture/ a portrait w/ the 20×24 is a wonderful way to celebrate a special relationship. A relationship that will inevitably change w/ a graduation, w/ some ceremony, some moving on.

I have been associated w/ Mather House since it began in the sixties under the guidance of Skidde von Stade, a towering Harvard figure. In those days we built a wet darkroom w/ several enlargers. In the eighties interest in the darkroom succumbed to obsessions w/ the digital world, starting w/ computers.

I took these portraits over several years to commemorate the friendships made by students in Mather House. The framed portraits hung in the House for several years: in the Dining Room over the toasters, over stairwells, near the pool table. They contributed a sense of purpose and frivolity to the mood of the House.