From Feb. 21-22, the Texas High student photography staff attended the 2025 Association of Texas Photography Instructors (ATPI) Winter Conference in Arlington. Attended by over 200 students from photojournalism programs across the state annually, the event served as an opportunity for them to showcase their talent and creativity in many ways.
“[ATPI] is a convention for both photography students and teachers,” photojournalism adviser Clint Smith said. “The students competed in competitions as individuals and as teams, and they also took part in breakout sessions and hands-on classes.”
Texas High picked up awards for winning Top Program in 2024, also receiving awards in every category (School Portfolio, Picture Package, Cropped, Advanced Portfolio (photojournalism), Advanced Portfolio (art), Beginning Portfolio, Environmental Self Portrait and Digital Editing), and sweeping the Beginning Portfolio and Advanced Art Portfolio competitions.
“I’ve never won anything for a self-portrait, so that was my goal this year. [I wanted] to get an excellent or superior, and I did,” senior Anna Haley said. “There was a lot of effort that went into that. It was completely set up by me, and very prop heavy, so I’m very proud.”
First year photographers on the staff also placed, given the chance to showcase what they learned throughout the year.
“I got a [rating of] Excellent in Environmental Self Portrait and first in Beginning Portfolio. A lot of us were on the podium, so I’m just so proud of our beginning group,” sophomore Leah Crowe said. “Smith has been a really great help for me. He’s taught me so much more than I’ve ever known in photography, and [at ATPI] I could just tell that our program was more experienced than other ones.”
Students placed in contests held specifically at the conference as well. The Cropped contest in particular, based on the show “Chopped”, eliminates contestants round after round until only a few photographers remain.
“I placed second in Cropped, which was an on site contest. I had to pass the first round to be eligible to continue, and then they [gave] us more themes with increasingly less amounts of time to go take pictures,” junior Annie Smith said. “I feel very accomplished. I think I’ve grown a lot from last year as a photographer.”
ATPI specifically allows photojournalism students to submit work out of their comfort-zone and to experiment with different types of photography.
“This is the one time that we kind of get to stretch our legs and our wings a little bit, to push ourselves outside the boundaries,” Smith said. “So the only thing that students could use, which was something they’ve been producing all year, was a photojournalism portfolio, so it allowed them to go beyond what they normally do, and use the tools that they’ve built by being photojournalists, into creating art and into creating narratives and other stories.”
Through this conference, the Texas High photojournalism students demonstrated their hard work and ability to explore different aspects of photography, building upon the program’s legacy for years to come.
“When they are put in situations outside of their norm, the things that they learned as photojournalists allow them to be successful in other genres,” Smith said. “That makes me extremely proud of them.”
