An illustration of Fiona's profile. She has light skin, shoulder-length black hair, a mole under her left eye, and is wearing a light yellow shirt.

The Photos of Freshman Spring 📸 by Fiona L. '27

My attempt to take a photo a day for an entire semester.

The summer before college was my last summer of being 18, and thus my last year of eligibility for a ~special program~ my local library ran. They had little booklets at the front of the library for children to log the amount they read over the summer, where each booklet completed would be entered in a lottery for a $1000 dollar scholarship.

For kids up to age 13, the booklets only tracked the hours you read. For teens 13-18, the “booklets” changed into strips (perhaps meant to be bookmarks?) where you read and reviewed five books. I figured to optimize my books read/time spent ratio as an 18 year old, I would read short novellas and comics.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t win. Probably why the title of this blog is “The Photos of Freshman Spring” and not “HEY CHECK OUT THE $1000 I JUST WON!!!” But while reading one of these comics, Tsubasa Yamaguchi’s Blue Period, I stumbled upon an idea for a Cool Project™.

Blue Period is a manga about a high schooler, Yatora Yaguchi, who suddenly discovers a strong interest in art in his last year of high school and resolves to get into art school. In the first volume, his art teacher, Masako Saeki, assigns him “summer homework” meant to help him improve massively.

Masako Saeki explains the summer homework: "Dessin x 7" "watercolor x 3" "daily photo" "scrapbook"

The summer homework

Saeki explains taking a photo every day, while being aware of the composition of the piece.

Daily photo!

Somewhere, deep inside me, I also had the desire to improve massively in art. But I’d never seriously nurtured this desire before. I also knew I’d be way too hosed to have time for all of that.

So maybe, I thought, I’d just use this as an excuse to do a cool thing. Like Saeki said, it would be an exercise in visual art and composition. But for me, it would also be an exercise in ✨consistency✨, a mythical attribute I’d been striving and struggling to obtain for all of high school. I wondered if a daily photo would be the thing that would keep me grounded through a semester I knew was going to be crazy. (Because, to be honest, what MIT semester isn’t absolutely crazy?)

And so, I got started, one photo at a time. Here are a some of my favorites:

February

MIT Schwartzman College of Computing and building 34 in the glow of sunset
who knew Course 6 buildings could look this pretty?
The view from a square shaped window overlooking Cambridge, half covered by a curtain.
the view from a square Simmons window
A snowy forest setting dappled with shade, including some lawn chairs in a circle.
New Hampshire during ESP retreat
View looking up at some tree branches without leaves
looking up at some winter trees
A picture of walking across the Harvard bridge at night
walking back across the Harvard bridge
The reflection of the sun against a Kresge window seen through a chain-link fence
Kresge reflects the sun (can you see that I was trying to be artsy with this one)
The Building 34 stairs, viewed through the hole in the middle of the stairwell.
infinite stairs
A statue in front of a historic boston building, against shadow and light
a statue against shadow and light
a sunset over Briggs field
can you tell that I love light?
the floor to ceiling windows in Lobby 10, with a painting of them in front of them.
somebody drew lobby 10!!! :0 :0 :0

March

a wide variety of sushi and asian food on a table
feasting at Yamato II
the view of building 34 in the rain
i have photographed building 34 more times than a normal person ever should
a street pol covered in multicolored stickers
so many stickers...
a photo down the hall in schwartzman, flipped upside down
schwartzman looks so cool upside down
a brick building with three umbrellas, yellow, red, and blue
yellow, red, and blue
a house overlooking the sea on a cloudy day
eastham, cape cod
a lighthouse and a house in cloudy weather
its the place from the cape cod chips!!! but in real life!!!!!!
a street with red and black houses seen through a fancy gate, painted to look like cartoon soldiers on either side
provincetown in the rain
a girl looks into a vividly orange sunset.
heidi z. '27 looks into the sunset

April

most of the picture is the blackness of light. the mit small dome, as well as the streetlamp, glow in the night.
the small dome glows against the blackness of night.
an area of mit surrounded by beige walls. inside is a grass field with a few green lawn chairs and trees without leaves.
a nice, hidden green space on campus, viewed from an uncommon vantage point
a bunch of thin piers on the ocean on a cloudy day
a stroll through seaport with a friend
a shot of kresge lawn in partially cloudy weather
looking good, mit!
a bunch of plates of cakes, with decorate chocolate zigzags beneath them
why must the ucla dining food be so superior
two buildings, looking up on them. one curves, making an arch around the corner of a more standard shaped building
artsy views of ucla
the sun, bright in the sky, shining over a series of steps at ucla. grass on either side.
i swear i didn't come to the mit admissions blogs just to promote another school
a castle-like structure stands tall, far behind other buildings obscured by shadow.
sometimes i miss the three hours i left behind (UTC-7)
a bathtub-like structure in an otherwise dark room, with two hands reaching out.
attended the theater arts production!
a multicolored car against the beige mit wall
found a special car on the walk to class today!

May

a bunch of MIT sailboats that have been docked
learning how to sail
a building on east campus, gilded with light.
gilded with light
an open window looking into a courtyard with trees and shrubbery
the courtyard of Hayden Library
a streetlamp illuminating a flowering tree at night
a streetlamp illuminating a flowering tree at night
a swan boat sailing on the pond in boston commons, which is quite green.
swan boats at boston commons 🦢🦢
a peacock fanning its feathers at the Franklin Park Zoo
a peacock with free reign around the Franklin Park Zoo

I guess these photos didn’t make much of an impact in keeping me grounded. It was a pretty crazy semester, since I was still learning what my limits were outside of PNR. But at least I was somewhat consistent? Even if I couldn’t take a picture everyday, I at least kept it up for four months. And now I have all these photos to document my freshman year :D