Grady Agone (11) placed in a national photo competition with his landscape photography, despite not having much training and experience.
Agone sports many labels at WHS, including wrestler and football player. Last year as a sophomore, Agone added to those labels when he found his knack for photography.
Agone said, “I signed up for Mr. Vasa’s photography class and that taught me more about what you’re supposed to look for in a photo.”
As an active fisher and hunter, Agone sees many stunning landscapes. “If I see something that catches my eye, I’ll take a picture of it …. I just started to do that more as I got older,” Agone said.
After having Agone in class for some time, Vasa noticed that Agone has an aptitude for photography: “Grady is a natural nature photographer in my opinion,” Vasa said, “He didn’t know he was taking good photos, he was just taking pictures.”
The competition that Agone entered is called the Loveland Photographic Society of America Contest. Every year students from WHS have applied to and placed in the competition.
Vasa offers extra credit for students who choose to enter the competition. “I told my students in photo one that if they wanted to enter this photo contest it would be extra credit,” Vasa said. “That gets their interest and they start going through their photos … and I saw (Agone’s) photos and I was said, ‘Dude those are good, put them in.’”
Agone learned a lot from Photography I, but the photo that placed the best was one he had taken before he learned more of the sophisticated concepts. “The one photo I had taken that had placed, was a photo I had before I actually had the class,” Agone said. “That showed me what to look for in those photos and what makes a photo good.”
Agone submitted two photos to the Loveland Photographic Society of America Contest, both of which placed in the national competition, one of which took second.
“The snowy mountain one was (taken) when I was deer hunting up by my grandpa’s,” Agone said. “It had snowed all morning and then the sky had cleared up. It was the lake my grandpa lives on and the mountains and hills in the background all covered in snow.”
Kerri Cassity (staff) is Agone’s advisory teacher and the teacher of the advanced photography classes. “Grady enjoys going to his grandfather’s land where he hunts and fishes,” Cassity said. “This one was on top of a mountain … and it was looking on to a lake where he goes hunting and fishing.”
Cassity, now in her third year advising Agone, recognizes that he is a personable individual, cherishing his relationships. “I know for Grady that it is very valuable to have that relationship,” Cassity said. “I can tell from the way he talks about those photographs … that they meant a lot to him. It was neat to see that he got an award for them.”
The second photo that Agone submitted is a similar landscape photo that Agone took after having Vasa’s photography class: “The second photo was up in Wyoming when I was fly fishing,” Agone said. “It was up there with the basin and the mountains in the background.”
Abby Coghill • Oct 12, 2024 at 11:41 pm
Awesome job Grady! Proud of all you do.