As the semester ends, SMU graduates commemorate their final four years by posting Instagram carousels with their friend groups, wearing white dresses and soft smiles. Eight semesters of memories are defined through snapshots—some posed portraits, others of running down the boulevard or popping champagne bottles in the Dallas Hall fountain. Some students even pose in classrooms, celebrating their hard-earned degrees with their feet up on desks in stilettos.
During the final months of the semester, students pass photoshoots between classes as seniors spend money on hired photographers to capture their last moments on campus. Some even join waitlists an entire semester in advance to book sessions with their favorite graduation photographers.
Chase Hall has become one of the most sought-after photographers among graduating seniors. His photography style is distinct, balancing images fit for a grandparent’s wall with a more provocative, camp-inspired aesthetic tailored to an “it-girl” Instagram feed.
“SMU kids are unlike any other college graduates — they like to have fun, and that’s why I shoot them,” Hall said.
But not every student is investing in expensive professional shoots. For some seniors, graduation photos are more about preserving memories than producing a curated Instagram post.
Julia Bonsack, a senior majoring in computer science and Chinese, said she avoided hiring a professional photographer because “it’s really expensive.” Instead, she asked a friend to take photos and later split the cost of a student photographer with a group of friends.
“I think that we all know how to take pictures. It’s like the 21st century. Everybody knows how to click the camera,” Bonsack said. “My pictures turned out the way I wanted them to.”
While graduation photography dominates many seniors’ social media feeds, Bonsack said she never felt pressure to fully buy into the trend. For Bonsack, the photos were less about social media presentation and more about having something to remember graduation by.
“It was just like a memory,” Bonsack said. “It wasn’t necessarily anything else, just something to do.”
Other students viewed graduation photography as a once-in-a-lifetime experience worth the extra planning and money.
Margaret Buhlman, a political science major with an advertising minor, organized a group shoot with four friends using a student photographer from campus. The group coordinated dresses, poses and campus locations, including Dallas Hall lawn and the Boulevard.
“You only graduate from college once, so we wanted to make the most of it and have pictures with my friends that actually looked good that I could look back on in the future,” Buhlman said.
Buhlman said the group intentionally chose a student photographer because the cost was significantly cheaper than hiring a professional.
“So for price, we paid $200 total, which is much cheaper than what other people had paid,” Buhlman said. “We split that between five people, so it came out to about $40 each.”
As graduation season continues, the photoshoots have become unavoidable fixtures across campus. But whether students spend hundreds on professional photographers or ask friends to take pictures on an iPhone, the goal remains the same: capturing the final moments of college before the tassels turn and campus memories become nostalgic Instagram posts.
