Metro Roundup: HHS senior salvages part of prom experience with Vulcan photoshoot

Like other students in her class, Homewood High School student Kate Graphos lost some of the best moments of her senior year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

When the school system announced students wouldn't return to school to finish the last semester, she realized she wouldn't get to finish her senior golf season. She wouldn’t get to walk at graduation. And her perfect prom dress — the one she started looking for last summer and that her mom gifted her for Christmas — wouldn’t see the light of day.

It was vintage, and Graphos said she is passionate about reducing her carbon footprint. She wanted a bright color and something that wasn’t strapless. She loved the cape and the chiffon sleeves. It checked all the boxes, Graphos said, and now she had nowhere to wear it.

Then her mom came to her with the idea to hire a photographer and have a solo photoshoot.

“I at first didn’t want to do it,” Graphos said. “I was just so sad, and I was like, ‘Just forget about it, it’s never happening.’”

Her mom continued to encourage her to do the photoshoot, though, and Graphos eventually obliged. She ended up loving the idea. It was her first time stepping out of quarantine in a while, and although they followed safe social distancing practices, Graphos said it was fun to get outside and enjoy the weather in her beloved dress.

“I’m very happy to have those pictures and the memories of being at Vulcan with my family,” she said. “But I am still really sad that my senior class wasn’t there or all of my friends.”

She hopes she and her friends will be able to do something fun together this summer, she said, before she moves to Tennessee to attend Rhodes College — a school with colors that coincidentally match her prom dress.