It’s a bustling scene: eight students crowding together, ready to have the moment captured and shown to the world. Callen’s friends have been doing this for months, gathering for an old-fashioned polaroid. The whole scene is directed by senior Callen O’Mahony, who has been taking a daily polaroid since the start of the school year.

O’Mahony isn’t a photographer, but he was inspired to embark on this endeavor when he came across a vintage 1980s Polaroid 600 camera. He had the desire to keep records of his senior year, and this seemed like the perfect tool to do it.

 “I’m really bad at taking pictures throughout the year, but I really wanted to remember senior year, I just thought it would be a good way to keep track of everything and make something special out of it,” O’Mahony said. 

The photos are taken and uploaded every weekday, pausing on weekends, with a few exceptions, but he always remembers to add the dates and a little caption she he can forever hold the memory.   

Callen’s favorite photo is when he was going to homecoming in Denver, and they were having fun in a party bus on the way to the event.

Oftentimes, he is accompanied by a good friend Ella Faul. She and his friends help him make memories, sometimes choosing a pose, assembling people, or just brainstorming a caption with O’Mahony. “I am very proud of Callen’s creative abilities that he just uncovered recently through his polaroids,” Faul said. 

Callen’s mother has been seeing her son’s creative passions develop since he was starting middle school. ”Pretty young he started getting into drones, and editing, and soon he started asking for my camera so he could take pictures,” she said.

Callen’s first projects were related to wrestling. He would take videos, editing them with music and effects. He moved on to taking drone shots of places, and then, he asked his mom about polaroids. “I thought that was really funny, you know, because that’s what we had when we were growing up,” Callen’s mom said. 

 He doesn’t really intend on pursuing this past senior year, making his Instagram account, however @callens_polaroids is somewhat of a time capsule for him. 

After high school, he has hopes of attending the University College Cork, in the city of Cork, on the south coast of Ireland. “I want to experience different cultures, different parts of the world, and I think it would be really good for me to go to a place like Ireland and learn to appreciate what I have in my life,” O’Mahony said.