![Delicately placing the string to form the shape of a cornucopia, seniors Haley Burton and Avery Nelson create the November arrangement for the Flower of the Month Club. This club is led by Advanced Floral Design Students and provides a monthly arrangement to community members who subscribe to receive them. “I think flower of the month club is a really impactful way to show your loved ones ‘hey I really care about you,’ or even if they’re just for yourself, they’re a little pick-me-up throughout the month that [say] ‘I’m doing ok, and these flowers make my day a little bit brighter,” Nelson said. “I like giving people flowers because people value the flowers more and they value themselves more.”](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Ava-Holmes-3-edit.jpg)
![Within the U.S., the busiest shopping period of the year is Cyber Week, the time from Thanksgiving through Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This year, shoppers spent 3.3 billion on Cyber Monday, which is a 7.3% year-over-year increase from 2023. “When I was younger, I would always be out with my mom getting Christmas gifts or just shopping in general. Now, as she has gotten older, I've noticed [that almost] every day, I'll open the front door and there's three packages that my mom has ordered. Part of that is she just doesn't always have the time to go to a store for 30 minutes to an hour, but the other part is when she gets bored, she has easy access to [shopping],” junior Grace Garetson said.](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/DSC_0249.JPG-1200x801.jpg)
![French teacher Marieme Toure serves a plate of the Senegalese food she prepared for her AP French Language and Culture class, to senior Faiza Syed. “I never had Senegalese food before,” Syed said. “I thought it was so cool that she was able to bring a part of her culture [and] background to us.”](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/IMG_0798-1200x906.jpeg)
![NEW CHALLENGE, NEW TEAM MEMBERS: Every season, VEX creates a new game that robotics team members are faced with and have to build a robot to compete in. This year’s game forces students to create a robot that is able to stack rings onto mobile goals in order to score points. The change in games each season is something that robotics teacher Audrea Moyers appreciates.
“One of the things that I like about VEX is that they have a new problem to solve every year,” she said. ¨Even though the equipment’s the same, they have to analyze the game, and they have to come up with solutions that are unique that year. They are using their knowledge from prior years, but they have to kind of redesign a problem.”
As returning teams were faced a new game, some new teams and members had to adapt to a uncommon playing field and game.
“Three of our four teams were competing for the first time this year, and they had very different experiences match to match, so I think they learned a lot,¨ she said. ¨It’s hard just watching a video online to know how it’s actually going to be in person, so they all learned a lot about what gameplay is like, how to work with an alliance partner [and] how to adapt during the day to changes.”](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_9283-1-1200x800.jpg)
Polaroid. Kodak. Canon. Nikon. Minolta. Sony.
Despite various names and styles, these digital camera brands share powerful importance: a multitude of memories, all documented with an instant click and flash.
Following the comeback of early 2000’s trends – low-waisted jeans, matching sweatsuits, and bright patterns – old-school digital cameras seem to outlast the assorted components of the Y2K package.
With the rise of TikTok Shop, the shopping and promotion tab of the app, teenagers from all over are influenced to buy into photography’s latest hit. These cameras can be spotted at numerous social events, including sports games, parties, school dances, and shopping trips – where photos are then downloaded from cameras onto phones, and memories from a special night are shed in a unique and retro light. Whether for personal use or to share with friends, the comeback of digital cameras creates a sense of community and boosts the personality of photo dumps, stories, scrapbooks, and other recreations.
“I have a senior camera that I use, and I take it everywhere. And it’s just for senior year [events]. It brings people together and captures the moment. You can buy the adapter to plug [in] all your photos on your phone, and it’s really cool to see all your memories,“ senior Daniella Miulli said.
There are individuals who have separate Instagram accounts where they post all of their digital camera photos too. After taking photos at an event, they upload all of them and dump them onto Instagram.
“My favorite time to take photos is football season, I would take pictures all day in class leading up to the game and I would take some cute photos with the dance team and take photos at sunset. I enjoyed taking photos of the student section and they were very hyped up,” senior Alexa Correa said.
It is no surprise that the digital photography teacher at West Chicago Community High School is well-aware of the trend as well. While Megan Dulkinys does not expect to start teaching students to use film cameras, she recognizes their place in the industry.
“I know there’s kind of been a throwback to some film cameras, and I respect that. I think it teaches you a lot of the technical skill of photography because you can’t see the pictures right away; you have to pay attention to your lighting and your focus,” photography teacher Megan Dulkinys said.
Considering the world’s multiple innovations, one would argue that cameras lie at the top of the list. Popularizing around the mid-1990s after extraneous prototyping and experimenting, the digital camera carries its legacy through modernized society, and offers a vintage glimpse of technology.
Originally, owning a handheld camera was considered cool or grungy, as it was the hot topic of the 90s and was mostly used for special events. The kids of these camera owners, Gen Z, carry on this tradition while they search closets or neglected basement boxes for these nostalgic items. As more and more teenagers are spotted in social scenes with digital cameras and ‘grainy’ Instagram pictures, parents can reminisce on their younger years through their children’s work to repopularize an essential element of the past.
“Polaroid was big when I was a kid; they kind of went away and then had a resurgence, and then Polaroid went out of business and Fuji bought it. I think Polaroid bought it back from Fuji because it just hit off again. Your generation and kids have been picking it up, and I think it’s really cool,” Dulkinys said.
Moving forward, technology and cameras will only continue to grow in sharpness, clarity, and mechanics. Although modernized industrial science progresses with innovations, such as the idea that smartphone cameras can mimic high-quality lens cameras, the idea of nostalgia will always stay. Whether that be rummaging through old boxes for vintage digital cameras or diving into the world of film, new generations will open new trends and rebirth old ones.
“None of it is going to go away. I think digital cameras are around and people live in those images. We share those parts of our lives quite a bit, so I think that’s always going to be there,” Dulkinys said.
This story was originally published on Wildcat Chronicle on April 30, 2024.