When photographing her subject, Mallory Millard turns her attention to the less noticeable features in a picture to fully capture every emotion portrayed.

“When you see a picture of somebody and a face is in it, you immediately focus on their face and the emotion they’re having,” she said. “I want other things, like the temperature of the photo, or the highlights or shadows, just anything else — I’d rather those aspects portray the mood as well as body language. I just think that the face is too easy to figure out.”

Joshua Martinez, the upper school Visual Arts teacher, has taught Mallory since her junior year and admires her ability to uniquely express her own experiences in her work.

“The thing that I’ve noticed most about Mallory as far as the work that she makes is that she won’t say anything about what she is working on for a really long time, and then all of a sudden, it will just be complete,” Martinez said. “A lot of the work she creates is autobiographical, and typically, you don’t see students often behave in that way.”

Rather than defining physical objects as success, Mallory believes that happiness forms through relationships and connections.

“On my backyard patio, there’s this box of my older sister’s dance trophies,” she said. “They used to be displayed in the house and there was this big thing for them, and for the past five years, they’ve just been sitting out on my back patio just being destroyed by rain. Now, it’s just a dingy box filled with trophies. I took a picture of it, and that’s one of my favorite pictures because it just showed that things that symbolize success — at the end of the day, they’re just plastic or metal. Things are just things.”

Senior Haley Keller admires Mallory’s kindness and devotion to being a worthy friend.

“She’s somebody that cares so much about you,” Haley said. “If I’m having a bad day, she’ll find a way to make sure I get my favorite Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, even if she doesn’t drive. If anything happens, she’s always the first person to be there.”

Despite the reaction of others, Mallory opens her heart towards those who are overlooked in society.

“In L.A. a few years ago, I saw a clown, and nobody was going up to him, and he looked so sad, and I just started crying out of nowhere,” Mallory said. “I was in the car, so there was nothing that I could do about it. My entire family was making fun of me, but I just felt so bad. That’s definitely something about me, is that I care a lot.”

Mallory values genuine bonds with others, like when she’s comfortable being silly with her friends and family.

“A lot of times, people form connections for the wrong reasons.” she said. “It’s just kind of this expected thing, like ‘Oh, we’ll hang out here but we won’t talk, but we’ll act like we’re best friends when we’re around people.’ It’s really sad. Those are sort of forced connections, not meaningful friendships. I value the relationships you have with people where you can just be with them, and be completely comfortable without saying a single word. If you can go over and nap at someone’s house and they’re just cool with it, or they nap too, I think that’s a real friend right there.”

Mallory finds that other’s first impressions of her can have changed dramatically through human connection.

“When I started meeting people and talking to more people, they’d be like, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re so different from what I thought,’” she said. “I feel like people just thought I was ditzy, or mean, or superficial, and it frustrated me a lot because I don’t think I am. I just don’t care enough to be superficial. I don’t care about things, I care about people. I don’t remember how I did on a test four years ago, but I remember my interaction with somebody from four years ago if it was meaningful to me. Your interactions with other people, I think, are what shape who you become.”

Additional reporting by Humans of Harker managing editor Melissa Kwan.