Lawrence High senior Sam Dykes recently won 13 Scholastic art awards for his photography. He hadn't done any photography prior to his freshman year. Now Dykes is focusing on photo/art and plans to major in architecture next year.

Before his freshman year in high school, Sam Dykes said he didn’t know he was artistic. He’d spent years focusing on sports — football, soccer, swimming — before he picked up a camera in an introductory photography class at Lawrence High School.

In February, Dykes, who is now a senior, received 13 Scholastic art awards for his work. More than half of those are Gold Key awards, the highest honor for the regional competition. As results were being posted, his photography teacher said she wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing.

Lawrence High senior Sam Dykes recently won 13 Scholastic art awards for his photography. He hadn't done any photography prior to his freshman year. Now Dykes is focusing on photo/art and plans to major in architecture next year.

“I’ve never seen that many golds and silvers,” said LHS photography teacher Angelia Perkins, who has been teaching for about 20 years. “I was just really shocked beyond belief.”

Dykes was awarded seven Gold Keys, three Silver Keys and three honorable mentions in the annual Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. With 13 awards total, Dykes received one of the highest numbers of awards in the region.

The seven Gold Key photos are a mix of portraits and outdoor scenes, often combined with other images: a hand-drawn self-portrait spliced with a train and overlaid on an image of a school notebook, a photograph of Dykes’ mother blurred and repeated with a disruptive scan, a cityscape reflecting over the spine of a fish.

Lawrence High School photography student Sam Dykes' photo, Elementary and Reality.

Lawrence High School photography student Sam Dykes' photo, Display of Unity.

Lawrence High School photography student Sam Dykes' photo, Portrayal of Extinction.

“I really like experimental photography and just playing around with things until they look cool,” Dykes said.

But his work isn’t only about aesthetics, as many of the photos are also trying to communicate a feeling. While the subject matter and themes of his photography are diverse, Dykes said there is one idea he often goes back to.

“For a lot of the stuff I do, I think it’s fun trying to portray mental processes physically,” he said. For instance, with the Kansas City skyline reflecting the tines of a fish skeleton, Dykes said he was thinking about the evolution of humans.

And through his work, Dykes has undergone his own sort of evolution. As he continued taking photography classes throughout high school, he said he discovered who he was and that he could be creative. With that realization, Dykes gradually shifted his main focus from athletics to art, a transition he said he is happy to have made.

“I always say that photography was my entryway to the world of art,” he said. “Because before this, I would consider myself more as an athlete. I was in all types of sports; I spent all my time doing practice and working out.”

Now, Dykes said he realized he has more fun doing art than sports. That theme of self-exploration is also central to one of Dykes’ favorite Gold Key photographs, “Self Contemplation.” In the photo, a man is lying on his back on a ridge overlooking a stream, his feet hanging over the edge. Beside the man is an empty wooden chair, and above him swirls of smoke float.

“I kind of liked the idea of somebody thinking or in their own mindset,” he explained.

Dykes said that photography got him interested in other creative work, which led him to incorporate drawing and other techniques into his projects. Dykes — who recently began a part-time job creating print designs for clothing at House Radical — said he has already found lots of practical application for his newfound artistic and creative skills.

Lawrence High School photography student Sam Dykes' photo, Contemplation.

“Especially in this generation, I think things are more evolving around the arts,” he said.

For his part, Dykes said that Perkins has been a great teacher and was key in his process of figuring out who he is.

“She’s really pushed me to do what I like, and I really appreciate that,” he said.

Perkins said Dykes has made a key transition with his art lately, one she said she thinks is important for students to arrive at.

“I think when artists and students really start to cross over to that point where they’re not making work for their teacher anymore, but they’re really making work for themselves — to give themselves a voice –that’s where I think Sam is right now,” she said. “I think he’s really showing maturity with the voice that he has through his work.”

Dykes is currently undecided about his plans for next year, but knows he wants to use his art skills as part of his career. He said he is picking between studying interior architecture at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and architecture at Kansas University, both programs he’s been accepted into.

“Everything behind (architecture) is creative,” he said. “You have to have a creative mind to be able to make cool looking things that people are going to want to buy…It’s kind of a different type of art, but in a real-world way.”

As far as photography, he said he could see it as a side career, but that, whatever the case, he thinks it will always be something he does in some form.

“I don’t ever plan on giving it up,” he said. “I feel like I’ve gone too far to give it up at this point.”

Dykes’ work and other art and writing that received regional Gold Key awards is currently being considered for national recognition in New York. National medalists will be announced on March 14.