--- title: 'Last Dance': American Proms | TIME description: Photographer Gillian Laub describes her trip across the U.S. photographing a definitive teen event -- prom canonical: https://time.com/video/5wqLFAPc/ og:title: 'Last Dance': American Proms og:description: Photographer Gillian Laub describes her trip across the U.S. photographing a definitive teen event -- prom og:url: https://time.com/video/5wqLFAPc/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/5wqLFAPc/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'Last Dance': American Proms twitter:description: Photographer Gillian Laub describes her trip across the U.S. photographing a definitive teen event -- prom twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/5wqLFAPc/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # 'Last Dance': American Proms > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: 'Last Dance': American Proms [Watch (HLS stream): 'Last Dance': American Proms](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/5wqLFAPc.m3u8) (4:16)  _Published 2012-06-01. Photographer Gillian Laub describes her trip across the U.S. photographing a definitive teen event -- prom_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:25 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [First Take: Gillian Laub](/video/tTiJgHT3/) ### First Take: Gillian Laub [Video: Teen Asks Miss America to Prom](/video/Ilj54qBL/) ### Video: Teen Asks Miss America to Prom [Four Generations by Gillian Laub](/video/13BuBqHh/) ### Four Generations by Gillian Laub --- ## Transcript One, two [ NOISE ]. I'm Julian Laub. This spring I photographed six Proms for Time Magazine as a photo essay. [ MUSIC ] The idea was inspired by a town in Georgia that I've been photographing for several years. I've been photographing Montgomery County High School's Prom since 2008 when they were segregated. And then in 2009 when the New York Times Magazine published the story on the segregated proms. [ MUSIC ] They were forced to integrate their Proms. I followed Brooke and her Prom date, Kwan. They were the only bi- racial couple to attend the Prom, and three years ago, they wouldn't have even been able to go to the Prom together. [ INAUDIBLE ] [ MUSIC ] We wanted to find other proms that covered many different demographics across the country. The next town that we went to was Joplin. A year ago, the town was devastated by the tornado. So, we thought it would be really interesting to photograph the prom a year later to see where the town was at. You couldn't tell at all in the dresses, in the hair, in the makeup, in the decorations that anyone was lacking. It just seemed as if everyone pitched in. [ MUSIC ] Elkton, Oregon. The smallest graduating class in the country. 16 graduating students. The whole high school was invited to the prom because at those numbers you can't really be excluded. The landscape is just so beautiful. These are some of my favorite portraits. They just feel really romantic. [ MUSIC ] One of my favorite proms to photograph was in Yuma, Arizona. Most of the students that go to school in Yuma actually are from Mexico, San Luis, Mexico. Alexandra, she got her hair and make- up, and her dress fixed in Mexico. And, then I met her on the other side of the border. Half of the day was spent in Mexico and the rest of the half was spent in Arizona for the actual prom. [ MUSIC ] And she looked so beautiful, but all of a sudden she just burst out into tears. She didn't really talk about why she was crying, she just, at first I thought it was cuz she didn't like her hair [ LAUGH ] but then she just said she was emotional. It was one of these moments that I just fell in love with her. [ SOUND ] The New York prom was definitely the most sophisticated and progressive prom. They don't even believe in voting for prom king and queen. I photographed the Dwight- Englewood school prom. The pre- prom party was in Tenafly, New Jersey. And then we went to the prom at a nightclub in Manhattan. [ MUSIC ] The oldest and largest LGBT prom is held in Boston. [ MUSIC ] So many of the kids said that they actually couldn't go to their own proms and didn't feel comfortable going to their own proms, so students that went to this prom traveled from all over to go for this one night and waited in line for hours before they let the students enter at 7: 30. This project is special for me, I love photographing teenagers because they're at a critical time in their lives of such transition. It's really nice to photograph somebody when they feel that they look their best, they're presenting their best version of themselves, so they're almost like aspirational pictures. 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