Senior Moment with Kaitlyn

These are from another recent senior portrait session. I did this beforehaving the chance to work with Matthew, but waited until the end of the month to post.  The reason will soon become obvious.  If you skipped over my words and looked at the pictures you already know why.  If you haven't, why are still reading this?

Kaitlyn's family knows my good friends Tim and Sandy, and this is how they found me.  I'm happy they did.  I had the chance to talk with a lot of fun people, and make some good pictures.

The following picture is why I waited until the end of this month.  It seems to fit the upcoming "holiday".  The idea for this germinated from the question I ask when I am planning to do a session, "Can you list a few interests?".  I admit, this took me out of my comfort zone a bit.  I don't usually don't do this much post-processing.  But, I had an idea of what I wanted this to look like-- and post-work was the only way to get there.  For one thing, the dress is blue (see above) and that just doesn't fit the idea!

There is another image from this session floating around my flickr stream.

Senior Moment with Matthew

I had the chance to get together with Carly's cousin and make a few senior year portraits for him.  As we were driving over to this location I was informed Matthew doesn't smile in pictures.  That was fine with me, I don't want fake picture smiles anyway.  However, I do like to create a variety of real expressions, and smiling can be part of everyday life right?  This was taken right after I asked him to keep in eye on the little girl returning library books.  What if she was planning to attack me?  I know Mom probably doesn't like the windblown hair (I do though), and I am a little uncomfortable with chopping off his toe in the right corner (sorry Matt!), but this one is my favorite from day.

 

One of the things we wanted to incorporate was this motorcycle. When I first started thinking about it I didn't know how I wanted to show it.  I briefly thought about re-using this idea we did for Kathryn.  But, even before seeing the bike I realized that probably wouldn't work.  I thought it would be cool shoot it on seamless, and so, I set up a "studio" in my garage.  I'm glad I prepared the studio idea, there is no way we could have fit that motorcycle on the rocks.

This was a fun day.  We got to hang out with family.  Matthew did do a good job, and we had some fun.  Guys are "suppose" to be more difficult to photograph than gals, but really its just different.   I also had the technical challenge of setting up a studio style shot-- which is something I haven't done for a bit.

Senior Moment with Ashton

Carly's favorite

Here are some pictures I made in a recent senior portrait session.  Ashton was fun to be around, and she brought great outlook and a happy smile with her through the day.  Its rare that anyone loves having their picture taken, and Ashton was no exception, but it didn't really matter after a few minutes.  She did awesome in front of the camera. All I really had to do was find some light to show-off her eyes*, the rest was easy. She even humored me by laughing at my elephant jokes.

My favorite [ My favorite's are ALWAYS different from Carly's ]

Ashton, if you read this, thank you for your time and effort.  It is appreciated.

This cool swing was brought along

Somewhere along the line this kind of high school senior portrait became my favorite category of photographs.  Its interesting, I didn't even know these were being created until a few years ago.

I think the reason I find them so cool is because they are portraits of individuals who are right at the beginning of their live's journey.  Its the time of our life when we begin to see ourselves for us, and not necessarily just part of our peer group.  Its also a time where we make a lot of the decisions that impact our lives long term.  No pressure right?

I, personally, like making these portraits because no matter if the individual is just there to appease Mom, or if the person is really excited about it-- I always make a few good pictures.  They are pictures I hope they look back when they are my age, and remember the fun times they had "way back when."


*Free tip... figuring out how you want to show a person's eyes is a reasonably good way to start to a portrait.

[Editor's Note: The photos for this post are sitting over on Flickr instead of Picassa.  I thought I would try that way of posting out.]

Senior Moment with D

Reflector camera left. Basic, nice shot.

Today was one of those days. You know the ones, you spend half the day in bed and then spend about half of your wake time pre-occupied with taxes, and various other equally as pleasant thoughts and tasks.

But tonight, things seem a bit better. Tax materials are all organized, and the tedious process of entering numbers has started. I just hope I didn't sleep too much today, I want to be able to sleep tonight.

Umbrella camera left, ambient 1/2 under. The wind helped us out a bit.

I had a good giggle at the terrible spring picture Lifetouch made of my daughter. Its unfortunate, they made a pretty decent one in the fall. They actually seem to do a pretty good job all-around given the constraints of their picture making. I do an "assembly-line" type shoot every year too, and it is extremely hard to get good shots. I learned a long time ago its best to setup very safe and boring lighting, and then try to talk people into given me a look or an expression that carries the picture.

Umbrella camera right, flash on the background, foreground ambient neutral.

Its nothing like the chance I had early this month to do a senior portrait session with D. I got to try a number of things with lighting and backgrounds. Unfortunately rain dropped out of the sky before we had a chance to play in town, maybe next time!

I like the warm/cool going on here-- I even like the flare, even though it robbed me of a bit contrast. Crosslight, umbrella camera right, ambient 1-2 stops under

She was a lot of fun to work with and did a fantastic job!