It's a little off season for a post about Senior Portraits, but it's never too early (or really too late) to start thinking about important photo sessions. I personally think that this is a photo session that every senior in high school (or even, the summer before senior year) should plan on booking. Senior year is such an important milestone in your life, I mean think about it... You're finishing your required schooling after TWELVE years! That's an amazing accomplishment. Finishing high school is like the first step of becoming an adult and an important moment to document. I wish my senior year was during the digital age, I have a few copies of my senior portraits lying around, but I wish I had all of them in digital files to share!
I had the pleasure this past fall of doing my first two senior portrait sessions, both sessions were outdoors on somewhat chilly days, but that's what happens in October in New England. Both clients were great sports about the weather (and in reality, in New England, it could have been MUCH worse weather). We picked awesome venues for the sessions and I love how both of them turned out!
Doing senior portraits was somewhat out of my comfort zone, until this point, my normal clients had been families, toddlers or newborns - which are VERY different clients to work with than individuals. Working with families is difficult, but you can always have the family engage with each other to get some genuine smiles, toddlers are always moving, but you can kind of just let them do their own thing, and those "action shots" end up really showing their personality, newborns (hopefully) just sleep or rest during a session and you just keep taking photos of them being adorable. Engaging with one person, who is at an age where you tend to be incredibly self conscious... not as easy.
I was nervous going into both sessions, but (as usual) I didn't need to be. Both clients were awesome to work with. It might have helped that I had a "connection" to both clients. One client was my husbands cousins daughter and while I'd met her before, I wouldn't say that I really knew her. This session gave me that chance, and it was great to be able to actually get to know her. She's got an amazing personality and was so easy to talk to and SO easy to make laugh during our session, which provided me with some really genuine smiles.
My other client happened to be one of my good friends cousins, which gave us something to chat about. Her mother also came along for the session (which is standard practice for senior sessions), and I think both of these factors helped me get her to open up during the session. Her mom helped get some really great smiles, buy making her laugh during the session and I was able to talk to her about her interests and get to know her better during the session. This was another client with a great personality that made it easy to get some great shots during the session.
I love learning about my clients, I usually send along a questionnaire before a session that gives me a little background on everyone involved in the session, but I love just casually chatting with my clients during their session to help me learn more about them. Sessions for seniors can have multiple outfit changes and even incorporate some of your hobbies or activities if you'd like! If you're graduating this year and haven't done a senior portrait session yet, it's not too late! And if you're graduating next year and are considering doing a senior session, I recommend booking by mid summer to secure a fall session slot!
Thanks for stopping by!
~so~