Senior Portraits

 My Middle Daughter is Graduating from High School this June. As it did with my oldest daughter, it brings up the event of Senior Portraits. This means going to the portrait studio the school has chosen and getting portraits taken. Both of my daughters have gone through this ritual and it's been fun to go with them. It not only brings back memories of doing it when I was 17 but I like to watch what other photographers do when they're shooting. 

My oldest daughter wore a "metal" band shirt for her senior portrait because she wanted it to reflect who she really was in the yearbook but we never had any intention of buying the images. When Amanda went we still didn't have any intentions of buying them but only choosing one for the yearbook. 

During the shoot Amanda was so uncomfortable and awkward I couldn't help but laugh. I was smiling at her and standing behind the photographer, way behind him jumping, waving my arms and making weird faces at her to try to get her to relax or maybe laugh naturally. I saw her make some smiles that I'd never seen her make before. It was really weird. 

How can you expect a 17 or 18 year old to relax and be themselves in a 10 minute studio photo shoot with a photographer they've never even seen? I knew we had a problem when I made a joke about her doing a "Napoleon Dynamite" pose and he looked at me and said, "Yes we do those all the time" (and not for laughs). At that point I just shut up.

As I looked around at the large portraits I thought about how much I don't appreciate formal studio portraits where they slick the kid's hair down and put a tie on them or wear clothes they would never be caught dead in. It's weird. I was talking to Amanda this morning about it and we thought maybe parents have those images of their children taken because they aren't photographers who get to have professional pictures of their children taken whenever they want to. Maybe this is their only chance to get their kid behind a camera so they put them behind a drum set or hand them a football or make them wear their cheerleading outfit. I'm not sure maybe parents don't know there are other options.

Here is Amanda's Senior portrait that she chose to have in the yearbook. There really is nothing wrong with the image. Personally I think she's beautiful and you just can't get a bad picture of her.

I have no idea who she is by looking at it. She seems like every other senior which is perfect for a yearbook.

When I think of senior portraits I think about catching a glimpse into her world right now and capturing it forever. I want her to look back and remember who she was and what she was like. I want to see if I can grab a piece of her essence and hold it in some images that we can look back on and remember what she was like, how she laughed, and what she loved. 

We talked about where to take pictures of Amanda and of course it had to be at the beach. She loves it, she goes there whenever she can and this summer her great uncle Leo loaned her a surf board so she could start surfing. She loves that board and she loves the ocean so it made sense to shoot there.

Of course the two of us together is ADD city and we left for the beach really too close to sunset and had about 15 minutes to shoot until it was dark. This is what happens when your Mom is the photographer, you get squeezed in when you can.

Shoot I:

 Leaving the parking lot with her board. It's really cute 

watching her carry that thing because it's twice as

big as her.

How can you not include the iPhone? Besides she is

a natural photographer and shoots everything. 

 Yeah, I KNOW this look...

 My daydreamer...

 This is one of my favorites 

I think tonight we're going to shoot some inland photos of Amanda to round out the shoot but I think we covered a lot in fifteen minutes and can't wait to hang out together to get more.