Taking Tessa
Landon and I had the enormous pleasure of taking some Senior Photos recently. Taking Senior Pictures are one of my absolute favorite sessions. The sole focus is on just one person and it is your job, as the photographer, to showcase who this person really is. Anyone can take a nice photo of someone, but for Senior Pictures you have to truly dive down and bring out the real person. With teenagers, that is no easy feat.
Tessa is a beautiful gal who graduates in 2019. She is fun, spunky, bold, and she really knows what she wants out of life. She is honestly the ideal client when it comes to Senior Photos. She had locations picked out, styles she wanted, props ready to go, and multiple outfits she wanted to showcase. It actually made our job super easy. Most of the time it takes a lot of persuasion to get our clients to relax and open up about what they want to see in their photos.
We take a slightly different approach when it comes to photography. With photography comes a lot of artistic flair. And while Landon and I are bursting with artistic flair we leave that out of the photos we deliver to our clients. We would rather show our clients artistic, sporty, fun loving side rather than our own. Let's be honest. These photos are not going to be hanging on my wall in my home. Therefore, it should be more about what the client wants.
We go through a questionnaire and talk in depth about what they like and don't like in their photos. "Oh, you hate black and white, great I won't put any black and white photos in your package.'' Too many times photographers get caught up with what they like in photos and forget these aren't for themselves.
Back to Tessa! Several days leading up to the shoot she sent me pictures she wanted to use as inspiration. I LOVED THIS! It really gave me an idea of what she was looking for. And like most teenagers she wanted to be different. The funny thing is she doesn't have to try hard to stand out! My whole focus during the shoot was to take pictures that when she saw them she would see that she doesn't have to try hard to be beautiful or different. In every single photo I wanted the true Tessa to shine and to really capture her soul.
She also taught me how I can better reach out to other Seniors looking to get their pictures done. How I can get them to open up and share with me their true selves so I can then put that in their pictures. After all that is why people take Senior Photo. To capture this brave youth on their way to take on the world. Both Landon and I feel we would do an injustice to take anything less than the perfect photos showing the real person.