Senior Graduate session

Meet Hayleigh and Taylor, two wonderful graduates that made my first ever graduate photo session like a walk in the park. No that is not true, it was more like a Sunday-Funday because we laughed a lot. Although, there was no sun at all but I get to that later.

This is Taylor. He loves lacrosse, weight lifting and his retro truck that was handed to him from his grandfather.

This is Hayleigh. She is crazy for her little nephew and her two dogs. She fills the room with laughter and I wouldn't get bored being in a studio with her for the entire day.

How did I get into Senior Graduate Sessions

I knew Hayleigh parents, they have a pool building business and that's how we met (http://www.aquabluecustompools.com/ just in case you need anything to do with a pool in Cypress TX). We quickly started talking about their daughter and whether or not I do senior graduate photos. Hmmm... I had never done that, because where I had been living so far, that is not a big deal. Unfortunately, because seriously, how is this not a milestone that needs to be captured in the best possible way? Those who know me, know that I am always up for a challenge and I agreed to take Hayleigh photos. But... if I do this, I thought I also wanted to take pics of a male student and so we met Taylor, Hayleigh's cousin.

Meeting for the first time

I studied senior sessions for a while and decided that best is to meet and talk. I was honest and did let them know that I had never done this. They weren't scared (but I was). I stole a little questionnaire from the internet (sorry) that helped me asking the right question and Taylor and Hayleigh did a great job helping me along to tailor their photo shoot. We decided to do it together on the same day because they are very similar in what they liked for location options. The pictures above were from this first meeting at my favorite coffee shop L3 Craft Coffee (just in case you want to taste... best coffee ever https://l3craftcoffee.com). I caught them off guard to test my camera on their personality. Don't they look fabulous already?

Isn't this a gorgeous photo facing the sunset?

Location, weather and other problems...

On the morning of our photo shoot I wanted to crawl right back into bed. I wasn't sick but the weather was one of those days you don't even want to step outside. It was foggy, you could barely see the hand in front of you and it was lightly drizzling. I was contemplating cancelling but my super photography friends encouraged me to just go on with it. We started with a one hour studio session because we had that planned anyways so we could include business casual photos (plus studio photos just make good profile photos for your social media). If I had known how much fun Hayleigh was in the studio, I would have planned that for a different day and spent more time with her. Not saying that Taylor wasn't fun too, but you know... men can be quite tense in front of the camera. But he did an awesome job. See for yourself.

After an hour or so, the weather got a tiny bit better. A tiny! It didn't drizzle any longer but it was still quite foggy. I had some ideas and one of the mums assisted me to re-create a bit of sunlight with the help of a flash and a golden bouncer (too bad I don't have a picture of this, we called her "sun" for the entire shoot... here me shouting "I need the sun, where is the suhuun?" This idea proofed to be excellent and it also helped that my friend from www.zebrajojo.com photography told me to capture the pictures so we cannot see the ugly grey sky. All the great vintage, farm type backgrounds you see in the next photos have been done Juergens Hall Community Center http://www.pct3.com/community-centers/juergens-hall-community-center.

I had a lot of fun with this and can't wait to get my hand on more senior graduates. See my website for details and pricing.

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