We’re BACK! Your usually weekly programing here on the blog was interrupted a bit by a server switch that threw off our publishing program a bit so things weren’t connecting as usual and even our already scheduled and ready blog posts were getting a bit jumbled! But, much smarter people than myself, have put things back together (I HATE programing just so you know … I only like the pretty front interface of my blog/scheduler and let someone else handle the code YUK). I’m glad to be back up and running for our usual Thursday post and today it’s Jarius! Can I just tell you how much I LOVE that Jarius was all-in for his senior portraits….. like ALL the metals, ALL the shoes (he has just a couple), all in!
It’s so so so easy to talk yourself out of bringing #allthethings to your session because YES you will totally feel like it’s too much and you’re basically moving in, but that’s OK. These things are part of who you are right now guys. When I find out we have a talented athlete (or competitor of any kind) with this many metals you better believe I am trying to talk you into bringing them all in with you. That’s a heck of an accomplishment and this talent and dedication (you all know the time it takes to be a high school or college athlete, it’s no joke) needs to be celebrated. And, just because he makes it look easy don’t be fooled. He got his arm workout that day – those metals aren’t light!
I also really love it when athletes choose to have their uniform portion of the session in-studio. Look at your favorite pro-athletes on the covers of magazines, in their endorsement ads, etc and I bet MOST of them are in studio. There’s such a crisp, professional and fierce look to the lighting we can do there, and your uniform colors and numbers will really pop too! And, of course, we mixed it up a bit and didn’t do JUST sports images in studio with Jarius. A few lighting tweaks to something a bit more classic and a background swap and we went from sports illustrated pro athlete to GQ model in a snap (I mean really, can’t he pull off both rolls pretty darn good).
One of the most fun things about Jarius’ session was his momma joining in on the fun too. She’s a blast and so full of energy I just love it. One things that’s always fun to me is to see the transformation from what a parent initially thinks of a location/image while we’re standing there shooting to what they think of it in the final product. His momma might not even remember this but she voiced a small concern while we were shooting at the below area that she wondered if he was blending in with the color of the trees/ivy and his green shirt. And ironically enough I chose this outfit for this specific location because I loved the way we’d get a two tone look with his skin/brick and ivy/shirt really melding well together and in the end product she did really like these much more than the second option I photographed with this same outfit with a much higher contract in the background. I always want to make sure parents and even seniors DO feel 100% able to speak up, jump in, fix details, voice concerns, request poses, etc … after all this is YOUR senior session! But sometimes, I’ll also say ‘just trust me’ … we’ll always try what you want to do too but come along for the ride and we can create some really cool things together!
See senior guys, sessions are ‘that bad’ and they can even be fun (but don’t worry we don’t have to tell anyone [besides all my blog readers] if you actually have fun on session) 😉
