Senior Photoshoot: Thomas

Last weekend I took the senior pictures of Thomas, the big brother of Tessie's friend Hope. He plays football with his highschool team, so first we took some sports shots.

Then we went downtown for more pictures.

Finally we went to my favorite park for photos.

Thomas was a super easy and cooperative model, and we were all happy with the results!

Senior Photoshoot: Maria

My lovely little sister Maria will be a senior in high school this year! She's 10 years younger than I am and it's crazy how much can change in a 10-year interim. She has friends who are off to college next week and she wanted to have them join in on her senior photoshoot, so last Sunday they came over and we headed downtown. I'll be doing another photoshoot with her later on in the fall outdoors, but this was a really fun start. In my next post I'll share the pictures I took of the four friends, but for now here are the first batch of Maria's senior pictures!

It's so fun shooting family members and close friends, because I'm in a unique position to really draw their unfiltered personality out of them, and I'm able to get such natural photos as a result.

We got some really lovely shots, and her friends did a great job of making her laugh!

Towards the end of the shoot, my camera was almost out of battery, so we decided to head to a local coffee shop for some post-shoot treats. But as we walked there I was happy I had the dredges of battery juice to get this very last photo, which I just love!

What a beautiful sister I have!

Senior Photoshoot: Sheila

Last weekend I had a session with Sheila, who is the daughter of my dad's colleague and is half-Brazilian, just like me! I did a really quick photoshoot with her last year, and this year she contacted me asking me to take her senior photos, which I was really excited about, especially with my new lens on order. Tessie and Maria came along as my assistants, which was fun, especially because they see her at school. We had a fun and successful photoshoot!

We loved her map shirt from Brazil, which meant a lot to her, especially because she travels a lot.

At first we wandered around downtown, which has some lovely backgrounds.

The whole shoot was relaxed and had a great feel.

After that we went to the Nature Center close to town for some more outdoorsy pictures. Sheila swims competitively and she wanted a picture in her swimming jacket next to the water.

Throughout the night I captured some really lovely shots, and was so pleased!

She was such a great model, and we had so much fun all together!

The next day I shot Maria and friends—stay tuned for that!

Photographing a high school senior

Today and yesterday I had the exquisite pleasure of taking senior pictures for one of my sister Maria's best friends. For you non-Americans, we have a tradition of doing photoshoots with students in their last year of high school to commemorate the end of an era. I really love the tradition, because it captures kids at a very special but sometimes overlooked time of their life. However, photoshoots with professional photographers can really break the bank. So when I was a senior in high school, I had a couple friends take my photos and was really happy with them. That meant that when Katie asked me earlier this month to take her senior pictures for her I was first of all happy to pay it forward, and secondly just thrilled since I knew how fun it would be. 

(Spoiler: I wasn't disappointed.) 

My sister Maria and Katie have been friends since they were 7, and I've joked that she's my "adopted sister" for many many years by now.

And this girl is just beautiful. I mean with a smile like this:

and eyes like that:

what more could you hope for in a model??

Last night we walked to a nearby campground to take those outdoor evening pictures, then this morning we strolled in tiny downtown Brookings and ended up finding lots of beautiful backgrounds.

And even some that weren't especially beautiful themselves, but made good backdrops.

  

She was all sorts of fun but also super chill throughout the shoot, which made for some really nice pictures.

And WOW those big blue eyes just awe me.

Thanks Katie for giving me the opportunity to photograph you! Hope your last year of high school is everything you want it to be.