How I Break The Mold of Traditional Senior Portrait Photography
With every new season of high school senior portraits, I ask myself what I can do to approach things differently.
The last thing I want is to find myself applying the same formula to every single shoot. I want to show up for each person who trusts my vision, and meet them halfway: somewhere between my creative impulses and their unapologetic personality. Lately, that means seeking out backdrops, poses, and compositions that I haven’t tried before, which has been very rewarding!
When Jane reached out to me last spring, she was looking for something natural yet colorful. And while I’m not against working under cloudy skies, I am so happy we got such beautiful sunlight! ☀️
90% of the senior sessions I do are shot on my Canon 50mm f/1.2 lens. When I started using this lens in 2019, I was naturally super excited to finally have access to such a low aperture. But that meant that I often forewent thoughtful compositions in favor of the “aesthetic” of a fully out-of-focus background. As I’ve grown as an artist and business owner, my definition of “professional photography” has evolved quite a bit. Nowadays I value light, composition, and emotional expressions more than making images that look objectively polished. And lately I’ve had a lot of fun experimenting with different apertures outside of what I grew up believing was the “most professional looking.”
The two portraits above were shot at f/2.0 and f/4.0, respectively.
(For context: most of the portraits I took during 2019-2020 were shot at f/1.8 or lower…)
Shot at f/5.6
Sometimes the environment is just as important as the subject, or it can add more context to the overall image to have the background be less blurry.
In this portrait, specifically, I wanted to emphasize the layered landscape:
The bright afternoon sky
The dark treeline
And then the lush field directly behind Jane
These natural layers would not stand out as much if I had shot at f/2.0 or lower, which would’ve made the background more out of focus.
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Once I’m sure that we got plenty of closer portraits, I like to try some nontraditional poses — like this one! A lot of the seniors I work with love doing this kind of “looking away” shot. It adds a more cinematic feel to the photo session.
And here’s an example of how I capture both the little details and the big picture!
In the first photo, I decided to shoot through the yellow flowers rather than capture them in the background or directly next to Jane. In cinema, shooting through/across something is called “dirtying the frame” — which sounds like the complete opposite of what it’s meant to do lol. This approach adds context to the photo, immersing the subject more in their environment. And while our shooting location was gorgeous, sometimes the constant greenery can get old, which is when I’ll try adding different elements to the photos (especially if they’re an interesting color like these flowers)!
In the second photo, I took several steps back to frame both the treeline and Jane walking through the field. When the average person thinks of “senior photos,” they probably imagine close-ups sitting in a field, or a studio portrait of a standard pose. I like to approach senior sessions as an opportunity to capture my seniors in ways they might’ve never seen themselves before. Being able to give my clients a mix of close-ups and wide/environmental perspectives makes for a more memorable experience!
And lastly: as you’ve probably seen in the rest of my portfolio, I often hold a glass prism up to my lens to create unique reflections of our surroundings!
I started using this prism around 2017, when my AP Studio Art teacher at the time was using one of her own to experiment with different photography techniques. I decided to buy one of my own, and I really enjoyed using it as I developed my personal style! (If you’re curious about those early prism photos, here are a few from my old high school blog — that I’m surprised is still alive haha.)
I don’t use the prism for every moment during a shoot, but I’ll take it out every once in a while if the sunlight is especially strong, or if I’d like to make a prism version of a portrait I really like. It’s also a nice tool to have when our surroundings aren’t particularly colorful, so the prism will add little whisps of rainbow light to an otherwise dull photo!
