I don’t do portrait sessions very often. I do the occasional environmental portrait for various newspapers, and, of course, I’ve taken my share of quick mugs, but senior portraits usually aren’t my cup of tea. On occasion, though, a friend or family member asks me to take their picture and I do it as a favor or a gift to them. That was the case with my friend Cassie.
She will be graduating from Texas State University in May and she’s been asking me to take her senior portraits since her sophomore year. I was happy to help her out because she’s a friend and well, she’s gorgeous, so I was happy to have a beautifully silly model to work with.
We met last week at a park in San Marcos where there are walking trails with lots of greenery. That made for a lovely late afternoon background.
We started out with some close-ups. I used a 50mm f1.8 lens, set on f2 to bring out her eyes.
I caught her doing this…like I said, beautifully silly.
We also got some wider shots of her in that outfit. I used my 24-70mm, f2.8 for the wider shots. (I used my new SB910 flash to help light some of these, but not all.)
Here are a couple photos from the waist up…
Then she switched to her cap and gown…
She had one more outfit that we got a quick shot of before moving to phase 2 of the shoot. Here’s that shot…
Then we moved to Sewell Park, which is outside of Strahan Collesium, where Cassie’s graduation ceremony will be held. The tradition is to jump in the San Marcos River, which runs through Sewell Park, after graduation. Cassie said she didn’t want to do that on graduation day and risk having to go to a celebration dinner in wet clothes, so she instead jumped in while I documented.
She was a bit apprehensive, so I suggested we take a shot of her splashing in the water from the bank. Once she dipped her toe in, she decided to go for it and jump in.
When I saw the photos, I wasn’t sure how to present the succession of photos of the jump, so I put together a quick composite that included the shot of her splashing. Here’s what I came up with.
It was a fun challenge to work with Cassie on her senior portraits and I’m pretty happy with what I came up with. Congrats Cassie!
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