Jay's Senior Pictures

 Jay is a high school senior, and I am trying to keep up with all of the necessary traditions. I used to take pictures of my little kids with a real camera all the time. It was a self-taught hobby that reached a natural conclusion when the kids got older and weren't home as much. Since we still have the big Pentax K-5 DSLR camera that we bought on eBay 15 years ago, I decided to dust off my photography skills to take some senior pictures of our boy. First I did some online research to find some good photo poses for boys. Then I asked my sister Em (the professional photographer) for advice.

"Don't do it under a clumps of trees. You want access to the sky. If there are trees, you want them to filter the light, not block the sky, if that makes sense."

With that advice in mind, a week before I took Jay's senior pictures, I had Jeff come outside with me to model while I scouted good photo locations around our yard. He did a hilariously awesome job posing for me while I relearned how to use our camera, and we found a few good spots for pictures. A few days later, it was Jay's turn. 

The golden hour before sunset on Labor Day was the allotted time. Jay chose his outfit quickly, and we went outside to the lot in front of our house, where I had scouted a low hanging tree branch that would filter the light. Maybe it blocked the sky a bit more than advisable, but it was the best place I could find! I quickly found that the hardest part wasn't working the camera; it was figuring out all the details of the pose and giving Jay directions on what to do! I didn't notice what pose adjustments to make until we were done taking pictures, so the pictures definitely aren't quite as polished as they would have been if a professional had done them. 

My sister even offered to take Jay's senior pictures, but we forgot to bring a good outfit for him when we visited the family this summer, and it never happened. I was kicking myself as I labored to do it on my own! Em also offered to help with editing the pictures I took, but I forgot how to change the camera settings to shoot in RAW like she requested, so I was on my own for the touch-ups. I used my phone because I couldn't figure out how to use the free photo editing program that I had on my computer. I only edited about 4 of Jay's pictures, because it was hard and didn't change too much. Jay shined and looked good, no photo editing necessary! 

That's why pregnancy was so hard for me: I grew some seriously good looking children. Now on this end of parenthood I have it easy with photography, haha.

Jay, age 17.

A brief intermission to display this boy's awesome father, during our location scouting excursion:

Ok, back to Jay's pictures:

Sherlock and Watson made an appearance, even though they had just showed up the day before.

I wanted a picture of Jay with his car, while it was charging--because it needs to be charged so frequently, haha. This picture feels very frozen in time, like it will be a great memory in 20 years when Jay is telling his own kids about his first car and how it only had a drive range of barely 70 miles per battery charge. Jay charges it about every 40-50 miles to be safe.

This pose was Jay's idea, haha.

Jay also wanted a picture with his house and the barn in it.

At the last minute, before we finished up, I had Jay sit on a rock in my pumpkin patch. 

I had Jay make a few faces on our front porch before we called it a night.

I love this smile!