Category Archives: Class of 2015

The Third Time Was A Charm AND On Point(e) for Rachel!

The third time was indeed a charm and it was “on point” – literally – for Rachel!  If at first you don’t succeed try try again and the same goes for if you get rained out.  We were rained out twice for Rachel’s senior photos so when the weather cooperated in perfect fashion the third time we were quite pleased.

As for being “on point”, Rachel is an accomplished ballerina so she brought her pointe shoes with her and hence we had a session that was both “on point” and on pointe!  Rachel is a really sweet and soft spoken girl, she was a joy to be with, and so was her mom who joined us on the session!  Most of the focus was on location for Rachel’s session so that’s what we will highlight here.  Let’s start with a nice casual photo of a relaxed Rachel:

Third Time

Love that shot and we had just the slightest breeze giving Rachel’s hair a little lift – beautiful!

Third Time And On Pointe…

Now let’s take a look at a couple photos that combined dance with our beautiful setting, starting with Rachel on pointe on a tree stump!

Third Time

Such a unique photo and definitely a first for us!  Love it!

Let’s now take a look at our fun behind the scenes vine of our day with Rachel:

Next let’s look at a take on a “sleeping swan” pose.

Third Time

So pretty!

Okay now we’ll move over to the waterfalls as a backdrop for Rachel in a pretty dress to conclude our highlights!

Third Time

So now you see what we mean when we say Rachel’s session was not only on pointe but on point too!  The third time was definitely a charm for this girl and we’re certainly glad it was.  We hope you enjoyed the highlights from her session!

 

 

An Urban Senior Photo Junket With Jon In Birmingham!

A junket is defined as “an extravagant trip or celebration, in particular one enjoyed by a government official at public expense”.  Well, our urban junket with Jon was a celebration for sure – even if it wasn’t official government business!    Birmingham has some of our favorite spots and even though we sometimes contrast Pontiac and Birmingham as “grungy vs. cosmopolitan” we can still find some gritty locales in Birmingham too.

Meanwhile Jon is a great kid – the weather was a little windy and chilly but he handled it like a pro.  We’ve known Jon’s family for a few years now but we hadn’t really spent much time with him before his session, and we found him to be a really nice guy!  So let’s get to some photos shall we?

A Senior Photo Junket With Jon…

We met up together in Birmingham and started shooting, and the first photo we are sharing is with a background that we often present in black and white – it just works…

Senior Photo Junket

Cool right?

Now let’s switch to full color as we explore some alleyways…

Senior Photo Junket

Now let’s take a fun behind the scenes look at the day with this vine that we posted:

Fun right?  Now let’s take another view of the alleyway segment of the session before we switch it up again with this full length photo of the whole scene…

Senior Photo Junket

At this point we made a location switch and headed to a secluded area where we knew we could get this photo through a fence.  We do this once in a while and it always makes for a dramatic image.  What do you think?

Senior Photo Junket

Love that one, and it’s a good one to finish on for now!  We hope you enjoyed our urban senior photo junket with Jon!  We certainly had fun on location with him!

Jordan’s Beautiful Senior Session – With A Special Guest…

Jordan is a sweetheart and what a nice family she has!  This was a special session with a special guest – Andy the horse!  This is the fourth time we have photographed a senior with her horse and we really love these sessions.  What beautiful and majestic animals horses are and Andy was no exception.  He also had a sweet disposition – a mellow fellow who spent some of our time just casually chowing on the grass around him.  But we’ll get to Andy a little more later…

First Just Jordan…

First let’s concentrate on a couple shots of Jordan in the studio.  Her mom and little brother were both here to cheer her on and Jordan nailed her poses and she is extremely photogenic!  We started off with some Spartan gear since she’ll be attending Michigan State in the fall:

Special Guest

She’s so cute!  Next we went for a slightly more dramatic look against the black backdrop and she nailed this shot too…

Special Guest

Love that one – we are particular fans of the black leather look against the black backdrop!

Now let’s take look at our behind the scenes vine of our day with Jordan and here we get our first look at Andy!

One funny note about that vine, when I was posting it something happened that I just had to screenshot and tweet…  take a look.  Haha!

Special Guest

Special Guest Andy!

Once we were done in the studio it was time to head up to the stable.  Jordan’s dad was there so we had the whole family hanging out which was really nice.  Obviously this day was all about Jordan, but the interaction between her and Andy was so sweet and you can get a sense for their connection in the vine above and in these next two photos for sure.  We love the way this silhouette turned out as Jordan gently gives a kiss to her friend.

Special Guest

We’ll leave you with one more of Jordan and Andy just hanging out together on a nice sunny day…

Special Guest

Beautiful right?  We loved this session, this family, and this girl!  We hope you enjoyed these highlights from our day with them!

Senior Pictures With Style, Beauty, and Elle-gance!

Our session with Elle definitely produced senior pictures with style, beauty, and Elle-gance!!!  This was technically our fourth time photographing Elle – once with her family a couple years ago, once for her spokesmodel session, once for the mural in our window (sometimes I forget to count that) and now her senior pictures!  Anticipation for this session was high, and Elle certainly delivered!

To Heritage Park We Go…

Heritage Park served a couple of purposes on this day.  Not only is it a fantastic park with many obvious and hidden treasures for a photographer, but for Elle it was a safe distance away to keep her out of range for the Detroit Country Day water wars (haha).  Her mom joined us for the session and we had a blast!  So let’s get started – I believe this is the first time we’ve used this wooden door in the stone wall that we love:

Elle-Gance

A little side note here – very often we feature both full length and close up photos of our seniors, but these are all full length of Elle because Ally said she just looked so cute and coordinated with her outfits she felt the full length showed off the whole look!

Elle-gance…

For this session we spent the whole time outdoors which is a nice change especially at Heritage Park.  It gives us a chance to really explore.  The blossoms framing this photo and the backlight on Elle’s hair really come together nicely here…

Elle-gance

Let’s take a look at the first vine from this session… yes a session so nice we vined it twice!

You can see from the vines we used a number of different spots for this session many of which we won’t get to here…  But a shot like this next one is just undeniable even if we didn’t vine it:

Elle-gance

Now for vine number two!

So fun!  Okay now one last shot…

Elle-gance

So there it is – style, beauty and Elle-gance!  We hope you enjoyed these highlights from our morning with Elle!

 

Photographing Devora Was A True Delight!

Photographing Devora was a delight indeed!  This was actually the second time Devora has been in front of Ally’s camera since we photographed her family a year or so ago.  Devora’s family is great and we photographed her older brother Shimmy for his senior pictures as well, so we were excited when we got the call from her mom that it was her turn!

A Beautiful Locale For Photographing Devora…

First we went on location back to the same spot we photographed Devora’s brother.  It’s a beautiful private residence of a family friend and we wish we could photograph there all the time!  Well we certainly took advantage while we could and we had great weather as well!  Let’s start with a pretty shot down by the lake…

Photographing Devora

Love it – and love that rock ledge along the water.  Just a nice picturesque spot for Devora to relax for that casual pose!  Next let’s focus in on Devora for this next shot without her glasses:

Photographing Devora

Such a pretty and engaging photo of her – she’s a sweetheart!  Let’s take a look at our behind the scenes vine of our day where you’ll hear her personal paparazzi which showed up at the studio – that was a lot of fun!  Total Devora fan club…

Okay one more on location before we head back to the studio:

Photographing Devora

Now back to the studio…

So we got a lot done outdoors – very pleased with that!  As I mentioned earlier a few of Devora’s friends showed up to “cheer her on” back at the studio – they were pretty funny and it made for a raucous and memorable ending to a fantastic session!

Photographing Devora

So there it is – you can see why photographing Devora was a true delight and we hope you enjoyed the highlights from our day with her!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brad’s Senior Session Definitely BLUE Us Away!

We were pretty excited when Brad’s mom Stefany brought him here for senior pictures because we go way way back with his family – for me personally it’s about 35 years!  Brad is a really nice kid and an impressive guy.  He’ll be attending The University of Michigan in the fall and it’s always cool when your high school colors match your college ones this closely!

Go Blue…

This session “blue” us away since the predominant color is blue – Brad brought his Detroit Country Day navy blue and gold baseball gear which helped bring out his blue eyes for these pictures.  So let’s take a look at a few of them shall we?

First we started out on location which we do for all morning location sessions since we like to catch the sun lower in the sky for lighting purposes, and our conditions were great…

Blue

Nice shot huh?  We did one shirt change for the location part and grabbed a few more shots before we headed back to the studio.  Here’s one of them:

Blue

Let’s take a look at our behind the scenes vine of our day before we take it back to the studio…

Back to the studio…

We got some great stuff on location so it was time to head back to the studio.  We love the combo you see in the vine with the khakis and the baseball gear (note the shirt and Michigan tie under the jersey) – here’s a great one with the cap turned around.  Fun!

Blue

We’ll leave you with one more with this pensive and dramatic close up in black and white.  Check it out…

Blue

So there you have it!  Another fantastic senior session as we start winding down on the class of 2015 and start gearing up for the class of 2016!  Best of luck to Brad and we hope you all enjoyed the highlights from his session!

Twin Sister Senior Time Part Two – Cierra’s Turn!

Welcome to part TWO of twin sister senior time!  If you joined us yesterday you saw part one of this beautiful twin sister senior photo session which focused on Tierra, and today as promised we are flipping it!  Today we’ll be featuring Cierra with a special return guest appearance by Tierra in a photo of them twinning on location!

I wrote at length yesterday about how fun it is to be with twins and now I’m thinking about another fun benefit of working with twins – we get to blog about them twice which gives us an excuse to show off more of the session!

Twin Sister Senior Time Part Two…

So let’s start now again in the studio since that’s what we did with the girls…  I’m a fan of this first shot of Cierra because it’s unique – Ally likes to capture this pose frequently highlighting our senior’s eyelashes.  Cierra looks beautiful…

Twin Sister Senior Time Part Two

This next outfit still on the black background is fun with the cute hat for this playful pose!

Twin Sister Senior Time Part Two

Now let’s take a look at the behind the scenes vine highlighting Cierra from our day:

Let’s head back outside…

Let’s now bring Tierra back in and take a look at another photo of the twins together at the entrance to one of our favorite bridges, although technically it’s a platform I guess since it ends and doesn’t lead to the other side…  ha.

Twin Sister Senior Time Part Two

Love that photo, and let’s take a look at a “bonus” vine of the twins together!

Okay back to a couple more with Cierra…

Twin Sister Senior Time Part Two

Love that serious pose and the backlight on her hair!  And one more full length for the road…

Twin Sister Senior Time Part Two

So that will do it – we hope you’ve enjoyed both of these posts highlighting the twins.  We certainly had fun working with them!

Twin Sister Senior Time – First With Tierra!

We love twins – no really we love twins!  They have a special bond and senior pictures are so much fun and such a big milestone.  So when any senior comes in for pictures it’s a big deal and it’s one of the things we love most about our “jobs”, but with twins we get to spend a full 5+ hours with them which gives us a window into their relationship that makes for a memorable day every time.

Twin Sister Senior Time…

Tierra and Cierra were no exception, and they are North Farmington Raiders to boot so as Raiders ourselves we were pretty excited for this session.  Beautiful girls, beautiful mom and they were a blast to be with!  So today we are going to feature photos of Tierra along with a guest appearance by Cierra and then tomorrow we’ll flip it!  Let’s start in the studio with Tierra on the black backdrop…

Twin Sister Senior

With this shot we actually can’t remember for sure but I think we had the fan going on Tierra’s hair but only slightly – just to give it a little lift.  Gorgeous…

While we’re on the black background let’s bring in Cierra for a black and white close crop of these beauties together!

Twin Sister Senior

Next we’ll take a look at Tierra on the red couch against the new red background – this is the first time we’ve done this pairing and we love the result:

Twin Sister Senior

Next we’ll take a look at the highlights of Tierra’s shoot on our behind the scenes vine:

Let’s head outside…

We had a perfect day for this session which was nice and we went to one of our favorite nature preserves for these next couple photos:

Twin Sister Senior

And we’ll end for today on this one…

Twin Sister Senior

So there you have it – twin senior sister time part one!  We hope you enjoyed Tierra’s pictures and be sure to return tomorrow for part two with Cierra!