Tag Archives: West Bloomfield High School

Excellence In Senior Photos With Eli!

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We now bring you excellence in senior photos with Eli!  At around the time of Eli’s session we were having a little run on guys (you may have seen Noah’s session last if you follow this blog) after photographing a bunch of senior girls in a row.  We were excited to photograph Eli because we knew him and had photographed him before in family photos as well as his sister for her senior pictures a couple years ago.  Eli’s mom came along for the ride and the results speak for themselves – and yeah, you might say they represent excellence in senior photos!

We started in the studio where we honed in on our grey background.  We have had a lot of success with guys on grey – not sure we can put our finger on why but the combination looks fantastic especially with the formal GQ look like this:

Excellence in senior photos

Cool huh?  Eli just completely nailed it.  Next we shifted gears and “served up” this next shot…

Excellence in senior photos

See what I did there?  We “served up” that photo!!!  Hehe…

Okay next it was time to head out on location, and we returned to Heritage Park which is continuing to be a great spot for us this year!

Let’s start with the barn shot.  This is such a cool barn and we noticed this time the plaque on the barn indicates that it was built in the nineteenth century!

Excellence in senior photos

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of the afternoon where there was some great “smizing” going on:

… and we will leave you with one more shot with the stone wall as our background.

Excellence in senior photos

So there you have it – excellence all around with Eli!  We had fun with him – a fine young man in every respect!

Jessi Approached Perfection On Her Session!

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Jessi approached perfection on her session with a lot of elements working in her favor – some planned and some not!  The continuing storyline of that week was about dodging raindrops, shifting schedules and hair and makeup appointments, monitoring forecasts, and Jessi’s session almost didn’t happen that day.  Yet at the end of the day the clouds disappeared, the sun came out and the perfect light was in the perfect spot at the perfect location and it was almost like it was meant to be that way all along….

Jessi approached perfection

What a beauty, and what a cool girl – just outgoing and fun to be around.  Her mom came along on the session and we had a great time together.  This particular pathway where both the above photo and the next one took place is perfect for this time of day at this time of year when the sun is strong and low.  And if you hit it just right, you can get some really beautiful backlight, which is perfect for Jessi’s awesome long curls.  Take a look at this!

Jessi approached perfection

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of the location part of the session – even the vine is extra special with the beams of sunlight around Jessi:

But we were hardly done once we were finished outside.  There was plenty of magic to be made back at the studio!  We love the way Jessi’s photos turned out on the “black and blowy” setup that we love to do.

Jessi approached perfection

Lastly the couch against the brown also worked well – her hair color, her clothes – it all works with this setup.

Jessi approached perfection

You can see what we mean with this session!  We haven’t had a session yet this year that wasn’t great, but sometimes things just break in your favor and everything you try just works.  Jessi certainly had a lot to do with that, and the results speak for themselves!  We hope you enjoyed these photos as much as we did making them!

 

Jackie’s Senior Session Was A Jewel!

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Jackie’s senior session was a jewel, and yet it almost didn’t happen.  At least not on this day… The weather forecasts were getting worse by the day that week and when we woke up that morning it looked pretty bleak – a 3:00 start with a 3:00 storm coming according to the hourly forecast.  Well by 10 the forecast changed and the storm moved out to later in the day so we scrambled a little, moved everything up to beat the rain and we even ended up with enough time to start in the studio before we went outside.  And so there we were on location with great conditions and our stunning senior!  But first let’s start with the studio photos.

We focused largely on our black background and Ally captured a dramatic image of Jackie in this full length photo.

session was a jewel

Jackie made this a really fun session with a couple of her poses.  We love this next one and the tutu (which you’ll see in a sec) but they aren’t necessarily in every portfolio we create.  Jackie knows what she likes when she sees it and we show the photos of tutus along with this pose lying down in many of our consultations but not everyone runs with them.  This photo really shows off Jackie’s pretty eyes…

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Stunning right?  This would also be a good time to give a shout out to Gloria at The Beauty Lounge down the hall for the great job on Jackie’s makeup.  Next it was time to head out on location with our updated forecast.  We had a 5 minute drizzle at one point and that was it as our lucky streak for the week continued!  We love Jackie in this next photo in the tutu, and how great are the shoes with this outfit?  When we first got these tutus we thought they would be great for little girls – and they are, but every year a couple seniors wear them and they are so fun!

session was a jewel

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of the session:

Okay one more of Jackie in her cute little pineapple dress!

session was a jewel

So there it is – definitely a jewel of a session with Jackie.  We hope you enjoyed these as much as we enjoyed our time with her!

 

The Third Time Was Truly The Charm For Gillian!

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The third time was truly the charm for Gillian!  In our last post we mentioned how the next several senior blog posts will all be from a week where the forecast had called for 7 straight days of thunderstorms.  I have to tell you that as stressed as we were going into that week that we could be rescheduling a handful of seniors, it was Gillian who was the poster child for that potential disaster.  You see Gillian had already been rained out twice this summer!  Gillian is one of our spokesmodels and she is very special to us so this was a troubling development indeed…

Well as the title suggests, the third scheduled date turned out to be the charm as we lucked out with the weather for Gillian – her session was scheduled for the morning and the storms were to come in the afternoon.  So as you’re about to see, FABULOUS things can come to those who wait!

third time

Ahhh – so happy to be able to post these.  We can promise she is as sweet as she is gorgeous too.  When we went on location for her spokesmodel session it was in the Spring and those photos were great too, but now we have nice plush green backgrounds to complement those.

third time

She’s just so adorable isn’t she?  Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of her session:

We also want to give props to Gloria at The Beauty Lounge down the hall from our studio for the awesome job on Gillian’s makeup!  Okay here’s one more outside…

third time

We then came back to the studio for some indoor photos and we’ll share one of those here on our white background:

third time

And so there you have it!  Gillian’s session which was absolutely worth the wait!  🙂

Excited To Be With Emily On Her Senior Session!

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We were excited to be with Emily on her senior session for a few reasons.  For starters she kicked off a jam packed week of seniors which is very exciting for us.  We love our seniors!  The latter half of August is a blast, and this next series of sessions coming up on the blog might not have happened if the extended forecast going into the week had played out the way it was predicted.  They were calling for potential thunderstorms every single day – 7 straight days.  That will be a theme in the story of these next several sessions as we dodged raindrops.

Each night looking at the next day’s forecast we were nervous about whether we would be able to shoot.  With Emily we were able to start earlier than planned (shout out here to Gloria at The Beauty Lounge for her flexibility and for doing an awesome job on Emily’s makeup) and the weather held off long enough for us to complete her session.  This good fortune lasted all week and Emily certainly kicked it off in style!  What a great session!

Excited To Be With Emily

Usually with an afternoon session we start in the studio first, but with potential storms coming we started on location.  When we consult with our seniors we usually explain how we try to avoid location shooting in the middle of the day so we don’t have the sun directly overhead.  But as in Emily’s case if we have enough cloud cover then we’re fine, and as you can see above our conditions were perfect – we even got some nice backlight on her hair!  Next we went for an urban look – Emily has that versatility to pull off the pretty and the gritty (which is still plenty pretty)!  🙂

Excited To Be With Emily

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of her session:

With the outdoor shots safely completed we headed back to the studio to finish up with some indoor work.

Excited To Be With EmilyWe think the red background is just such a nice rich look and it’s perfect for Emily’s skin tone.  She looks beautiful and we love how this pose frames her face.  Let’s close it out with the black background for a close up:

Excited To Be With Emily

Those eyes!

So we were excited to be with Emily and our excitement was certainly justified!  Sure enough the skies opened up after we were done, and that was just fine with us!  We hope you enjoyed these photos from Emily’s session!

Loving Lindsey’s Senior Session!

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We are loving Lindsey’s senior session for sure!  We had a fantastic morning with her and it was really cool for us to have her back as a senior because we photographed her a couple times for her dance photos years ago.  So now photographing her all grown up makes for one of those slightly surreal sessions that we get to do from time to time.  When Lindsey came in for the first time when she was probably 12 or 13 Ally said “I hope we get to take her senior pictures someday because she is such a pretty girl!”  So now here we are – and she is such a beauty!

Loving Lindsey

We had great weather for her session which makes it easy as well.  Lindsey has beautiful hair and the backlight in the photo above really accentuates it.

Loving Lindsey

We love the close crop photos right in on a face as well – they can be so immediate and so engaging like the one above!  You might even say Lindsey has a Frameable Face!  Ha!

As we usually do, we now give you our fun behind the scenes vine of the morning!

We’ll leave you with this last shot from the location before we head back to the studio for one more indoors as you saw in the vine.  This photo of Lindsey in nice casual jeans and the boots gives her a simple and relaxed look.

Loving Lindsey

We went with the black background back at the studio which came out really nice.  It is the same pose you see Lindsey doing in the vine above:

Loving Lindsey

So yes, we were loving Lindsey’s senior session and now you know why!  We hope you enjoyed these as much as we enjoyed having her back in our studio!

Melanie’s Gorgeous Golden Afternoon!

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Melanie’s gorgeous golden afternoon was a memorable one to be sure.  Gorgeous because of the weather, the locations, and, well…. Melanie of course!  Golden as in the standard, going for the best, and medals – lots of them!

Golden Afternoon

Now that’s a lot of gold!  Melanie is clearly an accomplished gymnast with all of that hardware and it’s fun to have seniors show off their achievements!  We started out the session in the studio and we were able to get some great photos in addition to the medal shot.  Then it was time to take it outside where we had some fantastic light and the locations were awesome!

First we went to one of our favorite meadows where plenty of flowering is going on these days.  This is a beautiful time of year and you’ll see us posting plenty of photos of this style as we go along.  As for Melanie, she looks right at home and comfortable in this natural and pretty setting!  The backlight on her hair is just beautiful!

Golden Afternoon

We would also like to give a little shout out to Shifra Raskin for Melanie’s makeup down the hall from our studio at Style The Salon!  Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of the afternoon including the never-before done “double dock shot”!  Haha!

Next we went to her home where we used some pretty landscaping.  Just a really nice lush green environment which makes the peach colored dress really pop…  Golden Afternoon

Lastly, we captured what is turning out to be one of our favorite water shots of all time!  What a trooper to be in the water that deep in the dress, and Melanie makes it look effortless.  What a great photo to finish up the session with!

Golden AfternoonWe are totally in love with that one.  This session was worthy of gold indeed – we had a great time with Melanie and we hope you enjoyed the highlights from her session!

Elated To Be With Ellery Again!

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Elated to be with Ellery again was how we felt about her senior session!  We have had a fun year getting to know her as a spokesmodel for our studio and we were looking forward to this!  Her spokesmodel session took place during the brutal winter we had at the beginning of the year, and it was completely indoors but the results were so spectacular that she didn’t feel the need to do any more studio work so this time we went all outdoors and it certainly paid off…

Ellery Again

Ellery aspires to sing and model which she has been working on, and when it comes to posing for photos she really is incredible.  Many of our seniors are great at posing – that’s not unusual, but Ellery is clearly talented in this regard.  Ally never has to give her much direction since Ellery knows how to stand, turn, smile, not smile – it’s so easy with her.  The conditions were perfect on this day and Ellery was looking great!  We love the way she rocks the serious look…

Ellery Again

Here is our behind the scenes vine of the day and as you will see the photo above was actually taken on a covered bridge which is how the cool wooden pathway Ellery is standing on comes into play:

This next shot is a lot of fun – sometimes you just capture a moment that isn’t posed or really planned and it just works.  Ellery is just in the moment here – having fun, happy and free and that’s how we like to see her!  It’s just great.

Ellery Again

We’ll leave you with one more playful shot in this pretty red dress…

Ellery Again

All in all it was another great day with Ellery – we hope you enjoyed the highlights!

Hey It’s Helene!!!

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“Hey it’s Helene!” is what we said when she showed up with her mom and little sister to talk about booking a senior photo session with us.  We have known her since she was little, and anytime we photograph a senior we have known since she was little it’s a surreal day for us…  Helene isn’t supposed to be this beautiful high school senior yet.  Time is certainly flying by and maybe we are getting old!  But this isn’t about us – it’s about Helene!  And what a sweetheart and what a session!  Let’s start in the studio with a black and blowy shot – Helene looks fantastic here!

Hey It's HeleneNext we headed out on location and we had a perfect day!  Not too hot or humid and great lighting.

Here is a behind the scenes vine with a couple highlights of the day – you can see where we did the black and blowy…

Spokesmodel Fun Times A Mill-i-an With Gillian!

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We have had an amazing and rewarding winter (and spring) getting to know our spokesmodels of the class of 2015 and photographing them.  We are finishing with a flourish just like we started since this class is strong through and through.  We have three more to present to you starting with Gillian.  Of this year’s spokesmodels we have known her the least amount of time and yet we definitely connected with her and her mom right away when we first sat down with them.  We were excited for this session and we definitely had spokesmodel fun times a mill-i-an with Gillian!  Haha!

We started in the studio just briefly to get a couple quick shots on the black background.  Here is one of our favorites:

Spokesmodel Fun

Then we headed outside for a perfect day – the weather was beautiful!  Gillian’s mom even stopped at the very cool local shop Jen’s Gifts Of Love to pick up some amazing Traverse City Cherry scones to take on location with us.  Just had to give that shout out because they were that good and we love little local joints like that…  But now back to our stunning model!!!

Spokesmodel Fun

We have some really nice back light on the photo above as well as the next one.  We love getting out on the trails in the parks around town especially after this harsh winter and there really are some great ones to choose from!  We have our favorite spots, and as much as we love the meadow we went to next we just had to focus in on Gillian and Gillian only for this photo…  this shot is such a winner!

Spokesmodel Fun

Here is the behind the scenes vine from the session.  We love these!

We were doing really well on time so we went to one more spot we had never photographed before and we love the water as a backdrop!

Spokesmodel Fun

We have images from two more spokesmodel sessions to post so stay tuned for more spokesmodel fun coming your way!  Meanwhile we hope you enjoyed these photos of Gillian!  We certainly enjoyed our time with her!