As a photographer, you are always seeing things…things that could be incorporated into a shoot.  And that is exactly what Casey of Casey Rose Photography  out of Raleigh, North Carolina, did when she spotted a hat at Nordstroms.

Using the hat as her inspiration, Casey presented the idea to this senior and she loved it.  I love that it is a bit more dramatic and really shows off this seniors dark hair and eyes!

Check out this beautiful session below and be sure to check out Casey’s other work here.  Thanks for sharing Casey!

Paige and I had a number of fun ideas while we were developing a design concept for the session, but one day while I was shopping at Nordstrom, I found a hat with a lace veil that reminded me a bit of a raven and I knew it would look perfect with Paige’s dark eyes and hair.  She loved it too, so it became the first bit of inspiration for the first set of portraits.  Paige kept her outfit simple with a black tube dress and black cardigan.  We chose a field with a few bare trees for our setting and shot the session when the sun was just setting for a wash of color.  I used to teach high school English before I opened the photography studio and I kept thinking Paige reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe’s Lenore from The Raven.  Just hauntingly beautiful.

The session took place at a local park in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

Before any photography session, I always meet with the senior to discuss his or her own vision for the portraits.  During this personal design consultation, we discuss location options, wardrobe choices and prop ideas.  We also spend a lot of time emailing and texting photographs of outfits.  I usually try to put together a mood board for inspiration too.  It is definitely important to me for my seniors to have a lot of input into the concept for the shoot.  In the end, my goal is to capture their true essence… not just what I want to see.  While collaborating we are also developing a new friendship, so the ultimate goal is that by the time they are in front of my camera they will completely trust me and the process.  That trust is where I am going to find the best portriats.

I shot this session with a Nikon D700.  The lens was a 50mm / 1.4.  I also used a reflector for a few of the images.

I always start my senior sessions a little less than two hours before sunset.  I don’t like to feel rushed and I like for my clients to warm up a bit before the sun is at the perfect setting.  We spend the first half an hour talking and doing some practice shots to make them feel comfortable in front of the camera.  Most of the images are taken about an hour to an hour and a half before sunset.

I wanted the final images to feel very natural and light, so I did not do a lot of heavy processing but I did run Florabella’s Gypsy action at 12% on the raven shots.  I love her actions because they are easily adjustable and very natural.  It gave the images just the right amount of color pop.

I love how we were able to capture a number of different looks for Paige that all represented a small part of her personality.  With the raven look, we captured Paige’s soft and calm side; yet she also has a bit of mystery to her – especially in her eyes.  I felt like that was represented in her portraits.  Yet, Paige also has a really outgoing part of her personality and we were able to capture that by shooting with a different focus.   We still chose to keep the setting in a field but chose an area where the grass and wheat were a bit more overgrown.  She had recently dyed a small part of her hair blue/ green, so we chose a lace top to match.  She wore jeans and a peacock earring as well.  All of those elements spoke to her edgier side.

 What do you want this session to convey about this senior and about your senior photography style?

In the end, I want all my sessions to speak to the senior’s true essence and personality.  I really work to make my portraits be clean and modern but still timeless so that years from now the senior will remember this experience with absolute fondness and still want to proudly display their portraits.