Child, Give Me Your Hand…

“Child, give me your hand that I may walk in the light of your faith in me.” ~ Hannah Kahn

Independence Day ~

“Those who won our independence… valued liberty as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.”

~ Louis D. Brandeis

I took the liberty to play in Photoshop this morning and create a unique, vintage American Flag to post for Independence Day.  I cropped and rotated the flag and added a layer of texture using Adobe Paper Texture Pro.  Opacity was adjusted on the layer level.

For comparison, I included the original below.

Have a happy and safe 4th of July!

Senior Portraits

Growing up in the mid-west, high school senior portraits were a BIG deal.  It was a given that Mom and Dad had a budget line item for the fall of your senior year.  The portrait session took place, either in a studio or in an agreed upon beautiful location, or both. Mom and Dad then placed their order for prints, books, etc. to “show-off” their child.   The portraits captured us in our true essence.  We weren’t just posed in a drape for a composite portrait, the photographer photographed us with the intention of capturing  who we were at that pivotal time in our lives.

Now living on the East Coast and being a photographer I am baffled by how many people use the school composite photos not only for the year book, but for wall portraits, graduation announcements, etc.

When I work with my high school senior portrait students I learn about them, discover who they are, what their interests are and then work with them to capture their personality in a unique way.  The result is their family has portrait wall art to proudly display for years to come.

Below are a few images from a recent senior portrait session I did.  This young man requested a salvage yard as the location for his portrait session.  Can I tell you that this was one of the most fun shoots I’ve done?  So fun!

This shoot was an all natural light shoot.  The salvage yard was large and was surrounded by trees and farm land so the light varied depending on where we were in the yard.  The light was so fun to work with.  I hope you enjoy the images.

Do you have senior portrait memories to share?