I remember years ago one young lady came in for her senior portraits and I thought…”oh shit, we’re in trouble…”  We had been photographing seniors for several years by then at our mill studio and we had a routine, a system, had our dance close to perfection.  But this young lady, she was a storm. 

She came in, scowling with red eyes and puffy cheeks.  She didn’t make eye contact and she only brought one shirt…it was striped.  Horizontally striped.  She didn’t want to be here and she made sure we knew it.  Her mom came with her.  It was clear they had a fight, it was a bloodbath and now here we were, strangers in a room with heavy walls closing in.  We weren’t really strangers, we did know the family through other work we do with their high school but in that moment, we were the enemy.

We separated mom and daughter.  Mom stayed in the studio space and we did our thing around the grounds.  About an hour later we returned to the studio space with a bubbly, smiling young lady.  We had a great session and her portraits were beautiful.  Her mom called us later that day and thanked us for returning [her daughter] to her.  To this day, she is one of my favorite (and most memorable) senior sessions. 

So why is photographing seniors like dancing in the rain?  Because despite planning and consults, you never know who or what is coming through the door and your job is to find the joy and moments of beauty in the chaos.  If you want to know what we did to help change the tide of this session, leave a comment and let us know.

Watch for a future post about the 4 most important things when working with Seniors.