Photographing for high school boys who don't particularly like smiling for the camera can be an interesting experience. But, when it's your brother in front of the camera and you know how to pull forth that genuine smile, it can be a lot of fun! By the way, my go-to trick is "Ok, now pretend your girlfriend is walking up and smile for the camera like you'd smile at her." Seriously, works every time. 

Today's Jake's 19th birthday (umm what? I can't be that old...) so I wanted to give him some photographic love by showing off his senior photos from last year. I came into town for the night to photograph for 6 ORHS students who had never had their photo professionally made and had just enough time to squeeze in his evening session when we had the perfect soft evening light. We started at the Civic Center - home to many a prom photoshoot - as the vibrant green grass nicely contrasted the bright red graduation robes. While we wanted to get plenty of nice, smiling photos for mom's album, we also had some fun creating more "characteristic" (read: sarcastic or silly) images to give a more well-rounded account of his 18-year-old self. 

After we'd gotten several iconic tree photos, a few GQ model poses showing off the gown, a couple spotlit portraits as the sun filtered through the dense trees and one (or maybe quite a few) airborne jump(s) across the river, we walked over to the high school for some photos on campus. 

By far my favorites from this set are the superhero images which, I think, highlight the incredible amount of hard work Jake put in through his 4 years in school. These were purely accidental, too, as he had been putting on the grad gown and happened to stand like that for a second while I was adjusting for the lighting - we snapped several more after I squeaked about how cool the pose was. 

Finally, we headed down to the track to reach the finish line of our shoot. At this point, Jake was totally comfortable in front of the camera so after a few serious (and Nike-esque) photos he started to ham it up. The puking shot probably sums up high school better than any other image from this shoot - ha!

I really enjoy senior shoots because they signify both an end and a beginning; an exciting time in each students' journey. But I especially had fun getting to spend a couple hours with my brother talking about college and goals and life. 

His album was one of my favorites to make so I'm excited to show if off once I go home and remember to get a video of it!