Photographing high school seniors can be a lot of fun so I created some awesome tips to help you create awesome high school senior portraits. If you're a budding photographer and just starting out, what better way to get started than with photographing high school seniors. You only have to concentrate on one person, and you can always re-photograph them if something goes wrong. The list of tips below will help you foresee problems that may arise and how to fix them beforehand, help you better prepare, and give you some basic lighting tips to help you create better portraits.
1. Location, Location, Location! I have many go to locations for senior pictures, and always have my eyes open when I'm driving. Keep something to write on in your car and write down places when you see them. If you have time pull in and get out of your car and think of ways you can pose your senior. Take note of where the sun is at and what direction it is moving to figure out the best time of day to shoot here. This is important and will make your photographs better, as lighting is everything in photography.
2. Many photographers say to avoid high sun, or bright sunny days. These are my favorite days to shoot on! Overcast days can sometimes be lifeless and dull and make for flat and boring images. I like to place the sun about 45 degrees to the right or left backside of my senior and use it for a back hair light. Keep the sun out of your frame, or you will get flared. You can shoot with the sun in your photographs by using trees to minimize the flares by physically moving and placing the sun ball behind a tree branch. This works great and can add some life to your portraits. In the example below I'm shooting in shade with the sun positioned 45 degrees off her left shoulder, I move around lookin through the lens until I find a good angle where the tree limbs block most of the sun so it doesn't totally flare the image beyond recognition. If there aren't any trees around you can use a pop up scrim out of frame between the sun and your subject to soften the light. If the sun isn't helping, try to find some open shade nearby.
3. Wind can really mess up some hair! If it's a windy day, try to position your subject so her face is into the wind. Use the wind to your advantage. Have your model hold her hair in a soft pleasing way to keep it out of her face, it gives them something to do with their hands and can put them into a pleasing pose.
4. Stay away from wider focal length lenses. Try not to get too close to your subject because it will distort them. Big noses, thighs and heads are not flattering for senior portraits. Step back from your subject and use a longer lens and zoom in. Shoot with a wider f-stop like f5.6, f4, or f2.8 to make the background go soft and blurry. Below is a good example shot with a 200mm lens at f4.
5. Try to avoid shooting straight on, angle your subject a bit. Cross legs and feet, don't stand straight, adjust their weight more onto one leg or the other. Especially for girls, position them to give them some curves. This will give a more soft flattering image. In the image below I had the model put her foot on the bottom bar of the gate and had her point her knee to the right to add more cures to her body.
In this image, even though I'm shooting almost straight on, I positioned her legs off to the side for a more pleasing feel to the image.
When your model is laying down, position her top leg over the bottom leg, this will give her soft curves and a more pleasing portrait.
6. I always get asked what should I do with my hands. Stiff arms are not flattering, so find something they can do with them. Position hands on hips, arms over a fence, hands in her pockets, lightly hold her hair, or incorporate a hat for her to hold on too, this will help her get into more natural poses. In grass fields they can lightly run their hands through the grass as they are walking, or hold on to their dress in a gentle and pleasing way.
7. If you like a particular pose, try to change it up a bit by having your subject look a different direction. They don't always have to look right at you. Have them smile or get them to laugh for some, and a more somber look for others.
8. Shooting at a downward angle can help slim a person's face and also hide double chins. It can be very flattering to any subject and gives you another trick in your bag!
9. Fingers always seem to be difficult to position to look good. Avoid the fist, try to look at your models hands and ask yourself do they look awkward. I try to hide them most of the time behind their hair, in their pockets, you can even pull their long sleeve shirt over them for a cute pose!
10. If you have your model look to the left or right and not directly at the camera, they always seem to move their eyes all the way in that direction, and all you see is the whites of their eyes. I always tell my models when you turn your head, keep your eyes looking straight.
11. Bring an assistant to help you if possible! This will make your shoot go so much smoother. I use pop up scrims, reflectors, and strobes on my shoots and trying to direct a mother on how to hold them correctly just never seems to work. I always encourage a mother, father, or a friend to accompany the senior on his or her shoot to make them feel more comfortable. My wife comes along with me on almost every shoot and can talk with the mother or senior as we're shooting to make the shoot more fun! It frees up my mind to think about taking the pictures.
12. Use a monopod! When shooting a longer lens like a 70mm-200mm f4 lens like I use 80 percent of the time shooting seniors, your images will be sharper! There's nothing worse than pulling up your images after a shoot and seeing an image you really like and zoom into the image on your computer and you see it's not sharp.
13 In open shade lighting, I still use an on camera fill flash. I use a gary fong diffuser on my on camera speed light and never point the flash directly at the subject, it is always pointed straight up. I usually set my flash on ETTL (AUTOMATIC) and at about -2 1/3 stops. This gives just enough pop in your subjects face to fill shadows and give you a nice specular highlight in their eyes and not look like on camera flash. Below is a picture of my camera with the flash in the position I shoot at.
14. Below is a picture of my monopod, and the ball head I use with a quick release mount. I like this ball head because I only have to loosen and tighten one circular knob as apposed to two or three to get the camera into the position I like for the shot.
15. The pop up diffuser, a must for any photographer! I mainly use this to soften and knock down the intensity from the sun falling onto my subject. Have your assistant or mom, if she's willing, hold the diffusion panel between your subject and the sun on a bright sunny day to knock down and soften harsch hair light or any unwanted overexposed light coming into your framed image. This can be especially useful on seniors with light colored hair that will blow out highlights. You can buy these pop up diffusers just about anywhere, and come in all sizes. I have one that is almost 7 foot tall. The bigger the better to shade and soften a larger area if needed. They also twist up and become smaller for carrying. Below is a shot that I used the reflector to create a soft diffused light in the tall grass.
16. Pop up reflectors or reflector boards are a great addition to your bag to create stunning images. I don't use a pop up reflector, I use a 4 foot by 8 foot insulation board I bought from home depot and cut it down to a 4 foot by 4 foot board and just taped around the edges. You can find these at any box stores and they are pretty cheap and come in varying degrees of reflectance qualities. The one I found is not extremely reflective and reflects enough soft light from the sun from a distance to add some soft backlight onto your model. Because the board is flat and stiff it is much more controllable, especially in the wind. I can never seem to get enough light from a pop up from a distance. You can also use it below your subjects face out of frame to fill in shadows and add a nice highlight to the eyes. Below is an image I used the reflector board to add a highlight to the hair and side of the seniors body. The reflector was about 20 feet away from the subject. The other image was to add a hair light to the senior. Your don't want to overdo it, make it subtle!
17. Glasses! If your senior wears glasses, ask her if she wants them on for all pictures or if she would consider doing some shots without them. If not, you will need to position her head in a direction to get the least amount of reflections in the glass so you can see their eyes. I usually walk up close to the model and ask them to move their head around until I find a position where you see the least amount of reflection in the lenses. Most of the time it will be with their head pointed slightly down, where the lenses will be reflecting more of the darker ground than the bright sky. You can also use a popup that is black to minimize the sky reflection. Find the angle you want to shoot at and position your model the way you want, then have your assistant hold up the black pop up and move them around until you find a spot that blocks the reflections in their glasses. Many glasses have a convex lens and it may be difficult to minimize all reflections, so there may be some retouching involved to get rid of some of those reflections. Last resort, have them bring glasses without the lenses in them.
18. Be aware what's going on with their clothing and hair. Most of the time I have my assistant keeping an eye out for anything that looks odd going on with the outfit. It's always easier to fix it while shooting than in post. A couple of clothes pins can be beneficial if a blouse just doesn't seem to fit or hang properly. Use the clothes pin to pinch the outfit in the back so you don't see it to help. Hairspray on a windy day can really help, and girls with those crazy fly aways can be toned down and kept under control. But ask her first if it's ok to put a little hairspray in her hair to help with the issue. I also tell the girls to try to keep any stray hairs out of their face, and I always look for it. Nothing worse than retouching stray hairs going through their eyes or across their face.
19. When shooting in tall or short grass, check to see if there are any blades of grass between your subject and your lens. When looking through your lens you may not see any, but if you visually look you may see some coming into your models face. Take the time to pull any unwanted blades of grass, so you won't have to retouch them out.
20. Tailor your senior's outfits to the location you're shooting at. Does the outfit your senior is wearing fit the environment?
21. Some other details to be aware of....fingernails have fresh polish on them, avoid dark bras that you can see through a light colored blouse. Keep the makeup natural looking, too much makeup can look bad. For girls with oily skin, I always carry some foundation or powder ( I believe this is what it is called) to use if needed to tone down the highlights on the face.
22. When I book a senior, I usually speak with the mother. I will ask her what her daughter is like, and what types of locations she may want to shoot at. What types of clothing does she like to wear or any sports or hobbies she would like to incorporate into her senior pictures. I can then suggest locations to the mother to get her approval. This is important, and gives your clients more input on their final images.
23. FACEBOOK! I'm sorry, but I hate facebook, but it can be a useful tool. I always post a seniors final proofs to facebook and tag her in them so her friends can see them, and it's great marketing. I do this for free because, well, it only takes a second. When I'm talking to the mother and booking the senior, I will have the mother have her daughter or son send me a friend request on facebook so when we get the final proofs done, I can post them, and tag her or him in them. Once I receive the friend request I can now get a visual of what the senior looks like, their body type, hair color, how she might dress, and so on. This will help me in advance of the shoot day!
24. I always inform the mother during the consultation to not worry about blemishes, as I can always retouch them out! Retouching images has become a natural part of the digital process and if you get good at it, it shouldn't take you long to take out a pimple or bruise. You can charge them for this, but I think you're getting greedy!
25. I hate shooting on really overcast days, the lighting is lifeless. If it is calling for rain I usually will contact the senior a day in advance and let them know there is a possibility for rain, and will contact them about an hour before the session to make a decision on wether we are gonna shoot or reschedule. If it is going to cause issues with the parents scheduling, get them to make the decision.
26. I will usually shoot at about 3 to 5 locations for every senior depending on the package they are buying. In the summertime I may not start shooting until about 5:30-6pm, this will give me the best shooting light. Parents and the senior, will meet me at my house and they will follow me to each location. I plan out which location I want to shoot at first according to position of the sun.
27. Changing of outfits! Most of the locations I shoot at are pretty remote and not much traffic parading by. I always inform the parents that they will have to change outfits in their cars, and if this might be an issue, for extra precaution, they can bring a blanket or towel that they can roll up in the window to block onlookers. Or if you are going to be at a location away from the car, to bring the blanket to hold up for them to change behind. They do make pop up changing tents that I tried before, but they are cumbersome and take up time to put up and take down. When it's time for a clothing change I tell the models to be quick, the faster they are, the more shots the get! And as a guy photographer, always stay away from the car and turn your back when they are changing.
28. Have your seniors bring at least 10 outfits. This may consist of a couple pairs of jeans, shorts, and 8 to 10 shirts. A couple of dresses would be nice if they like to wear them. I cannot stress this enough, outfits coordinated with the location you're shooting at will produce better images. When the senior I'm photographing gets to my house, I will ask them if I can check out their clothes. I like to see in advance what they brought so I can plan on what I want them to wear at each location. I can even have them change in the car on the way to the first location the outfit I want them to wear. When shooting at a location, if they have jeans and a shirt on, and the color of the shirt doesn't seem to be coordinating well with the background, I will have them run and change into a certain shirt I saw at the beginning. Have them bring a variety of colors that look good on them, and try to stay away from crazy, loud patterns. The point is, the more you have to choose from the better, even if you don't use them all.
29. Have them iron their clothes and have them on hangers, do I need to say more!
In conclusion I hope some of these tips helps you become a better senior pictures photographer. Check out my other article on senior pictures outfit ideas for your special day for more ideas on clothing.
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