Fortunately for you, I’ve made this handy little checklist of what to do to be prepared and to get the most of out of your senior photos.

Brainstorming your session

Every once in awhile clients will ask to meet with me for coffee and then we’ll talk about their session, locations, clothing, themes and styles.

This option is included on my remix sessions. If you chose the original session we can still brainstorm, but we can do that over a phone call.

Not every client will want to meet up, but I’ve found that the ones that do get the most creative and inspiring session. At the meeting you can tell me about yourself and what you want and then I can tell you how we can translate those ideas into photos.

Choosing a location

This is your first step and is super important, because choosing a location will really change the vibe and the feel and the look of your entire session.

You definitely want to pick a place that fits your personality and most importantly your style. If you’re a down-to-earth country type of person then it makes much more sense to take your photos at a park or in the woods. But, if you like dressing up and being a bit more glamorous we should choose a place in the city to show off.

It’s also important to choose a spot that matches your outfit. If you already have in mind what you wanted to wear and it involves light sneakers, shorts and a flowy shirt then we should definitely choose the beach! However, if you wanted to wear your football jersey or your letterman’s jacket maybe we should choose your football stadium.

How to Decide

I like to ask a series of questions to determine where’s the best spot to take your photos.

1. Do you already have a spot in mind, either because it’s personal to you (your school, home, hangout spot) or because of its look and style.
2. If not, I’ll suggest some options. 
3. Do you have any outfits that’d go well in particular locations?

• Woods, beach or urban?
  1. Woods: Park or Rustic
  2. Urban: Downtown or Neighborhood? Grungy and artistic or pretty and clean

A dress or suit is better in an urban location.

Casual attire works better in nature.

Woods

Beach

Urban (Neighborhoods, Towns)

Grunge

Skyline

Downtown

Nature

Fields

Parks (Pretty or Rustic)

Artsy Location or Personal Storytelling

Here are some of my longstanding go-to locations that I love

Woods: Seven Bridges and Grant Park, Menomonee Park, Doctors Park and Lapham Peak

Beach: Seven Bridges, Atwater Park

City: Third Ward Neighborhood, Fiserv Forum, Lakefront Brewery area and the Fifth Ward

Choosing your outfits

Once you’ve decided on the location or as you’re deciding, you’ll also want to pick outfits. For the original session, bring one outfit, and for the remix session you can bring 2-3 outfits. Even if you only choose one location but want to show off your style in multiple outfits, I recommend booking the remix session.

The first thing you’ll want to remember is to pick something you feel comfortable wearing or can be confident in. Confidence is most important. If that means going with one of your go to outfits you wear on the regular definitely do that. If that means buying something new and you’re excited to show it off, do that!

If you buy a new outfit, I’d wear it once or twice and run through some poses just so you won’t be surprised at the fit. You don’t want to suddenly be at your session and you’re tugging the bottom of the dress down or pulling the fabric in and out and up and down, because you feel self conscience.

If you have multiple outfits, I’d wear a dressy outfit, a casual outfit and a third wildcard outfit that shows off your interests or personality. (Maybe a 70s thrift store ensemble or a sports uniform or jersey.)

Themes and props: yay or nay?

I would say on average I have seniors bring props, not including outfit items, 20% of the time. This could include a musical instrument, a car or sports equipment. I’ve also had others bring items that represent their hobbies, from mixing music to video games to reading books and to pets.

The nice thing about bringing something is that many times it can be an easy addition to the photo session. We can take a couple pictures of you with your saxophone or football for 10 minutes and then move on without it.

If you think of anything else or have any other questions, please reach out!

Dartanion graduated from Wauwatosa East High School. I got connected with him after a friend’s mom contacted me about doing a combined senior session with Dartanion and Emory. (Don’t worry, I’ll post Emory’s photos soon as well).

Group sessions

This was one of two combined sessions that I did that season, which raises a great point I want to make with you, if you’re considering signing up for your senior session with me.

If you’d want to make the experience a little bit more affordable consider signing up with a friend and getting a group rate.

Dartanion and Emory wanted to take photos in multiple locations, and for multiple hours. Since, I wasn’t going to be adding more time and locations than if it was just one student I said that we could do it all for an additional 33% of the package.

Although, it was more than my normal rate, it allowed both mothers to overall pay less than they would have if they had gone by themselves.

It’s a great option if you have a senior that’s not too excited about the photos. First off, their friends will help them loosen up during the session and you can pay less if you know your senior doesn’t care to have that much variety.

My other group high school senior session was with three boys and none of them were excited about the pictures, so I did the whole thing in 90 minutes with each boy getting about 30 minutes of photography time. 

It gave them about 20 photo options afterwards and because there were three of them they could split the cost and pay a lot less than if it was just one student. The more friends you can sign up, the lower your individual cost will be!

Edgy and industrial locations in the city

I first started Dartanion’s portrait session outside Fiserv Forum in downtown Milwaukee and I could tell right away that Dartanion was a high schooler that would be going places in the future. He was confident in the way he talked and was good at relating to adults.

He also had a clever and fun personality. While, I was taking photos of Emory, Dartanion had snuck off to buy some cookies at Insomnia’s Cookies.

I didn’t know what had happened and then I turned around and he was happily munching on them, saying they were his favorite cookies. 

Hey, sometimes photo sessions can run long and if it makes clients happier to be eating a snack in the downtime than that works great for me. In fact, I’ll now officially suggest that as a method to make the sessions go better.

Dartanion started the session off in his bright red Wauwatosa East High School Red Raiders sweater and switched back and forth between that and a black Nike hoodie.

Him and his mom also showed me off his personality, because Dartanion is a great bowler and he had brought some of his bowling gear along.

I didn’t ask him to get this out right away, because I knew I wanted to use it later in the session. I had a couple ideas for big dramatic shots that were more possible at the second and third location. 

After Fiserv, our second location was Commerce Street by Lakefront Brewery and the Milwaukee River. Here there is a great big long walkway that comes out of a hillside forming a bridge. 

It’s a great place to silhouette students against the sky and as it got darker I was able to get a great picture of Dartanion pulling the ball back like he was going to bowl a strike. He was facing me and I was able to isolate him high against the sky.

Of course, my favorite photos of him bowling I took even later at night in front of Lakeshore Park with the US Bank building in the background. I love this spot and we had waited all the way until it was night time.

At this point, the lights from the US Bank building were on and shining behind him and I used my telephoto lens to make the building look up close and personal. I also took my flashes and added a bit of bright red gel and used it to add a bit of a fun vibrant color on one side of Dartanion’s face, giving the scene maybe a “glow under the neon lights” kind of vibe.

If you want to see more examples in this same locations, check out Ethan’s post or to see more creative portraits check out Hannah’s pictures.

Dartanion’s example on how to dress well

The other thing I wanted to highlight for Dartanion was that he nailed the fashion portion of the senior session.

Knowing what to wear can be a little bit daunting for everyone. After all, we all want to look good and don’t want to make a fool of ourselves. But, we also want some clothes that make us feel comfortable and confident and show our true selves.

What I always suggest to clients is to wear an upper-casual outfit, like when you go out to eat at night with friends, wear a dressier outfit, like where you’re going to a wedding, church or any formal occasion. Finally, bring a third outfit that shows off your personality: like sports gear, or vintage thrift, or that flowing dress with a wide brim hat.

Dartanion nailed all of these suggestions. His outfit at the beginning was casual, but also showed off his interests with the Wauwatosa East High School representation. Then for the second location Dartanion changed into a full two-piece suit and tie and tie bar.

He looked amazing in it and I love it so much when seniors wear suits. It’s such a show stopper. In case you’re wondering: yes it’s not common, but it’s happened to me three separate times, so it’s also not unheard of.

It immediately raises the level of the portraits and showcases the unique moment for what it is: a special time that celebrates you graduating from high school.

It also helped that Dartanion knew how to pick a suit. It was well-fitted and he chose a navy blue suit and red tie.

For his last outfit, Dartanion again showed off his personality and interests by switching into his bowling outfit, complete with his bowling glove and ball. After the session, Dartanion’s mother got a hold of me and even asked about sending a photo to Motiv, the maker of the bowling ball and obviously one of Dartanion’s favorite brands.

I don’t know if it helped, but hopefully they sent him a new bowling ball!

If you’re ready to brainstorm how to use your hobby or sport in a photo session, please send me an email at matt@bigskyphoto.com and we’ll have you looking as epic as Dartanion in no-time.

On this post, I wanted to celebrate a big-time photography win for me. 

Every once in awhile, I’ll submit the images I take during photo sessions or weddings for publications on blogs or in magazines.

This is a great way for me to get noticed and hopefully attract future clients who can rest assured that they’re making a great choice if they choose me as their photographer.

I follow several senior portrait magazines and they’ll routinely have a photo call for submissions from their magazines. 

Some of these magazines like twelfth year, senior inspire, senior style guide and senior muse will publish magazines once a year or once a season and fill it up with some of the best pictures from the best photographers around the country.

Part of the reason I choose to submit senior sessions is because those sessions tend to be the most beautiful and creative of all my work.

Most, if not all, of my seniors are extremely excited for their session and they’re willing to do something completely out of the box and creative. 

When I talk to them about their interests and personality, they’re then really willing to follow my lead and bring props or locations or outfits that make the photography session stand out among the crowd. 

2020, was a good year for me and I had a lot of wonderful sessions.

So, when I saw a submission call for senior inspire magazine for the best images of 2020 I knew I had to try.

How to get selected

Getting your images picked for awards or publication is always very subjective. There is no way to know what the judges will prefer and what they will pick. It goes without saying, that there will be hundreds if not thousands of images not picked that are absolutely gorgeous and meet any standard of photography professionalism.

First, I submitted 10 images, trying to play the odds.

As a way to give myself more of a chance to be picked, I varied those images and the styles.

I still picked my favorite images of the year, but at the same time I picked both girls and boys and picked some that were vary dramatic and others that are more subtle. Some of them had dramatic backgrounds and others had wonderful outfits. Some were closeups and others were scenic photos. Some were taken during the day in a field of flowers and others were at night in the city.

Since I don’t personally know what the magazine editor is looking for, I could then broaden my chances that one of the images would satisfy their style.

I also picked images that stood out among the crowd and were more than ordinary.

In every session, you take a lot of professional and beautiful photos, but photos that also don’t have that wow factor when you put them in a stack of photos from other senior sessions.

I wanted to find photos that were unique in some ways. This way, they’d catch your eye if you were thumbing through a stack of pictures.

My selections

The first photo I entered was a photo of a senior boy wearing a pink shirt in front of a pink building that reminded me of a Calvin Klein commercial. It had a high end fashion vibe that I hoped would make it stand out.

The next two photos were taken with a super dramatic background on a bridge in the Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee. The bridge has a frame that goes up the sides and crosses together above the heads of the people below. It served as a natural frame for my portraits.

It was also sunset, so the senior were doing very dramatic poses, one was wearing his own sports shirt and the other was wearing a full suit.

The next one was on a bridge in downtown Milwaukee with the entire city skyline behind him. That senior loves bowling and actually competes in a competitive league, so he had his bowling ball and was posing in a full “I’m about to send this ball down the lane stance.” The picture was at night and I lit the senior up with a purple flash to give it a creative and unique look.

My next photo was of one of my first seniors from the season and who was a competitive cyclist and the picture I chose was him framed through his bike tire.

The next one I chose was actually taken in the same park as the cyclist and this photo was more of a traditionally beautiful photo where you could see trees, a walking path and the senior framed in the right side looking at the camera. It was pretty and simple.

As a photographer I love bold colors and so I also picked two photos from a session with a girl who had an infectious smile and big red-dyed hair. I chose her photos, mostly because of her personality and how much fun she was having. But, one of those photos was of her sitting in an art sculpture which was unique to Milwaukee. It’s an art sculpture that is essentially a human sized circle sitting on a rectangle and I will ask my seniors to sit in the rectangle. It was made by Milwaukee School of Engineering and it sits in the Historic Third Ward Neighborhood.

The one they chose

I submitted another two photos from what was probably my favorite session of 2020 and it was 

with Reilly, an outdoorsy and industrious senior from Catholic Memorial High School in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Reilly came into her session with a couple big ideas and wowed with her outfit, a warm and flowing maroon dress with sandals and a fun wide-brimmed hat.

She is also a lifelong equestrian who really wanted to incorporate her biggest passion in the pictures.

We met at Camp Minikani Equestrian Center in Colgate, Wisconsin where she kept her horse.

She really had some great ideas and was happy to do pictures that were both creative and challenging (almost model-esque) in her poses.

The first one I chose was her in a beautiful field and she was holding her hair back looking out and away from the camera. I just love the lighting on this photo.

The photo Senior Inspire ended up choosing of her was her sitting along a fence line holding the reins of her horse. But, while we were doing this photo, two other horses walked up to her on the other side of the fence to greet her. So, the photo ended up having her sitting there laughing with three horses on either side of her.

It was a fortuitous picture and something I didn’t plan and now it’s in a magazine!

Check out the Senior Inspire Instagram Account