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!

At this point in my photography career, I have a cadre of favorite photo spots for sessions around southeastern Wisconsin. In the Milwaukee area, I love Grant Park in South Milwaukee, the Third Ward area near downtown and Doctor’s Park in northern Milwaukee. 

West of Milwaukee I love Delafield and Lapham Peak. 

Of course, every once in awhile I get to travel a bit further outside of my normal backyard and make new camera memories in new favorite places. One of those places is Lake Geneva and before last year I hadn’t had much portrait experience there at all. 

I think in my whole career, I had only traveled down there once for a portrait session and that was a camping engagement session at Big Foot Beach State Park. Of course, I had traveled down there a lot in the past and knew it was a beautiful spot with lots of scenic locations.

Last year I was able to book my first senior portrait session there and it was worth the wait.

Vinny attends Williams Bay High School, which is a school and town that neighbors Lake Geneva. Her mom found me online and asked me to help their family out with senior portraits. In our first initial conversation, I asked Heather, Vinny’s mom, whether they had any preferred locations. 

Her first spot was Kishwauketoe Nature Conservancy. I had never been here before, so Amanda, my wife and assistant for this job, arrived 20 minutes before our session to scout it out. I went to the first main trail I found, which was across the street from Williams Bay. The part of the park that we walked in was one continuous long boardwalk with thick foliage on either side. The foliage was full of sunflowers. I mean really full. It was like was walking in a sea of yellow everywhere you could see and it was so dense that it isolated you away from the rest of the park and the road that was only a hundred yards off to your right. 

Because of the density of the flowers, the location really immersed you in a one-of-a-kind breathtaking world. I immediately got super excited for the shoot, since I now could see that it would be something really special.

Anytime I’m in a situation with a lot of flowers and tall grasses, I love to set up my clients in a spot that makes them look surrounded by nature with flowers and grasses on the bottom of the frame and on the right and left sides of the frame. 

If you want this same effect, but don’t want to trample through a field in a fancy dress, we can still get this effect. In some cases with Vinny I simply had her continue to stand or sit on the boardwalk and then I would walk into the grass and photograph from there. I would then get low enough so that the grasses between Vinny and me would block out the boardwalk making it appear that she was in the field.

She was also willing to walk out into the field herself and that’s where we got some of our best portraits.

Sometimes, in order to break the ice and start to establish trust, I will ask prospective clients if they have any concerns before our photo sessions. Most of the time, I don’t expect them to say anything, but it’s nice to know if there is anything I can do to help put them at ease or avoid poses or situations that they wouldn’t like. 

For some people, it may be poses. A couple I just worked with, doesn’t like pictures of them kissing and another couple hadn’t had their first kiss yet when I took their engagement photos, so they told me ahead of time to not ask them to kiss. Others may not want any photos that look unnatural and prefer candids.

Another common concern is that the session will be awkward. A couple may say that they’re both super awkward on camera or a future bride will throw her future husband under the bus and say he’s not looking forward to pictures and he’s awkward.

For other clients, their concerns are physical insecurities. They may like one side of their face more than the other. They may want to look taller or shorter than their partner or don’t like certain features.

As we come into the senior portrait season these are some of the concerns you may have and I hope this will help you feel at ease that I’ll make you look your best whether you its in regard to posing, awkwardness or physical insecurities.

After Kishwauketoe, we walked over to the actual Williams Bay Municipal Pier and took some photos with the lake as the background. This pier was special to Vinny and her family as they had spent a lot of time there in the past. 

I love this, because then Vinny’s senior photos will forever be connected with family memories and hopefully make the pictures more special.

For prospective clients out there, I’d like you to notice Vinny’s choice of clothing in the park. For her first outfit, she wore a yellow sundress and a blue whitewashed jean jacket. If you plan on wearing a dress I’d strongly suggest bringing along a jacket like Vinny. For one thing, you won’t have to wear the jacket the whole time. We can just as easily take the jacket off and hand it to mom. But, on the other hand, wearing a jacket can make the awkwardness less awkward. It gives you places to put your hands (in the pockets or holding the sides). It can also be more comfortable to start with layers, especially if you don’t typically wear a dress. 

In Vinny’s case it also allowed her to stand out from the background and made it so her blonde hair and skin and dress separate themselves from each other. 

I loved how her dress blended into the background. 

If you are looking at what clothes you want to wear for your shoot and want to go above and beyond, I’d suggest pairing things with your environment. 

If you’re in the forest, wear dark earthy tones so you complement the scenery. If you’re on a beach, wear a light pastel color with less layers.

If you’re ready to set up a senior portrait session with me, give me a call at (414) 617-3834 and I’ll be happy to go through more clothings options and what would really pop.

Or, if you’d want to look at more of my work in the Lake Geneva area, check out Autumn and Kyle’s engagement session.

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