We almost cancelled it because of rain---thankfully we didn't. Normally I'll do the sports pics involving eye black and smoke machine last in a session, but today we waited out the rain and did some in studio pictures first. This isn't a dramatically different idea than I've done before, but each person brings their own thing to it. We tried the shoulder pads without the shirt again. I did this a couple years earlier with a star quarterback and decided it was a good time to try it again. Chad is rock solid and can seemingly be reflective(truthfully I think he was tired and really didn't want to do his senior pictures - but that too works.)
I'm finding my style of senior portrait certainly isn't the smile at the camera style, the more i work with people, i have them smile, but look for their more natural expressive qualities. Serious is as good as happy and one doesn't mean the other doesn't exist. Serious is also better than a projection of happy that isn't authentic. Chad's mom kept saying 'thats a fake smile'.... well naturally--this photographer ain't that funny!!! its up to me to get my subjects to react somehow and do it naturally so that they are smiling as they would in reality. This is hard because someone who doesn't know me very well has to all of a sudden 'get me' or be willing to laugh - perhaps - at me. Its always an interesting thing, and it can be exhausting for both the subject and the photographer, but I'm glad we seem to find ways to make it work and make cool pictures. Today was pretty easy overall. Chad's a good guy and a hell of an athlete. I wanted to make a cool athlete magazine style photo for him. We did some color ones too with red smoke and his Cochranton Cardinal's jersey. And his little brother Spencer became a prop for a few! Photograph b