Catching Up - Senior Photo Weekend

My youngest sister's oldest daughter (KP) is a senior this year and with that comes the "Senior Photo".  Back in the day this was a big deal, but nothing like today's senior photos.  In 1975 we all chose our own outfit (one outfit) to wear.  Mom made my dress from a pink plaid polyester knit.  The big day arrived and the entire class hopped on a bus and traveled about 30 miles to the best (or was that the only) professional photographer in the area.  One by one we went into the studio and had our photo taken.  Only a few years before that, all the gals wore dark tops and then tossed a boa around their neck, but they went to the same photographer we did.  It was Senior Photo day and it was a much-looked-forward to outing.

How things have changed!  Today's Senior Photo is not a class outing.  It's an individual event!  Each student books a session with a photographer and goes wherever their parent's budget will allow.  And there is some type of underground competition to have the most unusual background/location amongst the seniors.  One mother told us her daughter wanted her photos taken in the snow this winter.  In looking at some photographer's websites, I found kids dressed in all styles of clothing from jeans to dresses to tuxes to t-shirts to athletic gear.  They had chosen all manner of sites to use as backdrops: fields of sunflowers; train tracks; school locker rooms; late night downtown; football fields and volleyball courts (with sweat dripping off their faces); trees; lakes, and your usual studio gray-splotched backdrop.  Looking at the cost sheets, I was floored; $200 and up depending on whether you were in-studio, on location and number of clothing changes.  That usually included a few printed photos.  The Senior Photo business is crazy!

Like all seniors, my niece wanted to have her photos taken at a professional photography studio in my town, which is expen$ive, not to mention hundreds of miles from their home.  So my sister talked to KP and then called me and my little brother and asked if we'd come to their hometown and take KP's senior photos.  She figured between the two of us and our digital SLR cameras, we should be able to get some good photos.  We picked a weekend and were all excited at the thought of a weekend together taking photos.

We began about 10:30 Saturday morning, just my sister, KP, and myself, in the downtown area using walls of local businesses as the backdrop.  We had brick, limestone, corrugated aluminum, rusting stairs, a bench, and a good-natured, hopped-up-on-a-McDonald's latte senior, who was willing to strike any pose.  After a couple of hours in her hometown, we moved on to the big city and again used alleys and chairs for props.  The niece had brought dresses, jeans, numerous tops and several pair of shoes.  Her younger sister joined us for the trip to the city and was a great help with poses and locations.  The university, a river, the highway and an old bridge were on the list of locations for photos before we headed to the high school and locker room for vollyeball-themed shots.  My brother arrived around 10:00 and we finished around 11:30 p.m, tired, but still laughing.

Sunday was family photos taken next to a shed, followed by more photos of the senior.  We found ourselves in the hayloft of an aging barn that had holes in the walls and holes in the floor and lots of bird poop, but it sure made for some neat photos.  KP also posed in a field holding up a gate with a quilt she and her Grandma made; on an old Chevy truck; on tires in a shed; and in a crumbling hen house.  We finished up with photos taken of her walking up the lane away from us.

Those two days with my nieces, my sister and her boyfriend and my brother and his son were a blast! That was two months ago and as I work through those 1,000 or more photos, trying to get them on CDs so they can pick out their favorites, I still find myself smiling.