Creating an incredible session in 20 minutes...
Who says you can't have a photo session with approx 20 minutes?! Because you totally can! Tip of the day, make sure you've got an exact location (gps coordinates or something), and always make sure the client knows your vehicle. Abby and I had communicated well but when we each lost service she was on one end of a road and I was on another just five minutes apart. But when you have no service you might as well be 100 miles away! I decided after about 10 minutes to drive up to where I had service and see if I could get a hold of her. This is where that tip of knowing what each other is driving comes in handy because I had forgotten to ask her and I drove past this car that I thought oh maybe but continued up to get service in case it wasn't her. What took a bit longer is she did not have service either so after attempting to contact her I drove back towards where I had seen the car, only to see the car coming towards me in the opposite direction as it heads where I just came from. Talk about a roundabout way to get a hold of one another. Thankfully, I still had service when she called me and it was then that we realized we weren't that far apart!
Our little crazy story aside, at this point we were running out of light. We had scheduled for sunset and since we had our little debacle finding one another we now had just a matter of minutes to get to the actual location (not just the meeting spot) and get some shots in. While it's not smiled on to leave someone waiting and running super late in normal situations this was a random, doesn't happen often kind of thing. These things do happen and I'm telling you if I can get any shots at all we are going to shoot! And I am always glad when my clients give me free reign to capture what we can in the moment and trust me to deliver.
This is also why it's a good thing to have a photographer who knows good locations and where the light is going to hit. Despite the short time we had, we already knew where the light would be good at our location previously scouted out. Abby killed her session too! Something I tell all my seniors is to keep moving. If I need you to hold still I'll holler. Use those feet, you don't want to look like a tree planted into the ground. This coming year I will be offering Senior Adventure Sessions! Now, this is different than just your typical, let's go and shoot somewhere close type session. This is huge! You wanna go to Arizona and get some senior shots with the cacti, or maybe the Salt Flats in Utah are more your style, maybe even the city life of San Fran or Sacramento? You choose the place that holds your heart and we'll spend the day capturing the adventure. Now that's how you celebrate graduating from 13 years of those school classes!
If you haven't gotten it figured out yet I'm going to say it now... get yourself a professional to capture those beautiful accomplishments like graduation. They will know what to do when you only have about 20 minutes max to get the good stuff. We were able to seriously pull out some incredible shots because we knew the area and the light. It definitely helps when you as the senior are yourself and listens to the simple tip of movement. In this particular session, Abby and I went into the mountains on the western slope side of Colorado. On this side of the state, we have so many open and public places that don't require permits for sessions. So if you are wanting a unique experience and even if you don't have much time, we got your back.
