Senior Portraits

There comes a time in every teenager’s life when parents want to cherish how awkward their children are at seventeen. For a photographer, this means not only dealing with a tough client, but also their stage-mom parents standing off to the side. If you thought your editor was bad, just wait until you have a hormonal teenager giving their opinion on your work. You’ll never hear a positive comment about the shot, only about how fat you made them look.

“Hush, I promise you look totally great leaning against that abandoned couch I found behind Wal-Mart. Now please twist your arms into an uncomfortable fashion. Perfect!”

Everyone knows that in order to make the best senior photos, you need to be trendy as fuck. Stick them in an alleyway, desaturate that shit, slap on a vignette and boom! MOTHA FUCKIN’ MEMORIES. Every photographer loves to be told how to shoot, especially by some punk who uploads to instagram in between classes.

When we were growing up, our parents wanted photos of us in front sunflower fields and studio painted backgrounds. But now these kids are posing spread-legged in underpasses and junkyards. So we try and please the clients, until we look down at the LCD screen and realize that we’ve sold our souls. We try to balance our vision while showing mustangs, flaming balls, tennis rackets and anything else corny this confused teen thinks they find their identity in (to be fair, Clint posed with a rugby ball for his portraits and Eve with flowers for hers. Taylor was too cool to pose with anything. Obviously).