Class of 2011 Senior Portraits -- It's on!

Collyn5web
Originally uploaded by lisablaschke

I had my first senior session for the Class of 2011 the other day. This was special because he's the son of a good friend of mine and I can't believe he's old enough to be a senior. I told my friend I was amazed when going through these images that he looks like a grown man in some of them yet a little boy in others. Senior year is an exciting time for these kids because they start the year as children and end it as legal adults.

Every single senior session with me is different because every senior is different. For example, this young man wanted a session that demonstrated his love of his tractor, his goats and the outdoors. If he had been into athletics, like a young man I shot a couple of months ago, his session, obviously, would not have included livestock and farm equipment.

I'm trying to imagine what my session might look like if I had hired me as a senior. I might have had my session at the mall posing with the mannequins and shopping bags -- it was my favorite place to hang out. Or maybe I'd have taken me to the state park and shot me lounging by the pool sipping a soda. Hey, I was a child of the 80s full of shallow goals and superficial pursuits. I didn't start thinking about college until a few months before graduation. Today these seniors already know where they're going, what they'll major in, where they want to be when they settle down. They start preparing in elementary school. By the time they're seniors they have a firm grip on their role in the community and their own self identity. As well as their right to change that identity at any time.

I can remember my own senior session in August of 1989. I showed up at some boring studio with a couple of changes of trendy clothes. I posed for the obligatory yearbook photo with that nasty maroon boa around my chest. Ugh. Then I was herded through my wardrobe changes and barked at by the man behind the camera. "Tilt your head lower. More. More. Not that much. Move it back. The other way. Work with me!"

I will never become that man. I promise that each of my sessions will be fun, unique and memorable. And to make matters so much better, I promise to never shoot you in a maroon boa -- unless you want me to.