Fashionable fun urban senior portraits – Serena – Studio Indigo Senior Portrait Photography

Beautiful light hitting the side of MG&E matched with soft softbox lighting Serena. Used yongnuo flash in a small chimera softbox to light Serena for this cool, artistic senior portrait.

This was early in the photoshoot and everyone is always a little nervous at the start. We start off with some simple, natural poses to help everyone get in the flow. Our location was downtown madison for that urban senior portrait look. Serena is standing against an old warehouse with great texture and color.

Serena standing outside a metal warehouse in downtown madison for this urban, industrial high school senior photo shoot. We’ve known Serena and her family for a long time so we were excited that we were able to take her senior portrait.

We use something called flow posing when working with our senior portrait clients. It lets us take a number of shots in a natural way. We give direction and ideas with our clients but try not to pose too much.

Our approach is to be very natural with our senior portrait posing. Simple direction like “Play with your rings or hair” are a good way to get some natural relaxed movement and expression

Serena wasn’t interested in giving us a big toothy smile since her braces won’t be coming off for a couple months. But those are the images that both we and Mom’s and Dad’s love. With our approach to shooting senior portraits we definitely are able to get those natural smiles and expressions, it sometimes just takes a little bit.

I love the color of the garage door on this warehouse. I think it works really well with Serena’s outfit. My post processing style is a little more muted in colors but I could see someone really emphasizing the colors, cranking up the vibrance setting. Another relaxed natural standing pose in this portrait.

An example of flow posing. Start with the wide shot, then get closer and change point of view. The senior model doesn’t have to move much, just changing position and now leaning against the garage door.

Last shot in the flow posing series. Changed lens to the Nikon 85mm 1.4 for the tight headshot with soft background. All 3 photos took maybe a minute and we get a variety of photographs to show the client.

It’s always nice to have friends or family along for a senior photo shoot. It’s a great way to get your senior to relax and generate some natural smiles! And we love working as a team, coming up with posing ideas or different locations.

We always try to incorporate movement into our senior photo shoots. In this shot we asked Serena to start walking and drag her fingers along the fence. We’ll usually do this a few times, using the continuous focus setting on the camera to grab the whole series of shots in focus.

Serena was whispering something to Jenna during this series of shots. I said I wish I knew what they were saying which created the natural laugh and smile, so you know it had to be bad! The smile and laugh lasted for just a second. Always have the camera ready to grab those great candid expressions.

Shooting with the Wisconsin Capitol Rotunda is always a popular high school senior request. For this shot we decided to make it a little more dramatic, shooting at night on King St outside the Majestic Theater. Used a speedlite with small softbox as key light. I really like the backlit effect from the streetlight on the upper left.

Photographing this senior portrait walking down the street with the senior model swinging her arms. And she doesn’t have to do big movements, even little movements get the job done. This is one of my favorite shots with the photo journalistic feeling and dramatic lighting.

Love this senior portrait sitting on the curb in dowtown madison at night. All the funky lights from the capital rotunda and theater marquee. Still using the speedlite with small softbox for the key light. Love Serena’s pose which she came up with on her own. Later in the shoot your high school senior model is usually getting into the flow and is doing their own poses.

All 3 ladies posing for a selfie in this stylish senior portrait. On camera flash on manual setting created the high key fashion look. Love this unique senior portrait with friends. Great location and all 3 girls were getting into it. They kept coming up with new ideas. What a blast!

Gotta do duck lips, right? Again, using a speedlite on camera, set to manual and blasting them with light. Normally not a go to lighting set up for senior portraits but works great for this kind of unique, gritty, high fashion look that we were going for. So much fun!