This lovely lady is Kylie. She will be graduating from high school in May of 2025. Her plan is to attend college and study kinesiology. She plans to be a pediatric physical therapist. This shoot was a bit sentimental for me. Kylie was one of my very first "official" clients when I first opened my business and now she is all grown up and heading off to college.
I have taken her family's picture every year for 16 years!
I feel blessed for sure! Wishing you the best senior year ever, Kylie!!
PHOTOGRAPHER'S INFORMATION AND TIPS
These pictures were taking at Denver Botanical Gardens. There is a one week permitting process (however, Kylie's permit was approved in 2 days, so it's worth a try even if you are inside of a week). The permit is $100 and the shoot must be completed during their regular hours. There were two event going on that limited where were could go and there were quite a few people walking around but not terrible. Parking, however, is a bear! So give yourself plenty of time.
Session was late August with a start time of 6:00PM, with full sun for most of the shoot.
I found the south end of the park to have the most flowers, to enter the park, go around the large hedge to the right and then take a left and walk through the two tall hedges (seen below). Then make a left and meander west. I chose to circle back the same way for front lit options as the sun set.
HOW I SHOT IT
I loved this area but the lighting was challenging. The sun was at 10 o'clock, having Kylie face me would have made the light on the side of her face to harsh, so I chose to position Kylie with her right shoulder pointed at the sun. Then I exposed for her right shoulder and rim lit hair, making sure to fill the frame with the concrete structure, so there wouldn't be an over abundance of white sky.
This area was quite dark. Even with manual white balance I struggled to get natural skin tones, but I loved the image, so black and white was the perfect option for this image.
In this image, Kylie's upper body had direct light, while her lower body was shaded. I used a vignette on the image to draw the focal point and all the light just around her head and shoulders.
