I met Felicia for her senior portrait photography session in downtown Scottsdale, Arizona.  Within a few blocks, there is everything you need for a wide variety of portraits.  Felicia is a fun, down to earth girl.  I had a great time with her and her sister.  Here are a few of my favorite images from the session.

Jillian has the gravity assisted iCrack app on he iPhone.  But was still using it to snap some cool shots of the photo session.  This is what I think an iPhone war correspondent’s iPhone would look like.

Both of the following shots were fantastic.  What a fantastic smile on the first one and then a drop dead gorgeous look on the second.  I loved the bright and airy feel to the entire set.

There are some seriously cramped alleyways in Scottsdale.  I was in there setting up a light and the girls were peaking in.

This is one of my absolute favorites from the day.  The movement, the shallow depth of field, a great look on her face and the hair!!!!  It all makes for a nice photo.

The light on this image is great.  It is simply side light from the street down the alleyway.

And here is our iPhone war correspondent in action documenting the whole thing.

Then a quick trip to the desert for some twilight photographs.

I love this time of day for portraits.  It’s only a few minute window, but there’s nothing better than twilight.

While we were in downtown Scottsdale, we went to the side of the Sugar Bowl ice-cream shop and shot some fun stuff which works really well in a photo booth style display.

Felicia, it was a joy shooting with you.  You are beautiful, smart and funny.  It was a pleasure.

Senior Portrait Photography by Jared Platt, Platt Photography

Location: Scottsdale, Arizona

Slideshow Music by Fisher, Courtesy of Triple Scoop Music.

McKay and I took a drive out to the desert  to take his senior portraits.  I loved his selection of clothing.  It wasn’t what I had expected, but after spending some time with him.  It all fits him.  Here are a few of my favorite images from McKay’s senior portrait session.

I loved the white cowboy hat.  But in the blazing Phoenix sun, keeping that hat from over-exposing requires a little extra lighting, which I solved with a Canon Speedlight and a set of Pocket Wizards.  Besides, anytime someone is wearing a cowboy hat, something has to be done to light the underside of the brim.

McKay brought a seriously tough lookin’ truck, so we employed it in a number of shots.  But when he threw the camo on, I couldn’t resist the tailgate shot.  If you follow me at all, you could expect the vacancy in this photo.  I had the choice of more truck, more desert or more sky.  I chose more sky; it puts some contrasting scale to McKay and his truck.

As we were moving around the desert, we ran into a little building, it looked like a saloon replica, but the door was open, so we went in and got some great portraits with indirect light from the doors and windows.

There’s nothing like a ling dirt road!  Sometimes I feel like there’s too much pavement.  Not to say I want to go back to the horse and buggy, but I do love the simplicity of a graded road, and even better the quaintness of a two track road.

Now that’s a truck!

McKay lives in the shadow of South Mountain.  So his back yard is perfect for desert photos in open shade for hours.

And once the sun went down, we did a few formal portraits inside.  I love the book shelf.

 Senior Portrait Photography by Jared Platt, Platt Photography

Slideshow Music by Roy Ashen, Courtesy of Triple Scoop Music

Location: Awatukee – Phoenix, Arizona

Courtney, her sister, her mother and I all headed out into the desert for some cool senior portraits.  Here are a few of my favorite images from the photo shoot.

We started fairly early in the afternoon by lighting standards which means that the sun was high in the sky and very bright.  But with a fantastic camera (the Canon 1D Mark IV) and the best software (Adobe Lightroom) and a good understanding of lighting, harsh lighting does not have to be a problem.

You will notice that in many of those shots, I have Courtney facing away from the sun so that her face is in her own shadow.  This means I have a “north light” studio with a very strong hair light.  Then, with a little off camera fill light, matching the exposure is simple enough.  I prefer to keep the flash (a Canon Speedlight 580 EX – no longer available – instead try the new 600EX-RT) in manual mode so that I am getting the same flash output every time, but in these bright lighting conditions, that requires shooting well above the camera/flash sync speed, and that can only be done off camera with a set of Pocket Wizard radio slaves (TT1 and TT5).  With a speed light and a set of the pocket wizards, I can keep my flash in manual mode, but still have it operating in high speed sync, which makes matching the subject (flash) and the background (ambient) possible.

I do have to say that I am excited about the new Canon flash (600EX-RT) just released this month which may make the pocket wizards unnecessary.  But I will be testing those very soon and I will let you know how well they work.

This is another example of using the off camera flash and high speed sync capabilities in a bright sunlight situation.  I couldn’t have done without the flash on this shoot and I didn’t have my assistant, so I am so glad the set up is light  weight and portable.

Here, you will notice there are no catch lights in the eyes.  No flash was used.  But since I was not placing her against the sky, I could get all the exposure latitude I needed from the camera without a flash.  This requires attention to the highlights (making sure I do not over expose them) which makes the entire photo seem a bit dark.  But, since I am shooting RAW, I can then brighten up the mid-tones in Lightroom 4 and I end up with a perfect exposure in the end.  This is what Ansel Adams referred to as pre-vissualization.  Were Ansel Adams shooting today, he would be using Lightroom.  And no, that’s not blasphemous.

I will always love open shade best.  And this is my favorite photograph of the day.  Courtney’s hair frames the photo nicely and I really enjoy the treatment of the photo.  I have always loved the look of film, digital can be too perfect and too smooth.  In fact, I have found myself purposefully shooing higher ISO shots on my digital cameras even when I have abundant light just to get a little more grain into the photo.

I love the composition on this shot.  The repeated lines in the skirt mimicked by the white picket fence is nice as well.  One particular part of the composition that I love is the way the porch windows frame her head and shoulders.  And I and so pleased with the faded black and white film look.

Ah, the good earth…

Courtney just looks fantastic in this shot.  And I love all the texture in the collar.  This shot is taken just as the sun dropped below the horizon.  My favorite time of day.

If you like the photo treatments on these images, check out my Lightroom 4 preset collection, especially the Film Pack, at www.jaredplattworkshops.com.

Senior Portraits by Jared Platt, Platt Photography

Slideshow Music by Mindy Gledhill, courtesy of Triple Scoop Music

Location: Desert south of Chandler, Arizona

Macey is a Senior at Hamilton High School in Chandler, Arizona.  As with all my Seniors, I asked her what made Macey… Macey.  I got a long list of things.  This is where we always start with a Senior Portrait.  So in all of these photographs, you will see something that represents Macey.  I was thrilled to know that one of those things is photography.  Hence, the many cameras throughout the shoot.

I really enjoyed the photo shoot and I am very pleased with the images we captured.  Here are a few of my favorite images.

I am leading with this image because it is one of my favorites.  Especially the treatment of the photo.  It is a mixture of new and old, a bit vintage, but not overly so.  The outfit was perfect for it.

Macey’s sister, mother and good friend were all there for the photo shoot.  And if you are along for the photo shoot, you are going to end up part of the photo shoot in one way or another.  Macey’s sister and good friend ended up being used as “extras” in our little busy train station scene.  I think they played their parts pretty well.

This little “Baby Brownie” is one of my favorite little cameras in my wife’s collection.  I kept coming back to it throughout the photo shoot because it fits Macey so well.

But nothing could have been more perfect than the Polaroid camera that Macey brought to the shoot.  I was thrilled with it.  That little rainbow down the front was inspiring.  That is a camera that says FUN all over it.  Of course I would never want to go back to that technology, but the camera itself just keels super fun.

Macey also lovers to travel.  What photographer doesn’t love to travel.  The point of travel for a photographer is to go and photograph things in far away places and bring them home as souvenirs.  So Macey found a bunch of vintage suitcases as elements for the shoot.  As we were playing with them, I realized something about the past…  we always look back at the past with rose colored glasses.  Vintage looks so cool, but those are heavy suitcases, with no wheels and none of the modern ergonomics.  Same with the Polaroid.  Cute looking camera, wouldn’t go back to it in a million years.  I love the vintage look, but it always makes me grateful for advancement in technology.

Macey also loves to write, although I am not sure that she does most of her writing on the train tracks, but I took a little poetic license with the setting…

I love this shot.  Love it.

Macey also plays the Viola.  I have great respect for this.  I myself played the violin for many years as a child, but looked desperately for a way out of the activity as my violin teacher was a sour old woman with corns on her toes which I thought made her a witch.  Yet, I played the violin from 5 years old to about 13 years old and now I can only play a scratchy version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  So, way to go Macey for sticking it out for this long.

Having friends along at a Senior Portrait is a great way to make the experience more enjoyable and a great way to get even better photos.  Ellie and Sarah were on location with us, as I noted earlier, but this time we put them into the shot.  This was a super fun shot, and very beautiful as well.  And of course Macey looks like a million bucks.

I think the dress inspired the treatment on this photo and then I used the same treatment on earlier photos and later ones, but this photo was the inspiration being the color and tonality of all of the images surrounding it.  There was a softness to the image, a quietness, so it couldn’t have rich colors, but black and white would have been to cold for the image.  I think the tone is perfect.

The next two images were a continuation on the same soft theme of the last image.

Macey is also a runner.  This is also an amazing thing to me.  As I have chosen only to run in cases of extreme danger, and even then, I may just let whatever werewolf is chasing me just overtake me and be done with it.  But, Macey is a runner, and I was glad she brought such a colorful outfit.  I love it.  We shot this running set at sunset on a dirt road south of Chandler, Arizona.

And my favorite light of the day, the moment after sunset, arrived and we took this last shot which I love.  It is hard to decide to quit taking photos on a great photo shoot like this because each new situation you start shooting yields such great images, as a photographer, I was to just keep making great photos.  But, the photo shoot had to end sometime.

So we went back to Macey’s family’s home and finished up with a great portrait at the piano, yet another one of Macey’s talents.  She is a talented and lovely young woman and it was a pleasure to photograph her for her senior portraits.  Thanks Macey.

Senior Portrait by Jared Platt, Platt Photography

Slideshow Music by Mindy Gledhill, courtesy of Triple Scoop Music

Location: Chandler, Arizona

Megan is an ASU Cheerleader (was, now se’s graduating), so needless to say she is a big ASU Football fan.  My wife was an ASU Marching Band musician, so I understand the fervor for the Devils.  Go Devils!  So Megan and I took to the streets in Tempe, Arizona to get some ASU Grad shots.  We were after a mixture of school spirit shots and graduation cap and gown type shots.  Here are a few of my favorite images from Megan’s ASU graduation portrait session.

This location is a parking garage on the ASU Campus in Tempe, Arizona.  It provided the open shade with something interesting in the background.  It is only partially covered.  The roof is a latticework of solar panels.

I love this shot with the GO DEVILS block in front and Megan’s got the attitude, so it’s perfect.

This is one of my favorites.  I know, it is just a close up headshot and nothing super fancy, but Megan looks great in it.

We snuck into the basketball arena.  I like to sneak around when taking portraits.  It turns a normal portrait session into a possible security guard chase, which would be exciting…

We parked in a reserved spot next to old main and ran out on to the lawn to get this last set of shots.  Old Main is the only building on the ASU campus that feels like a old style university.  ASU is more of a modern city.  So, I like the feel of Old Main, it makes the shot feel more collegiate.

So now we come to the end of the day.  The sun is down and we are operating on very little ambient light.  Here is where the Canon 1D Mark IV shines.  I am shooting this image at 4600 ISO and leaving them in color (thanks to Lightroom 3‘s incredible noise reduction).  There is a bit of grain in them, but its manageable grain and looks cool (of course I like grain).  You can’t get a better available light scenario than this, but you have to have a serious camera to make use of this light.

Photography by Jared Platt, Platt Photography

Location: ASU Campus, Tempe, Arizona

Slideshow Music by Mindy Gledhill, Courtesy of Triple Scoop Music