Parents: How You Can Support Your Senior at Their Senior Portrait Session
Parents, a majority of the information out there about senior portrait sessions is aimed towards the senior, not the parent, but this one is for you! I am here to help you learn how you can best support your high school senior with their senior portrait journey.
My name is Sonia and I am a high school senior portrait photographer based in Kitsap County, Washington and Santa Cruz, California. I have shot countless senior sessions and have seen firsthand the best things senior parents can do regarding their senior’s photo session — and the worst!
THE THREE TYPES OF SENIORS
Let’s start by categorizing your senior. Your senior will likely fall into one of three categories: the senior who is SUPER excited for their senior session (the Excited Senior), the senior who is impartial and going along for the ride (the Impartial Senior), and the senior who couldn’t care less about senior portraits and would rather not take them at all (the Reluctant Senior). Likely, you will know which category your senior falls into. For the remainder of this blog post, I will be explaining how you can help your senior based on which category they fall into. Once you have an idea of which category your senior falls into, keep on reading.
THE EXCITED SENIOR
If you have an Excited Senior, a lot of the work choosing the photographer, location, outfits, etc. will be done for you. Your senior likely has a strong vision in mind for their session and will be determined to make it happen.
Budgets
Some seniors in this boat brush past the concept of budgets and may need to be reminded a few times about what is feasible with their vision. While planning their session, one of the best things you can do is encourage them to bring their vision to life while gently reminding them about budgets. This can look like saying “I am so excited for your senior session, I know how much work you are putting into it. Please remember we have a budget of $X so let me know if you would like some help making your vision come to life with that amount.”
The most important thing to remember here is that with the Excited Senior, their senior session holds a lot of importance and value to them. Bringing up the budget without being excited about their vision feels to them like you are diminishing the importance of their session. This will likely result in upset and guarded feelings about their session, which we want to avoid. Boundaries are important but how you approach them is what will make or break their excitement about their session.
Artistic Approach
Your Excited Senior likely knows exactly the vibes they are going for but they might not always know how to achieve it. They may have a Pinterest board, or something similar, with inspiration photos for their session and they may even have some photographers picked out already. But what happens if you look at your senior’s inspiration photos and they do not look like the senior photos you had in mind for them?
This happens more than you would think, especially in the last few years. Senior portraits can now come in many different aesthetic styles and what the senior wants doesn’t always line up with what the parent wants. There are multiple ways to address this situation if it comes up.
The biggest thing to focus on is finding a way to make both of you happy. Senior photos are for the seniors AND their families, after all! One way to approach this is by having your senior pick a few different photographers that they would be happy with. This can look like asking your senior “hey, I know you are researching photographers, can you pick your top three and we can go over them together?” This can allow for some room for discussion while still allowing the senior some choice in the type of photoshoot they will have.
Popular senior portrait styles have taken a turn to include carefree feeling and adventure-esque photos, which may not be the ideal style for parents. This style tends to feature shots of the senior where you cannot see their face, blurry shots, out of focus shots, and other fun artistic and natural shots that many seniors love nowadays. To seniors, this may sound like the perfect shoot for them, but for parents, it sounds like they are paying lots of money for photos they won’t even want to print!
If your Excited Senior comes to you raving about the photographer they want and that is their style of work — do not worry yet! You can reach out to the photographer or check their website to see if they have an example gallery available. Many photographers do and you likely will see that many of the standard shots are still included in their galleries, just not marketed. These are your standard headshots, smiling photos, and the classic, sometimes a bit cheesy, looks that everyone loves and grandma wants to frame in her house.
If you really can’t agree on a style, consider compromising by booking two senior portrait sessions with two different photographers. Hear me out before shutting this idea down — many photographers offer mini sessions that are the cost of around half of a full session. Booking two sessions likely won’t cost much more, if more at all, and you both will get photos you love out of it!
One more thing to add on this topic, compare your senior’s inspiration images or ideas with their top photographer’s work. It happens more than you would think where a senior tries to book a session with a photographer who has a completely different style than what they want and shortly before the session they send the photographer their inspiration photos and it is a style that their photographer cannot produce as it does not align with their style at all. What you see is often what you get when it comes to photographers, give or take some posing or minor adjustments. If your senior’s ideas don’t seem to match up with the photographer’s work, reach out to the photographer before booking and see if it is something they can do! Either they can and it works out, or you will know early enough to book a different photographer and save everyone the heartache and disappointment of a gallery that does not turn out how they hoped.
Session Prep
Once you are booked and ready to go, your Excited Senior will likely be on top of booking any appointments they may need, picking out their outfits, and all the other small things. You may feel you have nothing to do since they have done it all, but this is actually the perfect time to show support! Offer to go with them to their appointments or the mall, spend time and give kind but constructive criticism (if needed) when choosing their outfits, anything to go along for the ride. This will show your senior that you value their session and are just as excited as they are!
The Day of the Session
If you are attending their session, this is your opportunity to either make or break the vibe at their session. We all know that teens can feel a bit awkward in front of their parents, especially in an environment that is already out of their element, like a photoshoot. How you act and speak to them before and during the session will affect how the photos turn out.
Things that you could say to them on a normal day may feel much more extreme during their session. For example, saying “a piece of your hair is sticking up weird on your right side, you should fix it” can result in your senior feeling extra self-conscious, even though you could say that with no issue at all on any other day of the week. Keeping your verbiage light and positive is the key during the session. Consider saying this instead: “you look great! Can I fix a piece of hair for you really quick? Perfect!" Even if you intend no harm with your words, your senior is likely feeling a bit insecure since they are in an unfamiliar setting with the spotlight on them, and something that small could push their energy from happy to anxious.
This same practice goes for anyone else at the session. If siblings are attending, talk to them separately about encouraging your senior and holding off on making any jokes or poking fun at them. I have had sessions where a senior’s sibling (or even best friend!) makes unintentional hurtful comments or makes comments to try and get them to laugh but it comes off wrong and the senior’s mood gets ruined for a bit. It is best to hold any jokes, even lighthearted ones, for the car ride afterwards.
Along with keeping the verbiage light and positive, it is important to refrain from any comments about weight, acne, or any other insecurities your senior may have. If you would like to talk with your photographer about it beforehand, absolutely email or message them and let them know that your senior has some insecurities and if they can be accommodated. It is much better for your senior to bring up potentially photoshopping acne out on a day other than their session so they aren’t reminded during their session about their insecurity.
Overall, try your best to keep their session light and fun! Some seniors get camera shy or overwhelmed and having a parent or family there only makes it worse. If you recognize that in your senior, consider letting your senior and photographer know that you are going to take a walk and explore the location or that you are going to take a break in the car for a while. That can allow your senior to have some space and have one less set of eyes on them. I have seen some seniors relax and look more natural in their photos as soon as they are one-on-one with me, even if their parent is within eye sight, just not directly in their zone! You can still be there and watch from a distance while giving them enough space — and remember, it is not personal if they ask for space!
If you are not attending your senior’s photoshoot, consider calling or texting a positive message before their session. Just something to brighten their mood, especially if they are feeling nervous!
Gallery Delivery
When looking through your senior’s gallery, again, keep the verbiage light and positive! When they look through the gallery with you, they likely will be heavily influenced by your energy. Even if you don’t love some or all of them, refrain from saying that at the start and let them form their own opinion, assuming that the gallery you get back isn’t just absolutely horrible or your senior looks completely different in the photos than they do in real life. Focus on positive statements, rather than negative, like if your senior asks your opinion on a few of the photos and you don’t like them as much, consider saying “I like those, but I LOVE these other photos more!” rather than “eh those aren’t the best, these other ones are better”. It may be a small comment to you, but could completely alter their self-confidence in the gallery.
You’ve got this! Remember to stay positive and excited for your Excited Senior and you and your senior both will get the most out of your session!
THE IMPARTIAL SENIOR
If you have an impartial senior, you may be putting 50/50 energy into planning their senior session. Keeping relaxed and carefree about their session is the key to you both enjoying it!
Planning the Session
When planning their senior session, the Impartial Senior may not have many opinions on their session, if any at all. Many of the seniors who fall into this category have no issue with the concept of taking the photos, they just don’t have enough interest in them to drive them to plan or have visions for the session, and that is okay!
Keeping the session casual is one of the best things you can do in this case. Start by brainstorming some vague ideas for their session: do they want a beach or forest location? Do they want it to be summer or fall? Your senior may not care either way and would be happy with any of the options. In that case, rather than pressure them to choose one, you can take the opportunity to choose it yourself! If you always imagined their session at the beach and your senior couldn’t care less, choose beach for them. Sometimes if they are on the fence about an aesthetic decision like that, you making the decision for them may solidify if they did have any opinion on the topic. You selecting beach may make them go “no wait actually I want it to be in the tall grass”, and if that happens, then at least you got them to decide a location they like!
Session Prep
Once you have a general idea for the session aesthetics, start looking through photographers together. This can look like going through some websites or social media pages on the couch together, or tasking yourselves with finding three potential photographers each and going through them together later. Throughout deciding the aesthetics and the photographer, you may have to do some of the decision heavy lifting but rather than be annoyed, be excited that you get to have some say in the session, too!
As for outfits, hair, makeup, and other beauty appointments, try your best to keep it as lowkey as possible. Encourage your Impartial Senior to pick an outfit from their closet that they already love and feel comfortable in. Adding tasks like picking a new outfit from the mall may add stress and cause your senior to shut down or start having a negative view on the session. Same goes for beauty appointments — sit down and decide together if booking hair and makeup would make the session more stressful (one more thing to have to do that they may not really want to do) or less stressful (one less thing that they have to worry about practicing).
Keeping a positive, go-with-the-flow mindset during this time is the key to your senior keeping a positive outlook on the session. It may turn into something you both have a lot of fun with if there isn’t any pressure put on the session! Do make sure to talk about outfits and appointments, though, so they feel as prepared as they need to feel for their session and are not stressing out at the last minute about it.
The Day of the Session
The day of the session, keep the energy light and positive as you have been already. Let your senior take the reigns on if they want you there or not and help them feel supported either way. Refrain from over-hyping them up before the session as that will make the senior session feel like too big of a deal and might make them nervous or less excited about it. Keep it cool and relaxed and all will go well!
It goes without saying, but part of keeping the session light and casual is keeping comments made before and during the session light and casual as well. Refrain from talking about insecurities your senior may have and remember that not everything has to be perfect and trying to make it perfect will result in your Impartial Senior shutting down and their smiles looking forced.
Gallery Delivery
The theme remains the same here — keep it cool and positive! While looking through the gallery together, keep any negative comments or concerns to yourself, at least for the first lookover, and see how your senior reacts to the gallery. They will heavily take your opinion into consideration so it is best to let them form their own opinion first and then go through and pick the best ones of them. The same goes for overly positive reactions to their gallery — even if you just want to gush over it! Hold your thoughts until they react and then let your thoughts out after!
THE RELUCTANT SENIOR
If your senior falls in the Reluctant Senior category, you may be feeling bummed out but you do not have to be! This is your opportunity to get the photos you want of them and if you play your cards right, it doesn’t have to feel like pulling teeth.
Planning the Session
More often than not, your Reluctant Senior’s response to questions pertaining to ideal locations, photographers, etc. is “I don’t care”. And that is fair. They are telling you their truth — they do not care and do not plan on caring about it. They are doing it because they have to.
In this case, plan to do most, if not all, of the planning and have fun with it! This is your opportunity to make the session look how you want and get the photos you are hoping for. What tends to work best with Reluctant Seniors is make a plan and right before finalizing, run it past them. Their response will either be an acceptance of the plan or a rebuttal. If they accept it, move on to the next step. If they have an issue with your plan, now is the time to squeeze some info out of them on what they want for their session! Keep it casual and straightforward and try your best to leave emotion out of this conversation. The more energy and importance you place on this session, the more withdrawn your Reluctant Senior will become.
Keep the information you share to your senior minimal and fact-based and refrain from asking their opinions. State your plan then ask if that is fine with them. Any further prodding or asking them multiple questions or comparing outfits and locations with them will drive them away from the process. The least you can involve them while still giving them the opportunity to add their input if desired, the better.
Consider booking a shorter session for them and picking an outfit that you know they will be comfortable in. No one looks happy in photos when they a. already don’t want to be there and b. are wearing a scratchy shirt and pants that don’t fit right. Choose either a location that is local and a short drive, or a farther location if you know it is something they will love or holds sentimental value.
The Day of the Session
Before their session, you can briefly talk with your senior about how you appreciate their willingness to take these photos and that they mean a lot to you. Framing it as your senior doing you a favor and truly thanking them for participating will potentially change their mindset on it and if they were feeling annoyed about the session, it may soften their feelings about it.
During their session, consider either returning to your car or taking a walk around the location. Sometimes, having a parent present during something they already feel awkward doing, can only make it worse. Staying nearby so you can keep an eye out but letting your senior have some space may be the best move, depending on your senior, of course. All parents want to do is help, but sometimes helping doesn’t look like trying to make them laugh or smile behind the camera and instead looks like leaving that to the photographer and seeing if they open up more in a one-on-one setting.
If you are worried your senior will refuse to smile or look upset in the photos, you can let your photographer know your concerns before the session and they can plan ahead to work around that. Sometimes, the photographer can work some magic on your senior in a one-on-one setting and get them to light up a bit more. Other times, you may need to step back in and encourage your senior to smile, look happy, etc. It is important to have a talk about expectations before the session if you have this concern, so that during the session you can make a quick comment without getting into everything and making your senior feel like they are being disciplined during their session. Anything you can do to keep the vibes as positive as you can!
Gallery Delivery
If your Reluctant Senior does not show any interest in going through their gallery with you, do not pressure them into it. Instead, go through it yourself, pick your favorites, download everything, and then send your senior the link to look through on their own time. You can also send them a few of their favorites so without looking at the gallery, they will see a few of their photos. They may never show interest or even open the gallery, but that is okay because the photos are taken and you have the photos you wanted! Once you have top contenders, you can send the final 2-4 to your senior and see if they have input for the main photo to use. If they do, great, if they don’t, that is okay, too.
Conclusion
I hope this information has been helpful for you! I am always happy to go more in depth if you have more questions and would be happy to help you navigate the senior portrait journey. Again, my name is Sonia and I am a senior portrait photographer in Kitsap County, Washington and Santa Cruz, California. Thank you for reading my post and I hope you gained some helpful tips!