Dancing in Old Seattle - Lauren's Senior Portraits!
This portrait session was filled with more fun firsts for me. I love that about my work!! Each person is so unique.
Lauren's family recently inflated.
Her Dad married Nancy, our enthusiastic spark-plug cracker-jack Children's Pastor at Pine Lake Covenant Church :) And that is how I got to meet Miss Lauren, at our "Encore" after-service all-church-hangout-time.
Two years ago, Nancy and I had soooooo much fun making senior portraits with Nancy's daughter, Issaquah High School 2018 grad, Sarah - Sarah's shoot was scheduled during a forecasted thunderstorm but we prayed and went for it, and that storm held off until we were snug in our cars just leaving the parking lot post-shoot. Sarah's shoot had been outrageous & silly-fun, check it out check it out here. And now with a NEW high school senior in her family, I am grateful that Nancy asked me!!!
Lauren is an artist, she loves to paint. She also seems to me to be a really down-to-earth-knows-what's-valuable sort of person. She may seem a little quiet at first, but she is quite comfortable performing for an audience (years of dance training!) and appears to have no fear of my camera :)
We started at Gene Juarez Downtown with artist, Jesse. After her appointment with Jesse, Lauren's hair was light as a feather, floating on the wind. Lauren doesn't usually wear make up any more (totally get that, with her eyelashes & skin tone!) but she tells me of going through a phase where she loved experimenting with it, so she brought her recently-untouched supplies and did her own, beautifully.
I love that her father enjoyed being with Lauren through our whole evening. He definitely has an artistic eye and was verrry helpful with arranging flowers in Lauren's hair and pointing out picturesque spots. He helped Jo carry equipment, drove & parked cars, and he was our Big Bad Bodyguard in the alleys behind Pike Place and Pioneer Square. It was really fun for me to see their playfulness that evening! I'm just getting to know them both.
I love ripped jeans :) I loved this Thrasher magazine T-shirt & jeans combo on Lauren! Ahh, if only we had brought her beat up skateboard :)
Gum Wall (s)... we both agreed... yuck. Looks wild here, though!
Both Lauren & I like the look of Seattle's graffiti / sticker mayhem, and there's been more of it in Seattle lately, it seems (hooray!) - do you think the gum wall is an anonymous form of graffiti? This stickered & gummed graffiti wall was just down the alley. By the way, it's fun how people in Seattle stop and watch photos being taken, and often they join in! It's really a kick. I did a lot of dancing to avoid intentional photo bombers in Post Alley! Not above, but for the photo below - we ended up using the wall instead of the alley ~ People casually just weave into the background, and glance up to take a look, it's totally intentional, and kind of hilarious, maybe I'll post a bunch of my Seattle photobombers one day!
Seattle may be gray overhead but it is COLORFUL down in the alleys. It's a treasure trove of backgrounds and ideas to play with! Examples below. Who you don't see in these photos is my Jo! Just outside the edge these photos, she is reflecting light to fill shadows under Lauren's eyebrows, to bring out the sparkle in Lauren's eyes. I shoulda grabbed a photo of Jo at work :) She's a lot of fun, and she makes my shoots a lot easier for me.
Okay, so... I want to thank my model, Lauren, she is an artist, so she gets me when I really wanted to photograph her with (huge) flowers in her hair :) Lauren really likes the color purple, so we found the closest to purple available at the Pike Place Market that day. Gorgeous! And then I spent way too long trying to get them to stay in Lauren's silky smooth hair! I absolutely love our flower results with Lauren's dark hair & eyes ~ to me, it's kind of like an old Mona Lisa -style beautiful painting, but with today's jeans jacket and Lauren! Thank you, darling Lauren, for obliging me :)
Sometimes when I photograph a person doing something they've been TRAINED in, something they've drilled in, even if it's in their past, that person will change their whole posture and presence as they go into auto mode with that training. Lauren has trained in dance ~ not during her high school years, but before that, through elementary school & middle school. Both irish dancing and ballet. And it is so fun to see her performer come out! I think she smiled the whole time. This was a ball. Irish first!
And now, the drama :) At one of Jo's & my favorite locations, a rooftop with a view...
This was just about 5 days after that incredible purple lightning storm that delayed the UW Football game for HOURS with lightning strikes ~ and my husband & Dad & kids were drenched with rain & as the lightning rained down they left their metal bleachers to wait in the stadium's underground concourse for hours before arriving home at midnight with the game still on weather delay - memorable! And guess what?!?! Lighting was predicted for our evening as well!! I'm so thankful to the Lord that we had so much fun, and a couple extra dry hours given to us that night. From the rooftop, we watched it roll in. Literally, the sky turned purple. The rumbles & lightning (in the distance!) were terribly exciting. And Jo & I enjoyed photographing Lauren's leaps to the music! i mean, to the storm!
Our body guard was also our stand-in to get our camera settings right, under the rooftop lights :)
I think Lauren leaped for us about 80 times!
I love that Jo captured this behind-the-scenes gorgeous finalé, I think it's my favorite of all our leap portraits:
Just as Lauren was removing her ballet shoes, we all felt the faintest pitter patter of rain... and immediately evacuated the area! Very reminiscent of my shoot with Lauren's new step-sister, Sarah! On my drive home, the purple lightning strikes were ... (well, downright scary!) but gorgeous. Incredible. I'm glad to have shared our rooftop evening with Jo & Lauren & her Pops!
Our Session Movie :
I look forward to getting to know them more :) Big welcome to our church family, Miss Lauren!
