Gold Inspired Session | Sarah

One of the things I like best about senior portrait photography is how creative I get to be! After attending Imaging USA (a huge photography conference) back in January, I became totally inspired to step out of my comfort zone and try something different. After going through a few different ideas, I settled on color inspired sessions! This is the second in the series I’ll be doing with my Class of 2016 senior reps. If you missed it, check out Morgan’s green inspired session…it was amazing!

Sarah and I made a Pinterest board and we debated doing something involving old Hollywood glamor but when we got to the fabric store and saw some of the gold material, we knew we had to change gears! We decided on an Greek Goddess theme. When I got home and Googled it, I found that Thea was the goddess of light and endowed gold, silver and gems with their radiance. How perfect is that?!

I bought a dress at Goodwill to use as the base and then I went crazy gluing and pinning. We had a basic idea of how we wanted the top and bottom to look but the skirt on the outside went through a few different changes…one of these days I need to learn to sew!! I will say that I sewed the pleats in the outer skirt myself so I’m not a total lost cause! 🙂 Sarah did a fabulous job with her hair and even made the awesome headband herself! Tyler, a sophomore at VCU was kind enough to do the makeup for me. I actually took Tyler’s senior portraits back in 2013 and she did the make-up for the studio ballerina session I had last July, so I knew she’d do a fantastic job. What I didn’t know was how prepared she’d be! She showed up with with a few makeup examples, lots of gold make up and gold glitter and gems for Sarah’s eyes! It was incredible!

Sarah totally picked the right color because she was absolutely gorgeous and glowing with all of the golden light! I couldn’t have asked for better results…she totally killed it! After I got the shots I wanted out of the way, including one in my golden chair (she looks so regal in that one!) I played around a little bit with some techniques to get some different images. At the very end I pulled out an old belly dancer hip scarf I had and took one of my absolute favorite images from the whole session!

The whole thing was so much fun! From planning it all out, shopping for fabric and jewelery, actually making the dress…it was a blast! This Saturday, I’ll be photographing Emily, one of my Monticello High School reps session. Her color was light blue and we’re going with an Egyptian/Cleopatra theme. I can not wait!!!

CLASS of 2016 – It’s never too early to get on my fall calendar, contact me today! | 434.906.0418 | photos@alijohnson.com

Ali Johnson is a portrait photographer specializing in senior portrait photography in Charlottesville, Crozet, Keswick, Albemarle and Fluvanna County VA