Green Inspired Session | Morgan

I began specializing in senior portrait photography two years ago and I have never been happier! I loved the time I spent photographing families, children and babies but this genre of photography is my passion! Maybe it’s because I have two teens of my own but I feel like this is what I’m supposed to be doing. This year, I decided that I wanted to step it up a notch and try and get more creative with my senior photography.

After attending Imaging USA (a huge photography conference) my creative juices were flowing! I decided that I wanted to do some sort of themed session with my 2016 senior reps. I had the idea that each of them should choose a color and decide what that color represented to them. Then we would brainstorm together to come up with an idea for a dramatic, stylized session session. The first rep that I worked with was Morgan, one of my reps from FLuvanna County High School. She wanted to use the color green which reminded her of nature, new beginnings, growth and spring time. After creating a Pinterest board, we ended up with a Mother Nature/Wood Nymph-ish kind of look! I started with a dress from Goodwill, added TONS of Ivy from my yard and a few silk flowers from Michaels. A little cutting and pinning and a bunch of hot glue gun burns later, and we had our dress! Please excuse my awful cell phone photos for the before and after!

The next step was making the background. I wanted to have the session in my studio so I could be 100% in control of the lighting but I still wanted the background to have an outdoorsy feel to it. I cut a bunch of pine tree branches down from the woods on my property and secured them to my background stand with clamps, string, thread, rubberbands…anything I could get my hands on! Here’s another icky cell phone photo from behind the scenes. Next time I vow to use my actual camera for these shots!

Morgan did her own hair and I had Hope, a rising senior from Monticello High School do the makeup for me. They both did such an amazing job! During the session, I tried out a few different lighting scenarios and am SUPER pleased with the results! Morgan looked like a green Goddess and was absolutely breathtaking!

The whole experience was so much fun…I’ve already started planning the next one! Emily, one of my Monticello senior reps chose light blue which makes her think of honesty, loyalty, peace and tranquility. I can’t wait to share what we come up with! I know this post was a little long so thanks for sticking with me, now to the main event…the photos from Morgan’s session!

I’ve since had more color sessions with my reps…be sure to check out the photos from Sarah’s gold session , Emily’s blue session too!

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