Sarah | Fluvanna County High School – 2016
I hope everyone is having a wonderful new year! I really enjoyed my Christmas vacation with my family but now it’s time to get back to updating my senior portrait blog posts. This has been my busiest fall ever and I am honored that so many people in the Charlottesville area have chosen me as their senior portrait photographer!
Tonight on my blog we have Sarah, one my amazing senior reps for Fluvanna County High School’s Class of 2016. I’ve photographed her quite a few times before (if you haven’t seen her gold color inspired session or her snow ballet session, you need to check them out!) but this was my first time having an outdoor session with just Sarah as the subject!
Though most of my senior portrait sessions take place in Charlottesville and Fluvanna County, I am always open to trying out new locations! When Sarah suggested we have her session at Maymont in Richmond, Virginia, I was beyond excited!
I hadn’t been to Maymont in years (and that time we mostly stayed in the farm area) so I wasn’t sure to expect. Holy cow, that place is so beautiful…and huge!! I could probably have five or six different sessions there and they’d never look the same!
We started out in the Italian Garden where I was super happy (and surprised) to find many flowers still blooming. Since it was October, I wasn’t sure what to expect but they even had some roses bushes with blooms on them!
I fell in love with the columns and all of the stone work. I probably could have spent hours in just this one location!
Sarah changed her outfit (Thank goodness I had my pop-up changing room with me. It was a long walk back to the bathrooms!) and we continued on with the session. Sarah is such a joy to photograph! No matter where I placed her or how I asked her to pose, smiling or serious, she totally nailed it and looked absolutely beautiful!
Um and speaking of beautiful? Sarah, you are killing me with your gorgeous eyes!! Seriously, you should always wear blue!
I absolutely love my lights and use them at every single session. This was one of the few times that I almost I wished I was a natural light photographer. Beautiful as the area is, there were tons of stairs and no ramps! Super big thanks to Sarah, Cheryl ( her mom) and Erin (her sister and former AJP assistant and rep) for helping me carry all my stuff up and down the stairs!
After walking down what seemed like a million stairs, we were down at the Japanese Gardens. Here it finally looked like fall!
This place was amazing! I was super impressed with how different this garden was from the Italian one. Even though it was fairly crowded, it still had such a tranquil feel to it. Okay, back to Sarah’s eyes. Am I crazy or are they the same exact color as the sky in this photo?
There weren’t any flowers down here and some of the trees had incredible fall foliage on them. It was like we had traveled to another place, not just walked down a bunch of stairs!
Time really flew by and before we knew it, the park was almost ready to close! We rushed over to this amazing bridge so we could get a few shots before closing time. We probably made quite the spectacle of ourselves! Erin & Cheryl were holding my light up as high as they could while I was balancing on a rock at the edge of the water. It’s incredible that no one fell in…especially my light!
It was so worth it though! Sarah, between the bridge, the waterfall and your gorgeous self, this is one of my favorite photos from the session!
Thank you so much for a fabulous afternoon Sarah, Erin & Cheryl! As always, I had so much fun with you guys and it was extra wonderful to get to see you again Erin! I’ve really enjoyed having you as one of my 2016 reps Sarah and I look forward to your next session!
CLASS of 2017 – Have you applied to be an AJP spokesmodel yet? If you’re interested, find out more information here.
CLASS of 2016 – Though I do have a few winter openings available both in the studio and outdoors, if you’d prefer a spring session it’s never too early to get on my calendar. Contact me today to schedule your session! | 434.906.0418 | photos@alijohnson.com
Ali Johnson is a portrait photographer specializing in senior portraits in Charlottesville, Albemarle, Louisa and Fluvanna County VA