Eastern North Carolina Photographer {Teens: Moriah}

Since I already took the time to talk about my sweet subject in the previous post, I wanted to use this one to, of course, show you more pictures of Moriah, but also to talk about my approach to teen/senior sessions.  The majority of photo sessions I shoot are family sessions.  Probably because I have young children, and because most of my friends are in the same stage of family life as I am, most of my clients are young families.  Every so often, though, I get a chance to do an adult/teen/senior session and I really do enjoy them so much.  Part of it, for sure, is just being able to have a subject who can follow directions, sit still, ect, but I also really love the relationship and conversations I get to have when shooting older clients.

We did this session in the downtown section of Elizabeth City.  Living in a small town definitely has it’s perks, but one of the downfalls is that it can be hard to find new locations that haven’t been overused by every other photographer in town.  While going for a walk with the kids last week I happened upon a little alley that, upon further exploration, turned out to be a little hidden gem.  The setting sun just pours into it and I will definitely be using this spot again.  Besides all the poison ivy that we had to watch out for, it was a great place to shoot.  I also noticed last week that some builders had torn down a building and exposed this fun mint colored brick wall.  I filed it away in my “locations” folder and was glad that we were able to get some shots by it before it gets repainted or covered up.

I shot this session, as I do most of my outdoor sessions, in the hour or so before sunset.  Photographers (and maybe other people too) call this the “Golden Hour.”  It really is the best time to shoot pictures and I try to emphasize that to my clients when planning for a photo shoot.  While it’s definitely not impossible to shoot at other times, the evening light just has a way of bringing out colors and textures that you can’t get at other times of the day; if you are thinking about scheduling a photo session soon, keep this in mind, because it can be the difference between “ho-hum” and “incredible.”

The many faces of Moriah <3

As a general rule, I don’t hand my camera to clients at the end of a session and let them snap away.  Hey, rules are meant to be broken.  Thanks for this special shot, Moriah!  You rock!