Your Senior Pictures Should Actually Look Like You: How to Plan a Pittsburgh Senior Session
Your Senior Pictures Should Actually Look Like You
There is one thing I DON'T want to hear after a senior session:
"These don't even look like me."
Your senior pictures aren't supposed to turn you into a model or some perfectly polished Instagram version of yourself.
They're supposed to capture you at this very weird, exciting, huge point in your life.
So when we're planning your Pittsburgh senior pictures, that's where I want to start.
Pick a location based on your personality — not just what's popular.
Pittsburgh has approximately nine billion good senior photo locations.
Want architecture and city energy? Let's go downtown.
Love greenery, flowers and something classic? Mellon Park or The Frick might make sense.
Want Pittsburgh to be unmistakably Pittsburgh? Give me bridges, the North Shore and that skyline.
But you don't have to choose the place everybody else uses.
Maybe there's somewhere that's actually important to you.
Tell me.
I'd rather photograph somewhere that means something than choose a location solely because it's trending.
Wear clothes you actually like.
This sounds incredibly obvious until senior-photo panic sets in.
Suddenly people start buying outfits they would never wear anywhere else because they look like "senior picture outfits."
Please don't.
Bring something that makes you feel GOOD.
I love having some variety — maybe something casual, something slightly more elevated and something fun — but all of it should still feel like you.
Love color?
WEAR COLOR.
Love a killer pair of sneakers?
Bring them.
Have a jacket you've worn approximately 400 times and everyone associates with you?
Honestly, I love that.
You absolutely do not need to know how to pose.
This is probably the number-one thing seniors worry about.
"What am I supposed to DO?"
Nothing.
That's my job.
I'm going to guide you.
And because I don't want 75 photographs of you standing perfectly still with your head tilted three degrees to the left, we're going to move.
Walk.
Turn.
Play with your hair.
Sit.
Laugh.
Probably laugh at me at some point.
Movement makes senior photos feel significantly less like Picture Day 2.0.
Bring the weirdly specific things.
Play guitar?
Bring it.
Play a sport?
Tell me.
Obsessed with books? Cars? Art? Your dog?
YES.
Senior pictures don't have to be one hour of smiling nicely near a tree.
The little details are often what make a session actually memorable.
And parents: let them be themselves.
This is a big one.
Your senior doesn't need to look like the version of them you imagined when they were seven.
If they love a weird outfit, let them bring it.
If they don't smile constantly in real life, we don't need every photograph to have a giant grin.
We'll get the beautiful photo for the wall.
Promise.
But we'll also make images that capture who they are right now.
Because that's what makes senior portraits worth having.
Senior year goes ridiculously fast.
One minute you're ordering a backpack for kindergarten and approximately twelve minutes later you're planning graduation.
Senior photos give you something that freezes this tiny transition point between who they were and whoever they're about to become.
So yes, we'll make beautiful photographs.
But we're also going to have fun doing it.
If you're looking for a Pittsburgh senior photographer who will guide you through the entire session without making you feel like you need a modeling career first, reach out. Let's make something that actually feels like you.