Hey everyone! I hope everyone had a spectacular week, and thanks for coming back at the end of this week to read the newest blog post. Today's blog is about my very first senior ambassador from Pendleton County, Hannah. I'll be talking all about how I got into the senior photography scene here in the wild and wonderful - and how Hannah played a huge role in that!
A Whole New World
I had been here in PenCo for a pretty short time before it was time to launch my ambassador program, and I knew if I wanted to build business over here I would need ambassadors from the local high school. Multiple people recommended Hannah to me, and I knew her from seeing her around town as well as at some sporting events at the high school. She was such a great fit on my team and did exactly everything an ambassador is supposed to. She was telling people about my ambassador program before she had even been accepted, and brought in a lot of new inquiries. Hannah (and her awesome dad!) will always be one of the first strong building blocks of my business here in West Virginia. Thanks to the amazing modeling and advertising she's done for me, for next years ambassador program I'm going to be opening it up to 3 students from West Virginia and 3 from Virginia!
Not only did Hannah introduce me to new people in my new town, she also took me to some really gorgeous places for her senior photos. We started our first session at some of her family land, where there were a few gorgeous buildings and spring flowers growing up everywhere, plus a small creek with a bridge built over it and views of the mountains. She came perfectly prepared with a lot of outfits and multiple accessories that could be mixed and matched to create variety in her style. I love sessions where there are more than just one or two outfits involved, because I feel that it gives the client more options when choosing which photos to post and print. We went from there to a location I had worked at once previously, and what is probably my favorite local location. It's right on the river and has rocks that create a natural staircase waterfall. Her yellow dress went great against the water backdrop for some photos with a summer feel to them!
Fall Foliage & Fun Photos
For Hannah's fall session we went to a couple more local areas around the county. We started out at a field overlooking a lake with some rocks that were naturally built into the hills, and then moved on to Brandywine Lake, which is a public lake with fishing and swimming access in the summer, but perfect for a photo shoot in the fall. Hannah and I talked about how school was for her and more about her senior year. She most definitely stays busy - year round involvement in sports, president of her class last year, a member of four clubs, and an active member at her church. She recently received salutatorian for the Class of 2021 and was accepted into WVU to study to become a nurse practitioner. You can tell through her activities that Hannah works hard and dreams big, but one of my favorite things about photographing her is that you can also see this in her photos! She plans well for her sessions and naturally keeps the fun going the whole time. We went to the top of the lake where I got to sing Sting in my head, because these were perfect fields of gold. The sun was at the perfect spot and
Hannah's fall colors complimented the scenery well. These images were some of my favorites that I had taken in a long time! For our last location we moved to a location off of the river really close to my house. We had to do some climbing around the rocks and it was pretty chilly so we were maneuvering not to get wet. I love water photos, no matter what the season, and we took this right as soon as the sun had set so we had some very soft natural light to work with. Hannah and I had some fun with posing in this one, I had her do a couple of spins for me and she climbed up on a rock where you could see the reflection of the trees on the water perfectly. Currently, she and I are planning her cap and gown sessions before graduation, and I'm excited to actually be able to attend Hannah's graduation and take some photos of her receiving her diploma too.
That wraps up another end of the week blog, and I hope you enjoy reading these posts to wrap up every week and get prepared to begin another!
The picture in the “fields of gold” is truly spectacular!! Love it