When Do You Take Senior Pictures - T-Tees - Your Answers Await, Life's Questions Unraveled

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Like So Many Things In Life …It Depends

What is the best time of day to take senior portraits is a question I get a lot. The answer… well that really depends. It depends on the light I want to shoot in and the lighting I may or may not bring with me.

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If I want hard edgy light downtown the best time of day to take senior pictures will be different than if we want to do a wispy boho shoot in a field. This is because all of this depends on the style of the shoot we are going for.

Preparation

Luckily, we plan all of this out weeks ahead of time at our senior portrait session consultations. We have a meeting with every senior weeks before the shoot to plan style, location, wardrobe, and all the details.

Most of our seniors and parents have never done this before and they have no idea what to expect.

This consult is just one of the many things we do to help prepare them and make sure they know what to expect every step of the way.

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Seeing The Light

My Personal Favorite Times For Taking Senior Pictures

What is the best time of day to take senior pictures?

Thoughts On My List

I want to be clear. The above times are what are ideal for me and how I like to work. Other photographers might like other times for varying reasons.

You will notice I do not have mornings listed. You can most definitely get amazing senior portraits in the morning. I find that for the style that our seniors come to us for is hard to get in the mornings.

The light in the morning is a lot cooler and because of this it is more difficult to get a warm backlit picture at this time

Add to that the fact that basically all of our senior girls get professional hair and make up done. This means getting up and started by 5 am sometimes to be ready. We do do it. just not that often

Variations

All of the above being said the above times have many variables that can be mixed or matched. For instance we often shoot downtown a little later in the day for 1-2 looks and then head to a field for backlit images leading into golden hour and sunset.

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This just depends on the session and how much time we have.

Conclusion

I often hear photographers that will not do sessions outside of “normal business hours.” and this is fine. It is important to have set hours and I totally get wanting that time for family, personal life, etc.

However personally it has always been my conviction to create the best possible images for each one of our senior clients.

To do this I need to use the best possible conditions I can and shooting at the optimal time allows this. This also limits the amount of seniors that I am able to shoot so that I can have that time with my family.