Dayna hails from Johnston, IA and chose Seniors by Photojeania to create fashion, sports, urban, nature, classic and lifestyle images for her senior portraits.  Needless to say it was a lot of running around but well worth it.  Dayna is 6 feet tall (6 feet three inches in heels) and challenged us to get our studio lights high enough for her.  Dayna could easily be a fashion model, but insists she wants to become an Orthodontist and was able to arrange for part of her photo shoot to be done in her Orthodontist’s office.  Thanks to Dr. Willham at Willham Orthodontics P.C. for making their offices and equipment available to us for Dayna’s photo shoot.

Austin is a Senior at Johnston High School in Johnston, IA and like Dayna (see Blog post for Dayna), his girlfriend, he has a lot of interests that he wanted to incorporate into his senior portraits.  Austin plays baseball, hunts, boats, likes cars and is looking forward to a career in law enforcement.  The Johnston police were kind enough to make one of their cruisers available for some of Austin’s pictures.  I am continually impressed at how generous people are when it comes to making locations, clothing and props available for senior portraits and grateful to the Johnston Police for making this happen for Austin.

Storm’s pictures came just in time because he busted his face in a baseball game right after he finished his senior portraits.  Fortunately Storm is a quick healer and looking good already.  Storm comes to us from Waukee High School in Waukee, IA.  He plays baseball and lives in a baseball family of sorts.  His step brother, Devin (see blog post for Devin), is a senior at Valley High School in West Des Moines and also plays baseball for his team.  That pretty much makes mom and dad full-time baseball fans.  Both boys are senior portrait models for our studio.  The boys have competitive spirits as you can imagine and it was amusing to listen to their witty banter as we did much of their photo shoots combined.  The photo shoot sometimes resembled scenes from Zoolander as the boys were competing for top model status.  Our photo shoots took us from our studio for classic images and sports composites and downtown for some urban senior portraits and our first session ended with a slam dunk contest in their back yard for some fun lifestyle images.  Storm was a great model and created some of my favorite sports senior portraits and urban senior portraits of the season.

Meet Devin from Valley High School in West Des Moines.  Devin, along with his step brother Storm, is one of our senior models and came to us to create urban, clasic and sports senior pictures.  Like Storm, Devin created some of my favorite sports images of the season and did a great job modeling for our studio.

Sami attends Valley High School in West Des Moines, IA and came to Seniors by Photojeania for nature and fashion senior portraits.  We had an awesome senior portrait session in the studio starting with our makeup artist, Shealynn, and our singature WOW (white on white) headshots.  Sami asked us to focus on her eyes, but she had such great modeling instincts, we couldn’t help but create some great full-length fashion senior pictures before leaving the studio.  Sami loves the outdoors and so we took her to one of our favorite parks outside of Des Moines abundant with wildflowers for some nature senior pictures.

Jackie and Jeff are twins from Wilmington, Delaware.  Both are certified photogenic but have very different personalities and even go to different high schools.  Our photo shoot began at their home and moved on to Rockwood Park where it seemed everything was in bloom.  I can’t say enough about what the park staff does to keep the grounds so beautiful.

Darin is one of our senior portrait models from Buena, New Jersey.  He’s a handsome dude who looks great serious or with a smile.  Our senior portrait shoot took us from the Cape May Zoo Park to downtown Cape May to Cape May Point.  Darin’s best friend, Kristen, came along for the adventure and helped us create some nice relationship senior portraits.  Together they raised more than a few eyebrows and puzzled looks from vacationers as we ventured through Cape May.  Surely these people had to be asking themselves “Are they models?”,  “Are these engagement pictures?”,  ”But they’re so young!”.    So should I tell them we are creating relationship senior portraits or just say “what are you looking at?”? 

Shannon was on my short list for senior portrait models ever since she came to my attention last summer during our Waukee Cheerleading Poster photo shoot.  Shannon was the ring girl in the boxing themed poster and the unwitting center of what became a contraversial poster - sounds like a good topic for another blog post.  Shannon, who like most of our senior portrait models has never modeled before, showed a natural talent for modeling and was really comfortable in her new role and in front of the camera.  Shannon’s senior picture photo shoot began in our studio with our make-up artist, Shealynn and took us downtown for urban senior pictures, some relationship pictures with her sister Tommie, and finally to Centennial Park in Waukee for some fashion senior pictures.  We’ll look forward to photographing Tommie and hopefully Shannon again next season.

Rachel is one of our Senior Portrait Models from St. Marks High School in Wilmington, Delaware.  Rachel is a cheerleader at St. Marks and spends her free time riding her horse Sabotage.  Rachel’s senior portrait session began at her home in Wilmington.  Rachel’s yard had just enough color to make some beautiful nature senior portraits.  From there we went to St. Marks High School to create some sports senior portraits of Rachel cheerleading at the stadium.  We ended up abandoning the stadium aspect and found that the hill above the stadium was a great location to photograph Rachel jumping into the bright blue sky since there were no distractions on the horizon. 

Our senior portrait session ended up at Art Santoro’s ranch somewhere in the Corner Ketch part of Delaware where we created some fashion senior portraits in Art’s backyard and some horse relationship senior portraits on the hills above his house.  Art made a beautiful wooden bench swing that hangs from a tree in his back yard and it made a great place to create fashion senior portraits of Rachel.  Art and his wife run a horse stable and training center for equestrian pursuits.  Art is a very smart man who bought his property adjacent the White Clay Creek State Park which will never be developed and provides lots of riding trails for his guests.  Art was also very generous to allow us to use his beautiful home and land for Rachel’s senior portraits.  Thank you Art.

Carlyn is one of our senior picture models and was the first this year of a string of smart, photogenic, athletic and immensely likable seniors from Johnston High School who asked us to create their senior pictures.  Carlyn’s two photo shoots brought us to downtown Des Moines for urban senior pictures, to Johnston High School for sports senior pictures, to our studio for classic senior pictures, and finally to a park in Cumming, Iowa for beautiful nature senior pictures with June wildflowers.   Carlyn plays soccer for Johnston High School and in spite of the drizzling rain, made some outstanding soccer senior pictures at the stadium.  Through all the time we spent with Carlyn in less than ideal weather conditions, she never stopped smiling and is one of our favorite senior picture models.

While most seniors give us a run around town for their money, Madi ran us out of town.  Madi, from Dowling Catholic High School in West Des Moines settled on a single location for her senior portraits - Madison County and it’s famous bridges.  After visiting Shealynn (our makeup artist) at our studio, Madi along with her mom, dad, brother and family dog trucked down to Winterset for a couple hours of nature and fashion senior portraits in the setting of old bridges and even a stone tower atop the hills of a state park.  Smiling, serious, posed or candid Madi was wonderfully photogenic and relaxed throughout our photo shoot.