Everyone during my senior year was having their senior portraits taken, but the thing was, they were all by one company who took care of everything and wanted to get through the session with each senior as quickly as possible so they could move onto the next.I didn't want that for my senior portraits since the pictures that I planned on taking would be shared with everyone in my family and would last for many years to come.
So then my mom brings up this girl named Tra.
My mom had nothing but nice things to say about Tra since she knew her personally and had seen plenty of her photos before recommending her to me. I went onto her website before I emailed her about my session, and I was very surprised by what I saw. All of her photos were unique in some way- everyone in her pictures looked genuinely happy and the poses that they all were doing was natural. It wasn't like what I was seeing at all in the company that everyone at my school was using. I mean they had the 'chin turned this way, head down slightly, and turn your body this way' look for everyone. From what I saw in Tra's photos on her websites, she definitely looked like she knew what she was doing and each of the photos were personalized to fit the people in them perfectly.
I admit that, before our session, I was nervous about how the photos would actually turn out since I'm not very good at posing in pictures. Also, I've never really had a one on one photo session with someone that lasted more than a minute ( school photos were all I had had prior to working with Tra ) so I was worried that she might get impatient. When I had the chance to have my session with Tra, after worrying about it for almost the entire day, I can honestly say that all my worries were gone as soon as she picked up her camera. Tra was spot on with the place that she had in mind for the session, and when it came to actually taking the photos, she let me sit and lay down in poses that I used in my everyday life. I didn't feel like it was a photo session at first, yes there was the very nice camera pointed at my face, but the way that she talked and made suggestions to me made me feel like I could trust her because she was a friend. She never got impatient with me either when I couldn't manage a smile. She was actually very helpful in making me smile. One of the things that she actually did was crack a joke at me that was so ridiculous it actually worked and resulted in my favorite picture that I have from our session.
After the session, Tra sent me a link to a website where she saved all the pictures and let me select the ones that I liked the most. I was very surprised and pleased with how they turned out, especially a few photos before the actual shoot where my mom was there to help me get ready with my makeup. I never asked Tra to take those pictures of me and my mom, but she saw the chance to show something personal and very sweet since my mom and I are very close- I'm so glad that Tra did what she did. After I picked the ones I liked, I later received them and was very eager to pass them out to my family members as well as friends at school. One of the first things that someone said was 'These don't look like everyone else's.' I ended up saying back to them 'That was the whole point.' I told everyone in my group of friends about her, and everyone on my Facebook page fell in love with the pictures that I shared from my session.
If anyone in my friend group or family needed someone to take pictures, I'd tell them all about Tra and how working with her was one of the best decisions I made my senior year. read more