This last couple months have been pretty freaking incredible with all the amazing seniors from UC Davis I got to photograph. They all came in such great enthusiasm (even with finals with dawning upon them) and we were able to create such unique sets for each one of them. I guarantee you won’t be able to see anyone else with a portrait like my clients’ in the Davis and Sacramento area.

 

So how does this all happen? There’s really no secret formula: I ask questions and I listen. This is why I always make it a priority to meet my clients in person and have a consultation.

 

Somayh came in to her consultation and she told me she wanted something different. Something magical and something epic. She referenced back to fictional book she used to love back in High School called the Mortal Instruments and that’s when I knew we were going to have some fun. In fact, I was so excited, I made a shameless Facebook post about it.

Okay, I feel a little embarrassed to share the post now I don’t know why but I think it’s good to be so excited for my client.

 

One thing I pitched to Somayh was a dry ice shoot where she would be lying down in a fog of dry ice, making it look dreamy and fairy-tale like. She loved the idea so the team and I went to work.

David, my assistant, put together this enclosed structure out of all the cardboard boxes I received from packages that week so the fog from the dry ice won’t escape. After that was done, we got the dry ice ready with some pots inside the enclosure (yeah real ghetto) and we just had one last thing left to do. Test it.

Besides creating some rare image of a guy wearing a pizza tank wrapped in white tulle lying in fog, we learned a lot. We learned that the fog from the dry ice dissipates within 30-45 seconds and we also learned that we should get more dry ice for Somayh’s shoot.

 

So our first step was to ask questions and listen. Our second step was to take action. We prepared the cardboard coffin, the test, the dry ice, and a $80 worth of fake flowers from Michael’s. And we tested it all under the light to make sure everything looked nothing less than awesome.

She’s going to kill me for this… but forreal guys, she’s got such great eye for styling and you have no idea how valuable she is to executing these shoots. She has a blog up now so make sure to check that out when you can.

 

So after all that, here are the images we created for Somayh.

I loved this shoot and Somayh did as well. What do you think of the shoot and if you could design your dream senior or grad shoot, what would it be like? Let me know in the comments!!!