Our second shoot and as usual, nothing goes as plan. Our initial plans were to do formal outside. Mother Nature had other ideas, and with about 2 hours before the plan pictures, we changed it up to do pictures that we call the square in Bryan, Ohio.

My thoughts as the photographer, what is the story?

Well, that was easy for me. It’s about this High School Senior and her growing up in this town. Next was how to tell the story and what is the environment giving me? This time of the year in northern Ohio, light falls fast. Plus on this day, its been raining most of the day and very cloudy and what I call gloomy. No excuse, time to take pictures and tell the story.

First was the movie theater. How can we show something a little different then what you could get from the iPhone? For me, and most of that night, I was thinking about making these pictures dramatic.

My thought process was the story the name of the town, and while I am not for sure, she most likely went to this theater sometime during her lifetime. I wanted to show that.

Next was the fountain. I know, everyone wants a picture by the fountain. Again my thought process was how I could take a picture of what she wants by the fountain but different then what you could make with an iPhone?

By this time, we were losing light somewhat fast. I wanted to light up the fountain and at the same time, our Senior. I first set up one light on her. Once I had her lit up, I did not like two things. One, I did not want harsh shadows on her. (the drama effect) Second, the fountain really was not showing. Out came a second light to backlight her and the fountain at the same time. Last to take care of the harsh shadow, time for some diffusion.

The next was my thinking of showing the city. We found a street corner that was going to work. I would show the stores along with showing traffic. We ran into a little issue with traffic but came up with a plan B. First was to get our Senior in position, and once again, it's dark (Blue hour) I wanted to show traffic moving so I knew I needed a very slow shutter speed. Out came the tripod, and out came the flash. I knew the flash would freeze her, and to get the traffic to move. I went with a 1 second exposure time. It’s a Sunday night and did not have a lot of traffic. Time for plan B, Take our senior out of the picture and take a few photos with cars coming when we got some. In photoshop, composite what I was thinking.

The last image and we did this entirely in the dark was the wall picture — no question time for lights. I went with two — a main on her face and a fill to light up her just a little bit. Back to the drama, look again.

What a night and what fun I had to come up with the story. Looking forward to her last session with the color and being more formal. Time for another story.