Two days, nearly 200 miles, a wet dress, and one heck of a good time. I think that is the best way to describe the senior portrait shoot I did with this young lady last fall. This shoot started out with us by the lake near Guntersville, AL, then we headed to the historic Guntersville downtown area, after which we jumped into the lake, and finally we finished up in the park in Fayetteville, TN.
Sydney is one of my all time favorite young ladies to shoot. She has a great attitude, is up for just about anything, and is a naturally beautiful person inside and out. For her senior shoot she wanted to be by and in the water, which if you knew Syd would come as no surprise. So naturally the best choice for this was the Guntersville Lake area. Our first location was near the Honeycomb Creek area, we had hopes of being able to use the graffiti that is typically on the bridge there, but alas the city had cleaned it all up. One idea out the window, but because we were there at the right time of the day the cattails and river grass were being kissed perfectly by the sun to give an awesome backdrop. Mix in a little fill flash and you have something you can really work with!
Next we moved to downtown Guntersville. This historic area has a lot of great old brick buildings, sidewalks, and awesome textures. Since the shoot was happening in the golden hour the light was great, and we captured some amazing shots. I always had a little fill flash going just to give the eyes a bit of a pop. Also, I have to give Syd some props here too. She was really working the expressions, giving me everything from cold steel to that gorgeous smile everyone loves.
At the end of the first day went down into the water. With the light fading quickly we had to work fast. So out into the cold water we plunged and starting shooting. The sky had a beautiful gradation as the sun set. This gave the scene great color, but the dark was closing in quickly. We had just enough time to fire off a few frames with a speedlight/softbox combo (at nearly full power) to overcome this. As you can see from below it turned out AMAZING!
Finally, for our last location we decided we would head up to a great little park in Fayetteville. Sydney had chosen to go a bit more boho country girl with her look, and I think it worked spectacularly! It really shows what a naturally beautiful young lady she really is. Since it was just a bit cold on this day, we had to work quickly as not to freeze. The park has a number of great little scenes to work with, and I thought this log cabin would provide the perfect backdrop to Syd's dress. We were shooting during the early part of afternoon golden hours, with the sun to camera right, and as you can see from the stronger shadows on the floor it was still necessary to use a bit of fill flash to lighten them on Syd.
A special thanks goes to my wonderful free assistant for this shoot Stacy. She is Sydney's mom, and without her none of this would be possible.