So you might know a high school senior or two, maybe your kid is graduating next year, maybe it’s you. No matter your station in life, it seems one thing that never changes is the yearly school photo. For 12 years a high school senior endures the free combs, the assembly line “picture day“ in the library or gymnasium, all for the ultimate cookie cutter results that follow. How sad is that? I mean really.

These photos are faithfully distributed to the family and friends of the young students as a record of their yearly advance through the educational system like it’s required. Honestly, the senior year is where the sit, pose, grin and repeat, needs to end.  Once a student reaches the pinnacle of their young educational life, they probably have a pretty good idea where they are going. Most have already applied to colleges and universities, many have joined groups and activities throughout their high school career, which have molded their lives and will forever be a part of them. How then can anyone honestly know these young adults when they look at the "standard sit and grin" photos turned out for the yearbooks? The answer is they can't.

We see the basic problem here as conformity. If you are a parent, do you remember your Senior year in High School?  The world was your oyster, you were probably amongst friends that you will never replace and no matter how much time passes will always remember. You were young and standing at the edge of the rest of your life.  So why shouldn’t these portraits reflect that energy, excitement? Get excited about this time, it will never come again.

Likewise, the portrait set to mark this transition should be equally astounding. I mean shouldn’t it be the very best school photo they have ever taken? YES! It should be! These young adults have something to say, a statement about who they are, the struggle they have gone through to get the right to be called a senior and they need a senior portrait that reflects that journey.

Ok, hold the bus a second, most schools are under contract with photographers that require the students take their photos with them. They pose them in front of a few different backgrounds that have little or no personality in the images and then they produce the same ol’ portrait the kid has seen for 12 years.  

There is an alternative to this "ordinary" almost cliché record keeping style of school portraiture. It is the un-portrait senior portrait. These are produced by the photographers who create and capture images for High School Seniors that shall we say, ROCK, they have personality and emotion. They try to capture what these young adults are all about their friends, interests and hobbies. These young adults aren't like anyone that came before them and their senior portrait should reflect that.  

While the contract photographers have the assembly line approach to taking photos, producing yearbooks and keeping everyone on schedule, there are those out there that just can't think of their subjects that way. A good portrait photographer will spend time with the parents and the student, discussing what it is that is important to them. In this way the final results reflect what is important to each individual senior. It is then apparent in the images they produce. Here are a few tips for parents as well as the High School Seniors out there that are looking for something different.

Find out the School's policy on using "non-contract photographer" photos in the school yearbook. Each school may be different. While some will allow "the Un-portrait" images into their books, others will not. Either way we submit that you should still look for some individuality for your senior's portraits.

If your school accepts non-contract photographers to submit work for the yearbook

Great, find out the deadline and work with your photographer to meet that deadline. Most photo houses accept images electronically and many photographers know one another. It could be as simple as asking your photographer to send the images from your session to the school on a disk for use in the yearbook; or directly to the other photographer to be included as part of the publication. A little checking will allow your senior portrait to show that individuality amongst a sea of cookie cutter images. Nice!

If your school does not accept other photographers work

This is actually the problem we faced with our own children. As a photographer, I found it frustrating that I couldn't provide what I felt was one of the most important images of their school career for their senior year. It wasn't a problem though. See, the contract photographers have to record all or as many of the students images as they can for the yearbook. So we scheduled a basic session for our kids with the contract studio and chose a single image only for the yearbook to fulfill the requirement to get them into the yearbook. We then scheduled a makeup and hair stylist for my daughter took her on location (3 different places) with 3 differnt clothing changes and did senior portraits that were about her. We did the same for my son when he graduated. Well, he didn't want the makeup and hair part done, but you get the idea. In both cases, all of the friends and family members were sent the images we did for their senior portraits, not the ones done by the contract photographer. The only place that showed up was in the yearbook. 

Bottom line, if you want a better, different, unique senior portrait for your High School Senior, you can do it. You aren't bound to use the contract photographer provided by the school. Give your senior the individuality they deserve, allow them to express themselves as they enter their new roles in the world. For many of them, it will be the last formal portrait they take before adulthood, make it a memorable one by choosing a photographer that will capture your childs' transition to adulthood. - Aloha