What Successful People Do On the Weekends

Mid-December paddle in the snow and ice of Hemlock Lake

Before I worked as a full-time professional photographer and opened my studio, I worked as a part-time photographer, and devoted most weeknights and many hours of the weekend on my part-time profession. My weekday hours were filled with my duties as an environmental scientist (12 yrs.) or software quality manager/engineer (12 yrs.), which were my two careers in Corporate USA.  My fellow photographers were never surprised to get e-mails from me at 2am from my home studio, then followed up by at 7:30am e-mail from my corporate job.

Drew - Fairport HS Senior Portraits, Class of 2014

 Drew comes from a family of soccer players.  He has three younger brothers and they all play, sometimes totally 11-12 games a week for the family.  Knowing how important it is, and knowing how good of a player Drew is, I had planned something special for him.  Little did I know it would be over so quickly.

Greer - Thomas Aquinas HS Senior Portraits, Class of 2014

After Greer's session, I was starting to think that the studio was specializing in those high school boys that wanted nothing to do with senior portraits.  He wasn't too thrilled with the idea of having his picture taken, and I thought it would take a miracle to get him to smile.  As most of the athletes that come through the studio have done, we were able to get some really interesting and unique photos of him in his uniforms.

Jenn - Fairport HS Senior Portraits, Class of 2014

Jenn is the other half of the Crater twins, a lacrosse-playing brother and sister from Fairport.  During her consultation she described herself as funny, easy-going, and athletic, and I found her to be exactly that.  Her mother described her as being shy and quiet, so I wanted to show that with the following photo of her in the spotlight on the studio floor. Jenn is a goalie on the girls' lacrosse team, so we had to make sure we took the time to include that in her session.

Ryan - Fairport HS Senior Portraits, Class of 2014

Ryan was one of those boys that didn't have much interest in having his senior portraits taken, and was mostly here because his mother wanted him to.  After his initial consultation where we talked about what we would do during his session, he was actually looking forward to it.  During his session, he was very relaxed and gave me some of the most comfortable smiles of anyone I've seen this year.

Sarah - Fairport HS Senior Portraits - Class of 2014

All I knew of Sarah before she walked into the studio was that she played 2^nd base on Fairport’s varsity softball team.  We had that in common, as I played 2^nd base for many years.  By the time her session was done, we had more in common, as we both loved her photos.