Heather Neal Photography

This was such a fun High School Senior Session for me! My 9 year old son just started playing hockey for the Jr Mavs this year on their Squirt team and this handsome guy is on of the High School Jr Mavs players! I LOVE it when my Senior clients have a passion that they incorporate into their session so it was especially fun that his passion was also one that my family is currently around a lot! This was my first hockey player too so it was fun finding ways to incorporate his gear into the shots. We chose a downtown KC Crossroads location and found so many good places that complimented his outfits and jerseys. He had another thing in common as well…Brennan is planning on majoring in pre-dental after high school and before I became a photographer, I worked in the dental field for over 20 years!

One of my favorite things about being a Kansas City area Photographer is the diversity in locations that are available. Kaylee’s session was a little bit country and a little bit city and I love both! We started at Missouri Town and took advantage of the rustic fences and buildings and even got some horses to jump in for a shot or two! Next we headed to the River Market to get some fun Urban shots. Kaylee is a natural beauty and the camera loved her! It was fun walking around the area with her and her mom and scouting out good spots. A couple of things I must point out…1) Notice the image with the strung light. I LOVE me some strung lights and have been lucky enough to come across them for several of my sessions this year so check out my past and future sessions and see how many times you can find some! 2) Take special notice of the “MIZZOU” image below. This fact that I really like this image surprises me for several reasons. Anyone who knows me well knows myself and my family in general aren’t Mizzou fans so that is the first reason (however there are exceptions to that and in this case, the cool use of this poster and the accomplishments of this lovely girl trump that for sure). The other thing that is probably more shocking to me though is that I’m not a fan of “selective color” photograhy editing. Like ever. Sometimes images scream out to me to be black and white though and in this case after finishing it in black and white, the MIZZOU was screaming to be back in color so I said “what the heck” and gave it a shot and think it kind of works. I’m still learning things every day and in this case it’s that my “rules” can be broken and when it comes to art…follow your heart.

I have done several sessions with Aubrie’s family including a wedding, gender reveal, and family photos but this time SHE was in the spotlight. Having so many High School Seniors back to back this time of year, I can’t help but notice how different they all are and it is so fun to see their personalities shine through in their sessions. While my Senior Session prior to Aubrie was the “Princess of Posing”, Aubrie was the “Queen of Candids”. She mentioned that candids were her favorite in her pre-session questionnaire and I wondered how it would go because not everyone can pull off the candid look in photos. Her session was relaxed and easy though and her candids were genuine. We seriously were chatting and kind of just hanging out through her entire session. She had a lot of other great questionnaire answers as well. I ask for my seniors to describe themselves with one word and her word was “Extra”. LOVE IT! My favorite answer of hers though was when I ask what she liked about my work and other Senior Sessions and she answered that everyone looked like they were having fun. THAT is something I strive for! These sessions are just about the photos, they are just one of the big events that make up the senior year. I don’t just want to create beautiful images from their session, but also hopefully some fun memories.