Portraits of a Couple of Great Teenage Girls

One recent client came to me to purchase the wonderful birthday gift of a portrait session for her daughter’s 13 year old friend.  What a great idea for the two girls to play models for the afternoon. 

I really love these sessions because its such fun working with subjects that really want to be there.  They aren’t being bribed to behave.  They aren’t reluctantly contributing to the family portrait.  And they aren’t desperate for a feed or a nap.  They can take direction and they see the experience as a real treat.  And that reminds me of just how lucky I am to do what I do for a living.  It is an exciting job and its easy to forget that when doing the day to day stuff. 

The aim was to produce a few portraits of the two together so they could each have a keepsake of this shared experience.  And then it was to let the girls have a bit of fun in a sort of fashion shoot.  I always love the simple beauty of a black background so I began with this.  For me its best to get a guaranteed winner at the start and then enjoy the remainder of the session having fun and trying different things.

The girls particularly liked a couple of backgrounds I have in my studio.  I have a large PVC board with one side covered in magazine covers and portraits and the other side covered in wallpaper.  We had a go at both. 

Then I finished off with the white background.  We ended up spending a total of 3 hours on this shoot which included numerous outfit changes and a whole lot of mess.  My studio resembled a teenage girl’s bedroom before a big party.  Thankfully though, it cleans rather quickly once they pack there things and leave, taking their suitcases full of choice with them.  It looked a little like they were moving in when they arrived.  But bringing all this choice is important and exactly what I asked for so I’m not complaining.