Parker A Grimes - Photography » Seniors

Heather – Parowan Gap

parker — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 21:00:49 +0000

The photoshoot began with “Heather, are you afraid of heights?” Well, actually, it began with, “Hey, we’re going to climb to the top. Is that alright?” Then I spotted the precarious precipice and knew instantly that Heather needed to stand on it. I tested it out myself first. I wouldn’t ask someone to do something that I wouldn’t do:)

Weston – Cedar City Senior Photography

parker — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 14:00:53 +0000

I’ve been doing a lot of natural light shoots lately. It was nice to break out the off camera flash for Weston’s shoot.

Bella – High School Senior Photography

parker — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:00:49 +0000

Bella is my oldest niece. Holy crap, she is a senior in high school! I’m not so sure her parents are ready for her to be so grown up. She lives in Seattle, but they visit Utah every summer when we have our annual family get-together. Once a year is usually all we get to see them. This year, however, we have been lucky enough to see them twice. It was only a few weeks ago that my wife and I took our boys to Seattle for our summer vacation.

While they were in Utah, Bella asked me if I would take her senior pictures. This girl is going places. She is smart, funny, and talented. As an uncle, it is fun to watch my nephews and nieces transition into adulthood. One minute they are kids and the next they are scouting Universities and applying to serve missions. That transition is an amazing time in life. I know that I thoroughly enjoyed that time in my life and life just gets better and better from there.

Heather

parker — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:30:46 +0000

Had a quick shoot with Heather. One location and about 45 minutes. I think we did pretty good with the time/location constraints. Here are some of my favorites.

On a completely unrelated note, I think I’ve finally settled on a format for my posts. I’ve been torn for quite a while about what size is best to display photos here on the blog. You may have noticed that I’ve been all over the map with the layout and size of my images here. I’ve been experimenting and have struggled to be satisfied any of the arrangements. I finally decided on 900 pixels wide. Actually inspired by the layout of boston.com’s Big Picture blog. They may be too big for some older monitor resolutions, but by clicking on my images (while on my blog and not in an RSS reader), the images will be sized to fit your screen a little better. In some cases that my be smaller or bigger than what you see here. The best viewing experience is really on my blog and not in an RSS reader. Although I won’t hold it against you if you just look at it in an RSS reader, that is what I do 90% of the time too.

Andi – Cedar City Senior Photography

parker — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:53:49 +0000

Had fun taking Andi’s pictures. Andi is graduating from Canyon View High School in Cedar City. She actually finished up a bit early.

My goal was to take a familiar location and make it not-so-familiar. In other words, I didn’t want the location to be immediately obvious, although I’m sure it isn’t too hard to figure out. I think as photographers we need to be able to re-use locations and make them look fresh each time. At least that is how I feel and what I try to do. In reality, it is a good skill to have. Sometimes we don’t have a choice where the location is. We may be given a really crappy location, yet still expected to perform (make good looking pictures). Sometimes all you need is 3 feet of background. Think of it in those terms and new locations will start appearing everywhere.

I am not a real big photo tilting fan. I don’t tilt the camera just to look creative. I tilt when it is necessary for the composition to work. For example, if by tilting the camera I can eliminate something in the frame that takes away from the composition, then by dang I’ll tilt the camera. But no tilting just cuz. In this first shot, by tilting I was able to eliminate the edge of a building and still keep Andi’s elbow in the frame. I think it works.

Katie – SUU Senior Portraits

parker — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:30:12 +0000

Katie is a senior at Southern Utah University. She’ll be graduating this May and moving on to graduate school. Katie wanted some senior portraits and custom graduation invitations. I’m really excited about these photos and the invitations. As soon as she decides on which design she likes, I’ll post the invitation.

The Harpist

parker — Sun, 17 May 2009 06:30:11 +0000

I took these a couple of weeks ago. I am continuing to build my portfolio of senior portraits. This was a fun shoot. We had some fun with this harp.

The Dancer

parker — Sun, 17 May 2009 06:00:07 +0000

Graduation Card

parker — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 22:53:29 +0000

This is a follow up to the senior portraits I posted yesterday. The senior, McKay, gave me an idea of what he wanted to do for his graduation card. He showed me a design he liked and I adapted it for him and threw in my own tweaks and style to it. This kid is graduating with his Associate’s degree from SUU at the same time he graduates from high school. I wish I could have done that.

Here is the front of his graduation card.

This is the inside of the card. They wanted it to be simple.

Senior Portraits

parker — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 06:59:40 +0000

I had a chance recently to do a senior portrait session. I am hoping to do more in the future and eventually have a gallery on my main site of senior portraits. As always with my photography, on location lighting is very important to me. I look at a lot of outdoor portraits that only use available light, with perhaps some bounce reflectors, and while they look nice, evenly lit, have a nice soft lighting touch, my style as a photographer is to use the available light and enhance it with my own lights. It is amazing what a bit of extra light can add to a photograph. It is all about balance. Balance between the “available” light and the light added by the photographer.

(click on the images to see a larger version)

I wanted to go with a look that was a little different from a lot of senior portraits. The lighting is definitely more dramatic and interesting. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out and so what this young man. That is the important part.

You can view more of the images here.