Darin's Summer Senior Pictures

I had my first senior picture session of the summer a few days ago and I have to say that I am off to a great start!  Darin is one of my former first graders (oh, how fast time seems to fly by...   ) and his mom helped in my classroom when I had both Darin and his brother.  In fact, she helped in my classroom when I didn't have either of her boys... LUCKY ME!!  This woman is pretty amazing and I was so blessed to have her in my classroom.  So, I was thrilled to be taking Darin's senior pictures.

We met at the family farm, which was the PERFECT place to take pictures of this amazing young man.  He was truly in his element.  I remember the "little boy", but it was so much fun to see him all grown up.  I'm sure his parents are proud of the person he has grown up to be, but I also felt so proud watching him interact with the animals and farm machinery during our session.  You can see and hear his passion for farming in his actions and his words.  I  hope you can see this in the photographs!!

I have to share a few "highlights" from our session... and some of them have nothing to do with photography.  I am a "town" girl.  That means I know very little about life on a farm other than the fact that there are animals, fields and a bunch of machinery that I cannot seem to identify.  My husband often quizzes me when we pass a field asking me what's growing there.  Corn is pretty easy, but if it just looks green, I have no idea.  So, hanging out on the farm was pretty thrilling for me (I'm sure Darin and his parents think I'm nuts by now because I was just so EXCITED about everything).  I was up close and personal with a bunch of cows who were very well behaved and I got to ride up and down on some kind of lift (I'm sure it has a special name that I can't remember) thanks to Darin's dad.  As a side note here, I have to admit that my "lift" is pretty unstable (that would be my kitchen step stool) and I actually fell off it while in with the cows.  I've been wobbling around on this stool for a year and I guess I should invest in something a little more stable (smile).  I survived my fall with a scrape and a bruise and thankfully, there were no cow patties lying around!  In addition to all this excitement, Darin has 2 calves which were adorable (well, they were to me).  So, add petting calves to my list of farm fun.  We finished up at the farm and headed out to their wheat field.  Darin's mom "made" her husband and Darin wait to cut a section of the wheat so we could use it for our session.  I think I heard someone say they were afraid of her (smile).  It rained on our drive over to the field, but stopped after a few minutes - lucky us!!  More farm fun for me at this location!!!  After some photos in the wheat field, I wanted to photograph Darin with the machinery behind him... but I wanted the machinery on the opposite side of the field so we would not have electrical wires in the shot.  Darin's dad asked me if I wanted to DRIVE THE COMBINE!  Heck YES I wanted to drive the combine!  That thing was HUGE and I actually drove it!!  I was like a little kid at Cedar Point (amusement park in Sandusky Ohio)!   I don't think the morning could have gotten any better. OH... and I took some pictures too (smile).

Darin was a great sport during the entire 3 hour session (most sessions are about an hour and a half... but I was having so much fun, I totally lost track of the time).  That's a long time for a Senior boy to pose for pictures and Darin didn't even ask me once "how much longer?"  I give him big bonus points for that!!   At the end of the session, there was one last piece of excitement... well, I wasn't so excited about this.  We were walking to the car and this big (well, it looked big to me) black snake slithers right by me.  AHHHHHH!  I do NOT like snakes at all!  I'm so glad I didn't see that when we arrived at the field or I wouldn't have wanted to crawl around in the wheat - YIKES!!!!

Check out a few of the photos from our session below.  Darin was completely relaxed in front of my camera (OK, maybe it felt familiar because I'm sure I took a bunch of pictures of him when he was in my first grade!).  The setting was so beautiful.  My favorite photo is the first one below.  I think it really captures Darin's personality.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.  I have more Senior sessions scheduled in July.  Stop back later this month to check out my next session!

*Click on the first picture to view the photos a little larger in a slide show.  Use your arrow keys to scroll through the photos.