A Senior Shoot With Texture

I love photography. There’s just something about chasing light and capturing life with a camera that feeds my soul – seriously.

I love photography so much that I actually refuse to turn it into a business – I sincerely think the workaholic in me would ruin all the fun!

So when the opportunity presented itself to chase light in Arizona shooting my nephew’s senior pics, I was in. We scouted out the location the morning before to make sure that we could get it in the best light.

My nephew and his friends wondered why the light wouldn’t be the same at sunrise as it was at sunset. Valid question (obviously teenagers would prefer a sunset shoot over a sunrise shoot). I explained that the way the light hit the old abandoned warehouse windows and doors perfectly at sunrise. At sunset the concrete walls on the west side would block it all.

So off we went at 5:45am, a bit groggy but ready to chase light…

And it was so worth it…

See the rake lighting from the garage doors to the east?

We also used the light to get some cool silhouette photos like this one (which I later edited in Lightroom to add the graduated filters with color to make it look like a killer sunrise):

I also had some fun with textures – here is the before and after (you can view it larger here):

Here’s a look at the layers palette for the texture photo – remember this texture? I applied it first as an overlay with a 63% opacity:

I then applied the Elysium Flypaper Texture, using a layer mask to remove the texture from my nephew. You can find it as part of the Taster Package for $9.99 here. (That isn’t an affiliate link – just pointing you to one of my favorite resources).

All in all it was an awesome day! Also for my FPF101 students, yes I keyworded and captioned the photos – there were quite a few fun stories behind the photos I will share in another post. This place was a pretty crazy place to shoot – not sure I’d go there after dark!