And then there was Emilie.
Emilie. Emilie. Emilie. She wasn’t my last senior to photograph and I can’t say I saved the best for last because that’s not true, I love all my seniors, but Emilie? Emilie is different. This girl is so special. She may look familiar as she was on over half of my sessions with me as my assistant for the 2018 Seniors. She carried my bag full of lenses, my reflector and anything else I dragged out to a session. As we worked together she was able to see the same things I was looking for, wispy hairs to remove, hair-ties off of wrists, straighten shirts, glaring light off foreheads and she even knew when I was ready to switch lenses sometimes before I did. Our little road trips to other senior sessions gave me a chance to really get to know her and hear about her future goals. How she daily drove to Arapahoe HS for EMT classes and then drove back to Parker to attend high school classes. Playing softball in a travel league team that wasn’t in Denver that required weekly travel. Her goals and pursuits are strong and though she has had a few set backs with her health, she gets right back up and strives harder. This girl just really lights up a room when she walks in and I’m so glad she walked into mine. I have to give big thanks to her good friend, my assistant from the year before – Allison for recommending Emilie to me.
If you have questions about being an assistant – here is what Emilie did for me this past year… I move around a lot at a session and like to have another person on hand to help carry the reflector and guide light to the senior, carry my bag so I don’t leave it behind and watch for imperfections that can be fixed before I take the photo. I normally pay $10 an hour as an assistant but I worked it out with Emilie that if she came to at least more than half of my sessions, that would cover over half of her session fee for her own senior pictures. By doing this, she’s at the end of the list for her session but it also gave her a chance to see all the locations, so she saw all the great places I go to. Another small perk – with her going to all these sessions with me, she was a pro at posing herself on her own session, very little direction and she knew what favorite poses she wanted. She also asked for some fall photos, which created a ‘seasons’ session for her and the fall leaves all around her just made her ‘pop’ in photos! She did such an amazing job being my assistant and was just so helpful beyond what was required of her, when I search for my next assistant they have big shoes to fill!
Emilie is my assistant again this year – so some 2019 seniors will see her and then she heads off to college and I will tell you… it will be like my kids going off to college all over again, she has a special place in my heart. So here she is – my Emilie – 2019 Legend High School Senior.
She can also been seen at the Susan B. Prom Session and the 2018 Photo Contest I entered early this year.
