Not Your Mother’s Prom: Mt. View Senior Prom Photography

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The one about the senior prom photos.

“Be infinitely flexible and constantly amazed.” –Jason Kravitz

So, you may have seen the sneak peek of the Mountain View High School Senior Prom photos that I posted last weekend. Here’s the Rest Of The Story…. and the rest of the prom photos.

Sometimes you have a great idea and a plan and things go exactly the way you plan. Other times, you just hold on…. You see, I had this cool idea about an abandoned parking lot, a hand painted backdrop, some spiffy models, sunglasses, and bubbles. About the time I was having this vision, Hannah walks in and wants to know if I’m planning to take any photos of her for prom. Oh, and would I take some photos of a couple of friends too… You can probably see where this is heading.

Except did you imagine that I would get turned down? No, seriously. Her first group of friends politely declined. At first, I thought about just scrapping my ideas and doing what they wanted. But the reason a photographer offers a free photo session is that they want to do what they want to do. Right? If you want a portrait photographer to do the thing you want to do, that’s what the dineros are for.

So, no photo shoot after all. Ideas parked. End of story.

Nah, not really. I told Hannah that I still wanted to try my idea, and she could ask another group of friends if they were interested. Success! The new group was really into the idea.

Ah, but here’s the twist to the story. The first group of prom-goers was about 10 people.

About a week and a half before The Day, Hannah says to me, “You know this group is about 25 people, right?” Say what? Oh, and we can’t do the session at 6pm, we have to do it at 3pm. For real? Ay, Caramba!

To the drawing board, Batman!

Task one: Find a new location. One that’s big enough for a crowd. Many, many phone calls and emails later, and some scouting around in the car, we get that nailed down. A quick check of the weather report… and… uh oh. Yay for back up plans, alternate locations, and plastic bags.

One more revision to the original plan and we are rolling (or was it eight more revisions… hard to say).

And, despite the uncertainties, the miserable weather, and everything else, they all came and played with me. That’s the coolest thing. All the teens and their parents came and took a chance on a photographer’s wild idea in the pouring rain on a chilly Saturday afternoon.