Professional Senior Portraits in Mesa Arizona | Red Mountain High School

How about a throwback this week? Let's go back to 2017, the year my senior portrait sessions really started growing! Many of you have heard how special these kids are to me and how I love watching them grow into amazing young adults. Well, Alli is definitely no exception! She's written blog posts for me, helped me with my Style Closet, and is always willing to give that invaluable "young person" perspective I need to make sure my business thrives! I love her every bit as much as I did when we met over 5 years ago!

Senior Picture Ideas for Red Mountain High School

As a photographer who offers professional senior portraits, I get to meet lots of high school seniors but I’m not sure I could love a senior more than Alli!!!  She’s just my kind of girl.  Sweet, giggly, gorgeous, and tons of fun!  Alli is a graduate from Red Mountain High School and both she and her mom Lisa wanted something special for her senior pictures.  We started in Downtown Mesa, and what I love about this area is it can be grungy and urban, country chic, or sweet and vintage!  It works very well for senior portraits and when you have a girl with an awesome variety of outfits and a ukulele, you just can’t go wrong!  Her beautiful floral dress was sweet and comfy, and while I usually love girls with lots of shoes, most of Alli’s pictures looked best when she was barefoot.  Hey, I never said you would stay clean during your senior pictures!  Arizona is dusty and I often find myself sitting or laying on the ground to get just the right angle.

Senior Portraits with Instruments

 The uke on the front steps of the Sirrine House was just so fitting and showed off Alli’s fun personality, which I’ll never forget!  

Cute Senior Portraits with Ukulele

FYI, often future grads will be inspired by another session and that was the case with the Alli’s uke. As she was looking for senior picture ideas on Pinterest, she saw these pictures and said this Downtown Mesa location was definitely on her list!

Professional Senior Portrait Ideas in Mesa, Arizona

Beautiful Outdoor Senior Portraits in Mesa

I don’t believe in limiting my clients, so we squeeze in as many outfits, looks, and locations as possible to give you the very best variety.  So once we were done in Mesa, we headed to Gilbert for some more gorgeous pictures.

Cute Senior Portraits in Mesa Arizona

Modeling Tips for Amazing Senior Pictures

Teen girls are always so hard on themselves.  My goal during senior photo shoots is to show them off with many different expressions.  Alli and her mom both agreed that this gorgeous black & white image makes her look like a model!  It sure does!!!  One of the biggest concerns I hear from senior girls is that they always look irritated and annoyed when they try to pull off a serious face. No worries though, I’ll help you along and you’ll get tips to be sure you look and feel fabulous for your professional senior portraits!

Professional Senior Portrait Headshots

Style Closet

Alli had the chance to try out some of our new accessories including jewelry and hats from Charming Charlie!  Over the years the accessory collection has grown to include a small trunk, lots of hats (loooooove hats!!!), fun jewelry, scarves, and whatever else I can find that will make senior pictures that much more fun!

Floppy Hats for Senior Pictures

Disneyland Fan

As if Alli wasn’t already rocking her session, next comes the Disney obsession!  If you’ve known me for any length of time, you know that our family loves all things Disney!  So Alli’s darling Minnie Mouse shirt coupled with iconic Disney ears was already perfect…but then the red shoes!  Absolute perfection and again, a great way to show off her fun loving personality!

Disney Ideas for Senior Portraits

Image Premiere and Ordering Session

Next comes Alli’s Image Premiere, which is every photographer’s dream!  We watched her slideshow and mom was near tears watching as her baby girl was getting closer to graduation every day.  One of my primary goals as a professional photographer working with teens and pre-teens is to bring out the confidence, let them see their inner and outer beauty, then create keepsakes that will remind them how special they are to their family.  So to hear Alli squeal in delight as she was able to see for herself, how truly stunning she is!  Like most seniors, she was a little nervous, but with just a little guidance she was a natural in front of the camera!  Yes, we had her singing, dancing, and laughing, which in person might seem a little odd, but WOW!!!  When you see the results it makes all that silliness worth it!

We worked together to create gorgeous artwork which met all their needs.  One of their favorites included a beautiful image box filled with double sided silk prints.  So now her family can swap out images and have lots of choices on which pictures they want to display!  Hearing Alli squeal in delight while opening her packages and seeing beautiful face just gives me chills!  Mission accomplished!  Happy mom, happy teen, and one very happy photographer!   Please excuse the low quality cell phone pix, but that smile was too great not to share!

Mesa Senior Photographer
Mesa Senior Photographer Products

Now it’s 2022 and the image box is still a client favorite…but now you’ll have the option of a 5×7 image box or the big one…the 11×14 keepsake box! Not to mention storyboards, acrylic blocks, and

I can’t help but smile remember sweet Alli. Since then she’s attended classes at BYU Idaho, moved back to AZ, and has the most adorable little furbaby named Mia!

8 Comments
  • I love that she kept her professional senior portraits in an image box to be able to display a different one as often as the mood struck. What a beautiful young lady!

    • As a mom, I love the image boxes too! I can never pick a favorite so this lets me change out images easily and display as many as I want. It’s perfect!

  • OMG, I love the ukulele photos, they are so much fun and really bring out her personality. As always you did a great job on these and offer so many options in locations and outfits

    • Hi Scott, aren’t those priceless?!?! And I just had another senior with a ukulele a couple weeks ago. Love how every session can inspire ideas for the current high school seniors!

  • Such a fun throwback to 2017. And there are some really great tips here for the class of 2022 as they plan out their session!

  • You can just feel Alli’s sweet personality in her senior photos. The gallery has so much variety with the locations in Mesa and all super cute outfits!

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