Nicolette's Senior Photos, Part One

For most any photo shoot, the first 10 minutes or so is all about getting comfortable and loosened up.  Both for myself and for the people I photograph.  We chit-chat, snap photos, and I get to know their style, they get to know my style.  We hang out.  The photos are almost always tense and awkward the first 10 minutes with forced smiles and stiff poses.  After that, the ice tends to break and with it, true personality can show through and we can work together to achieve really great, natural photos.
So it was really unfortunate that just as Nicolette arrived for her senior portraits photo shoot, the clouds rolled in and thunder grumbled through.  So I rushed to get some photos in before the rain that was sure to come.  I felt bad that I might have come off as impatient or controlling, with this sense of urgency about me- totally NOT my usual approach to a photo shoot!  And what should have been our casual getting-to-know-one-another-time, ended up being our entire shoot for the day.
Yep, we breezed through the first 10 minutes and then the sky opened up and we ran for our cars.
I am definitely looking forward to our rescheduled shoot in a few weeks!  But we did manage to get a few good shots in today.  Here are the ones I liked best: