St. Louis Photographer » A Journal by Holly McCaig

What can I say? She definitely made shooting easy! Cady attends Fort Zumwalt South and hired me to come out to Main Street in St. Charles to take her photos for her senior year. She’s a dancer and cheerleader – her personality is fun and I love when these kids are up for my crazy ideas. I often wonder if they think to themselves, “what is she doing with this, now?” but I know in my head that the end results are going to make it all clear to them. I try to remind myself not to take a few shots, take a quick peak, and then gush. I do that a lot.

So, I give you, the adorable, Cady’s senior portrait peeks!

We were working on shooting some dance poses and moves, but poor Cady was so sore from a hard-core day of dancing the day before. We talked about some ideas and we’re going to do some fun stuff this spring with some of her dance costumes. Really excited for that!

Thanks Cady! You rocked it!

Seniors, today is the last day to take advantage of our $100 creative fee special! Don’t miss out! We have three more lined up and we’re so excited! Visit the senior website at hollymccaigseniors.com.

Here’s the rest of Ashley’s photographer favorite peeks. Ashley is a senior this year and has such enthusiasm and is so fun to work with. We had a lot of fun at Faust Park. And, check out the heels in the second to last photo! Talk about snazzy! Her mom said her closet is full and she was changing her mind about what to bring the day of the shoot. Love a girl with fashion sense!

I forgot how much I LOVE working with textures in my files – the one on the right I used a fake tilt shift from Nichole Van and applied a texture with a bit of a cross process. LOVE LOVE!

Had to make that one big. It’s so awesome!

Her eyes are to die for, right?

She runs track, so we had her running and jumping at us. Too cute. It also gets people to relax.

No, look at the shoes on the right!!!!

Fighting off the kiddos on the swing. Love this shot! So cute, playful.

And, don’t forget about the awesome referral program, seniors! Book, get your friends to book, and you get $25 print credits. If you’re a junior, consider applying for our senior model search. Read the post here or click on our website for details!

I’m in the middle of these edits, but because we did a few minutes in the studio to start, I figured it doesn’t hurt to share my favorites from these! Photographing the high school senior market is my absolute favorite thing. I love that age, the personalities, the excitement of knowing it’s going to be such an awesome year before they graduate. It brings back memories of my own high school experiences.

Most schools require you to have your yearbook photos taken at a contracted photography studio. However, you aren’t required to have all of your photos taken at that studio! Just because it has to go in the yearbook doesn’t mean you have to give those to your best friends and family! Hire a lifestyle photographer, like myself, to go to some of your favorite locations and capture the true you! Multiple outfit changes and so much more mean that your friends and family can look at those photos and say, “that’s so Ashley!”

Stay tuned for my new high school seniors website coming in the next few days!

Meanwhile, here are a few of my favorites from Ashley’s studio session (watch for her Faust Park session this week!):

Last week, I spent about a day and a half in Springfield, Missouri with my dear friends, Kristy and Tracy (and their families). Kristy drove all the way in from Charlotte, NC for family time and it gave us the perfect opportunity to photograph her new high school senior, Jessie! I was so excited about this because Springfield is such an amazing town. It’s eclectic, artsy, and has LOTS of amazing locations for that urban feel. I am still processing some other sessions, but had to pull one quick one out to put up on the blog to give you an idea of the fun things I like to do with my seniors. So, yes, I can travel to you for the cost of travel fees in addition to your creative rate. Or, come see me in St. Louis!

And, can I just add that Jessie is such a gorgeous girl! She made it all too easy to do portraits. Really! Look for more of Jessie’s session later.

So, are you done Christmas shopping? I’m not. I am doing my best to make everything, except for the things for the men because well, I just don’t do much in the way of craftiness for the fellas. I should work on that for next year.

I’ve been super busy with finalizing some ETSY orders and getting those out. ETSY isn’t get anything new till after the first of the year and you can see that I don’t have much left in there. Can’t gaurantee any shipping for Christmas either now, unless you are local and want to come by and pick something up. Just let me know. My ETSY: hollymccaig.etsy.com.

Started to go through some of the photos from this past weekend in Ohio and the first set was with a beautiful, and photogenic family. I admit, I was there for the dogs, but I can’t resist a cute kid or two – heck, even a newborn!