Brittany Burke | 2015 Senior Rep | By Michelle and Brittany

How does one even sum up a session jam packed with this much gorgeousness? Let us first start by explaining our vision for our senior sessions.

We joined our businesses so that we could do epic stuff like this… Styled head to toe, professional makeup, hairstyling a gazillion wardrobe changes and the experience of a lifetime. We want young women to feel beautiful and understand that what they see in magazines are not how people actually look everyday. However, they too can look and feel just as amazing as these models with a little bit of styling, makeup and two kick ass photographers 😉 (pardon my french). Every woman deserves to have at least one photograph they love of them selves. We believe that giving a young lady this experience in her teens creates more self confidence, even for those who feel they have no confidence at all.

So how do we pull all of this together in one day? We don’t. First we start off with a consultation so we can get a feel for who you are, and what you love. Not only do we want to push you a little bit outside of your comfort zone, but more importantly we want these images to reflect your true inner beauty. Consultations often take place in the comfort of your own home, where we can even scan your wardrobe for potential outfits to shoot! We can pretty much walk into any ones closet and instantly see what their style is, which makes everyones job easier. The next step is setting a few dates and then a night or two before your session, we regroup to put all of the outfits together. Typically between the consultation and time of shooting, we are in close contact to discuss ideas or themes which can often be inspired by a pinterest board or maybe something you’ve seen somewhere else. The reason for meeting the night before to put it all together, is so that there is less chaos on shoot day (The more prepared we are, the smoother your shoot will go as well as the end result). We want to shoot as many looks as the day will allow, and we put not time limit on your session, however they always end up taking the entire day! The best part is usually mom comes to join in on the fun and we believe it’s just as fun for moms as it is for our seniors. We should also add that we do a minimum of two sessions with seniors and a maximum of four. The two sessions are shot in the winter and summer, four sessions are shot in the winter, spring, summer fall. It’s amazing how close we get by the end of it, and what a way to remember your grad year!

Finally to sum up our day with Brittany and her mom Roselyn we started with hair and makeup. We really want to stress the importance of trust and allowing our team to glamify you, because Brittany is a girl who literally wears no makeup most of the time. If you don’t wear makeup on the regular, girls tend to say “Let’s just keep it really natural!”. We are all for keeping it simple and we definitely will be sure to capture a more “Au natural” look for one of your sessions but we think something magic happens when you step outside your comfort zone. Brittany is living proof of this and we couldn’t help but be giddy when she said “No really, you can just do whatever you want, I trust you guys!”.

One of our many favourite parts of the day was watching the way Roselyn admired her beautiful daughter, it is such a gift to be able to share these experiences with people. If you don’t know the Burkes, they recently lost their oldest daughter and sister Barbara, who was a little ray of sunshine. It wasn’t officially announced, but this shoot was totally dedicated to her and she would have loved being in on this with her little sister. The moment Roselyn was walking out of the house and spotted a pair of Brittany’s blue crushed velvet heels, was the moment we felt her presence, although I know Roselyn had probably felt Barbara with us right from the get go. We had this red vintage jacket with fur covered sleeves and a hint of blue lined in the coat; it paired perfectly with the shoes. Again, if you didn’t know Barbara… Blue was her color, so it was very special to be able to incorporate a little piece of her into these images. Another highlight of the day and on a lighter note… Boy did we laugh. We were shooting our first look in a friends back yard just by the Coxheath bridge, and the yard kind of ended with a very steep hill over looking some water. Brittany the pregnant daredevil thought it would be no big deal to just walk down the steep, snow covered mudslide so we could shoot by the water. So she gets on her bum and starts inching her way down, then Brittany B says “How are you going to get back up?”. Well we didn’t think that one through, so there she is laying on her back half way down the hill not able to move. Brittany B comes to help while wearing her wedding gown and nine inch heels and BOOM, she’s down (side note: Prior to this Lakyn who was assisting us also wiped out venturing through the yard). So three girls down in the span of 15 minutes was pretty hilarious, especially when Roselyn was taking a video of us in hysterics post fall. She was smart and stayed far away from any bit of hill that would cause wipe outs and peeing your pants. Yes… Preggo peed a little.

We could write all day about the laughs and hilarious series of events that took place, from the mudslides to the paparazzi in the dirty laundromat but we will cut it off here. We really had a lot of fun and made some memories that will last forever! We hope when scrolling through these images you will see the value in freezing time like we do. What an amazing feeling it will be when this girl looks back at these images years from now, especially if she’s having one of those days. We all have those seasons of feeling blah but with photos like these she will always be reminded of her youth and her beauty… inside and out.

If you knew Barbara, we hope that you will see her through these images like we do. She was with us this day, and I am sure she was laughing just as hard as we were.