Senior Photos

On a crisp Autumn afternoon, my youngest went to have his senior pictures taken. He went under protest. He didn't understand why senior pictures had to be a big deal. He just needed one picture.
And, he needed some clean khaki shorts to wear, he warned as he headed back to school after lunch. Luckily, my husband had a load of laundry in the dryer, including a pair of khaki shorts.
I'd taken Tucker to the store a few weeks before and encouraged him to buy a new shirt for senior pictures.
"I'll just wear a shirt I have," he said and refused to pick out anything new.
So after school, with our 4 o'clock  appointment creeping closer, I asked what he planned to wear.
A blue polo shirt, he said. A polo shirt is as close as Tucker gets to considering himself dressed up. And a blue polo shirt is fine, but it isn't what he would normally wear. And I like a senior picture in clothes that the kids would usually wear.
"Maybe we'll just take along another shirt to change in to," I suggested.
"What? I'm not changing shirts. Where would I change?"
"You are a guy. You can take your shirt off and put on another one," I explained to my son who is a swimmer and spends half his life in a tiny Speedo swimsuit.
Then he put on his blue polo and I pointed out it was wrinkled.
"I'll iron it," I said.
"It doesn't need to be ironed. We need to go."
I held out my hand for the blue shirt and took along a red shirt that has some dark striations through it. I thought it might look good in contrast to his dark hair and beard.
And, yes, apparently the beard would stay for the picture.
Sullen, would be the way I'd describe him, as we scrambled to get out the door to meet the photographer.
But as soon as she met us, he became quite pleasant.

I took pictures of her taking pictures of him.

In both the red shirt and the blue shirt.

In various places around the park.

She thought the reddish grasses would go well with his red shirt. He warned me before we went that he was only doing close-lipped smiles. I told him we spent thousands of dollars on his teeth so he should be willing to show them.

I tried to convince him that he should have different smiles and we'd pick the one that looked best.

Spencer regrets that he "looks a little mean" in his pictures because he didn't smile, I told Tucker. 

"He is mean," Tucker said, still getting over his role of little brother apparently 

And when he got there, Tucker did smile. I guess he just likes to argue about it with me.

The photographer showed us a couple of shots that she got and I think we'll have plenty to choose from. Yes, they're all better than my phone shots in the background.

I noticed in the middle of the photography shoot that Tucker was wearing a bracelet. I don't know if it was a conscious decision to leave it on or if he just forgot it. I thought maybe he'd wear the watch he bought in Paris last year, but apparently that $100 expenditure has fallen out of popularity. 

The bracelet is one of those rubber ones, the kind Lance Armstrong made popular. This one is in support of a high school teacher and basketball coach who was just diagnosed with colon cancer before school started. So maybe it's okay that the bracelet is in his senior picture.

Graduation is Nearing

I can hardly believe it's already time to submit baby photos of the seniors to the yearbook. A lot of people go with toddler photos, so I wanted this one:


But Spencer said he preferred this one:

Even though he's holding his Pooh bear in it.
I'm also supposed to send photos of Spencer hanging out with friends in high school. I can't find any except from prom and since he and Claudia are no longer an item, that would be awkward. He doesn't have a Facebook, so no one tags him there. Guess I'll have to keep searching his friends' Facebook pages to see if he appears.

Senior Pictures

Does it seem to anyone else like I just posted Grace's senior pictures last month? Well, I guess it has been two years because today we went to take Spencer's senior pictures.
Like the hovering mom I am, I stayed in the background and took pictures of the photographer taking Spencer's picture.
His first choice for background was the local, outdoor basketball court. He's leaning against the fence here, but the photographer had the basketball hoop behind him.
He wore this shirt because I love the way he looks in it. The blue really brings out the blue in his eyes. Unlike Grace, and other girls, Spencer was not too picky about what he wore for his photo.
He tried sitting in front of the basketball hoop and the photographer had him sit way out front of the hoop so she could get the hoop in the background.
Although the weather is still hot, the humidity is down and the sky was a brilliant blue.
For his next round of pictures, Spence wanted to go to the railroad tracks. I had told him to pick some places that had meaning. I didn't ask why these railroad tracks have meaning. I probably don't want to know.
We hiked up the tracks to this railway signal. We were all fairly sweaty by the time we got there.
Around middle school, Spencer started having fake smiles in his pictures. Now he's so self conscious about his smile that it's hard to get a genuine one out of him in pictures. I hope the photographer managed to capture some. If not, we'll have to go with taciturn photos.
Hard to believe he's going to be a senior already.

Senior Pictures

After wading through proofs and more proofs, we've finally chosen the senior pictures that will go out in Grace's announcements. I remember that it was hard when I was a senior, and that was back in the old days when they actually used film. Imagine how many more shots they can take with digital.
For anyone who hasn't received a graduation announcement lately, the "in thing" is to hand out cards. The cards have the student's name, along with cell phone number and email address. Some of them have Facebook information too. The card has a picture on the front and back, which means we have to narrow it down to two favorite pictures. Here's the photo that we chose for the front of Grace's cards:

There's something about the way that the blue of the pool is reflecting on her face that I just love.
For the back of the card, she chose a picture because she loves the look of the stones that she's leaning against. It reminds her of a castle in France or Ireland, she says. She's so much like her mother, living in that fantasy world! Here it is with the contact information clumsily blocked out:

I remember my senior pictures. I wore a maroon velvet blazer, and don't even get me started on my hair with its swoops. I hadn't yet learned to live with my curly hair and they hadn't invented really good straighteners yet.
How about you? What was your senior picture like?