Senior year of High School.
It is filled with a lot of "lasts". For many students, this will be the last year that they will live at home. Or that they will be in school with so many of the people that they have grown up with. This may be the last year in what has been their home town. Which also means that it is a point in time that is right on the brink of so many "firsts". First time living away from "home". First real dip into some of what being an adult means. It truly is the point where one chapter of life is coming to a close and another is about to begin. So it stands as such a defining moment in the lives of our Seniors. Which is why, I believe, Senior Portraits are important.
Part of the reason we take Senior Portraits, I believe, is to celebrate who that person is at this point. All that they have accomplished in becoming the person they are right now. A celebration of who they have grown into. And an acknowledgement that they are about to embark on another important journey of growth.
But I also think that Senior Portraits are for future times. A way of looking back as a benchmark of where someone has come from. A way of re-connecting with who they were. And a way of connecting with their own children when relay the story of their life to them...or when their children have become High School Seniors themselves.
I am a big believer that Portraiture, in all of its forms, is really about the future. About capturing part of the past to carry with us and to carry into the future.
And so it is with these pictures of my step-daughter, Maya. My hope is that sometime in her future there may be a time where she shares these pictures with her own children. And, who knows, maybe bell-bottom pants have come full circle AGAIN and are back in style and they can laugh about that. But mainly my hope is that it is something that they can sit and share and develop a deeper understanding of the mythology of their family and who they each are.
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