The Lake Superior Senior Portraits of Hannah & Brianna
Hannah & Brianna’s Lake Superior senior portraits began at Split Rock Lighthouse State Park. In the same time slot, we photographed our niece Nicole’s Lake Superior senior portraits too. (We’ll have another blog post about Nicole’s senior portraits coming very soon). Joannie & I took turns photographing each of the girls at every location.
It was the first time in our 22 years of North Shore Weekends, that we’ve ever done three senior photo sessions simultaneously. I’m very happy to say that it actually worked out really great!
Hannah & her best friend Brianna.
Hannah has been friends with Brianna since they were babies. At several locations, we captured very cute images of these two life-long friends! Brianna is also a high school senior, and she came along just for the fun of being with Hannah and her mom, Josie, on their road trip. While she wasn’t really there to have her senior pictures done, we snuck in several portraits of her from time to time.
Split Rock Lighthouse State Park
Just like it was on Saturday, Sunday was another sunny, warm & humid day for Lake Superior senior portraits. Because of the very sunny conditions, we had to use every ounce of our lighting magic for these three girls and their senior portraits.
Hannah in Lake Superior National Forest.
My brother Roger helped to shield the girls from the sun with our giant six-foot translucent umbrella. At the same time, we were putting soft portrait lighting on them with one of our high powered WITSTRO MoLight AD360II-C strobes and our four-foot softbox. We also employed a MoLight V860II-Canon Speed-light that we used as a kicker and hair light.
While at Split Rock Lighthouse, I had just finished some of Hannah’s senior portraits and I wanted to add Brianna for a buddy shot with the famous lighthouse in their background. Because of the rocky terrain, Brianna wasn’t wearing her cute shoes, and so she had a really difficult time walking barefoot over to where we were because of the rocky shoreline. So in fun, I said to Hannah, “She’s not from around here is she?”, to which Hannah replied, “No, she’s from Wisconsin.” And so a new nickname was born!
From then on, Brianna was officially known as “Wisconsin!”
Black Beach
While we were at Split Rock, Josie told us about a place that we’ve never been to before, Black Beach in Silver Bay. She suggested that we go there and take a look around, so we did.
It was a pleasant surprise to find another location for our annual trip up north for Lake Superior senior portraits. It was still pretty sunny out, but we managed to create some pretty images of the girls while we were there.
Hannah in the birch trees at Black Beach.
Iona Beach
We departed Black Beach and headed south towards Two Harbors with a stop at Iona’s Beach. The sun was starting to get low in the sky and the resulting softer light was very welcome to us. We still kept using our big 48″ softbox, but now it was used as a fill light instead of the main light.
Brianna at “Pink Beach.”
The images we created in the forest and on the beach are so pretty and so much fun too! The girls even took to the cold water of Lake Superior for a few images.
Gooseberry Park Cottages & Motel
Hannah’s mom is very quiet and soft-spoken (actually, she’s exactly the opposite, and that’s what Joannie & I love about her), who on more than one occasion told me that she was hoping to get some images of Hannah with sunflowers. Well, there really aren’t any sunflowers anywhere on the north shore to speak of, but we did find some pretty yellow flowers at the Gooseberry Park Cottages & Motel. This was where Josie and the girls were staying for the night.
Hannah in the garden at Gooseberry Park Cottages & Motel.
The sun was now setting, and so it was our last senior photo stop for the day. And boy, did we ever make the very best out of it! Several really pretty senior pics of all three girls. Even one of Josie all by herself with the yellow flowers. I’ll be sending that one to the yearbook staff right away Josie!
What A Sunset!
“Wisconsin”
Our closing sunset Lake Superior senior portraits are so stunning that they actually look fake. I promise you that there are no Photoshop tricks being applied here, just great lighting equipment, and being at the right place at the right time for a really pretty sunset.
Mother & daughter.
Afterwards, we all drove to Two Harbors for a nice dinner together at Black Woods Grill & Bar. It was the perfect ending to a great day!
Joannie & I want to thank Josie, Hannah & “Wisconsin” (along with Nicole and Roger) for making the trip up north for our 22nd annual North Shore Weekend. We had a great time with you guys and we are grateful for your friendship and for being your senior photographers. –M&J