Lily-Caesar Rodney High School Class of 2019

When Lily's mother contacted me to do her Senior portraits, I was so tickled. Having taken photos of Lily through her dance studio, I knew she was funny, smart, quick, a beautiful ballerina, and a GORGEOUS young lady. 

We had a little difficulty getting together since it rained buckets not once, but TWICE on her scheduled session days. However, we finally got together on a pretty windy but sunny evening in April. We had decided on The Green in beautiful downtown Dover for Lily's portraits. The old stone walls, high white columns lush green areas and colorful colonial doors make for a perfect setting for a variety of images.

Lily is a not just a very intelligent high school senior who is getting ready to go study abroad in Spain, but she is also a very talented dancer. To get the perfect dance poses for that portion of her session, I picked up my trusty sidekick, Bliss (also Lily's dance teacher) and we headed off to Dover.

When Lily stepped out of her car wearing that black and white checked dress with her lovely long legs and hair curled to perfection, my heart did a little happy dance. She had brought with her exactly what we had discussed: a change of casual clothes (jeans and her future college t shirt) and a few colorful dance leotards with her pointe shoes. I had packed my car with a few props, several tutus and skirts, my changing tent and reflector and all the necessary supplies for touch ups...oh, and my camera equipment. :)  

We chatted briefly, made a plan and started on our way. After the very FIRST shot when Lily posed her leg to the left and played with her hair EXACTLY as I described, I knew we were golden. We worked our way around the historic buildings and Lily posed, smiled, followed my cues, and ROCKED the dressy portion of her session.

Then it was time for some fun! We moved into her extra curricular/college bound section of her session. For this section we walked around finding grungy iron gates, rusty pipes, chipped paint doors, and even an arched alleyway. The funkier the better for me!  Lily wears that University of Delaware t shirt pretty well, don't ya think? It was on loan from a friend of hers and she said it was an "antique." Love that! We took very good care of it. Lily will make and excellent Blue Hen and Delaware had better watch out. She's on her way to your Environmental Sciences department. 

To say we ended Lily's Senior session with a bang would be a gross understatement. Poor Bliss had been waiting and watching throughout the evening for her chance to help pose Lily in the perfect ballet positions. Right before I left my house the lightbulb went off over my head as I remembered the gold tutu I had stored. Lily's school colors are blue and gold. I ran to the client closet (okay I walked...Miss Sandy does not run) and grabbed the huge bag containing the fluffy long tutu. Lily had not told me which color leotard other than black that she was bringing so when she pulled out the royal blue leotard I knew it was fate. (okay, I am being overly dramatic, but who cares?) Using the tutus we brought with us, the new blush and lilac lyrical dress Bliss bought for the client closet, Lily's leotards, huge marble steps, rustic stone walls, Biggs Museum sculpture and the blooming shrubbery, we made magic for our high school ballerina.

We shot literally until the sun went completely behind the buildings and squeezed every minute into our session. Lily was quite simply amazing. She smiled, laughed, worked, took direction, and was absolutely perfect...so perfect in fact that she inspired me to get back to my BLOG for the first time in forever. 

I loved this session and I loved Lily. 

If you'd like to see more images from Lily's session visit my Facebook page or Instagram.