A Texas Senior Session | Hot 100 Winner

Today's featured senior session comes to you from one of our Hot 100 Winners, Cindy Swanson Photography, located in Heath, TX!"This was a destination senior session (actually my daughter) I wanted to step of the box for her and for ME! I highly recommend doing this, as it can renew your creative vibes and sometimes help to get you out of a creative rut that you might find yourself in from time-to-time. We wanted something different than the locations that we were used to me using locally and we are a beach family...(I think I might belong there.) So we headed to Malibu, California in August, and can I tell you, it was a dream come true for me! We shot on El Matador State Beach ON my birthday, and everything about it was just dreamy...most importantly the light, which I am all about the light! It is imperative when you shoot there to check the tide schedules. We were so fortunate in that it was low tide for that entire afternoon. Low tide opens up so much of the beach and makes available all of the rocks and arches that you see.When doing a destination session, a certain amount of planning has to be done prior to arrival. I checked around with other photographers who had shot there, Google Earth-ed a few beach locations and scouted around makeup artists and made contact with what turned out to be an amazing hair and makeup artist team who came to our rental home in Malibu. This made for such a fun, relaxing afternoon for the model. The home we rented not only was stunning and had ocean views, but as she got dressed, it dawned on me that the dress she was in was almost exactly the same coloring in the home. So the photos you see inside are in that home prior to the beach shoot. The light flooding into that room was also a dream.We headed out to El Matador, walked down what may have been 300 stairs and found ourselves in a heavenly looking spot.There were people to work around on the beach, but for the most part, people were accommodating. We had 4 in our group, so as she changed up near the caves and rocks, we held reflectors up to shield her.The turquoise dress that you see is perfect for this kind of shoot. There was a little wind and the fabric is very flow-y. And the dress actually makes me think of water, or waves, etc. so I knew it would be beautiful to shoot that dress on the beach. Of course, we choose her hair to be beach waves to fit the look we were going for."Gear: "I used a Nikon D700 for this session and switched between my 85mm 1.4 lens and my 24-70mm lens."Inspiration: "What inspired the session was that she is a beach girl, some of her best memories are there. And what better way to document your senior portraits at a place you love! Also the craving for something different inspired this session."Hair & Makeup: "We used Tanya and Stephanie from Page Beauty Los Angeles." How lovely!! I love the vibes from this session, the wardrobe, all of it! So dreamy....she is so gorgeous and you NAILED these shots. Thanks so much for sharing with us!You can find more of Cindy's work on Facebook and Instagram!Thanks for reading SSG!Megan