What to Wear Wednesday...with Rob Hillis

It's WTWW and this week we have Rob Hillis Photography joining us with his take on Americana!"My two favorite holidays of the year are Independence Day (the 4^th of July) and Christmas.  These are two completely different holidays in two completely different seasons and two completely different reasons to celebrate.  I love the 4^th of July for many reasons but some of the biggest attractions for me are the colors and the time of year.I love being in sunny south Texas right smack in the middle of summer and gearing up for the big 4^th of July celebrations. The parties, the bbq’s, the lake, the river, the fireworks, the colors and the sun! Nothing screams fun like a good 4^th of July party.That was the inspiration for my model session this year. I wanted to have my senior reps do their first group session and do it big with a fun and relaxed atmosphere. I put together some style ideas that I was thinking of on a Pinterest board and shared it with my group. I wanted everyone to wear something different but keep the theme red, white, and blue or Americana. I wanted a viewer to be able to look at any of the photos in the collection and tell that the theme was Americana without actually having to tell them. Well, I think we nailed it.For inspiration I looked to what they would wear if they were heading down to the river or the park for some summer fun. So I wanted comfortable and casual. I definitely wanted to incorporate some Americana style props in the session so we picked out some small flags, some cute 4^th of July themed glasses, a cute cowboy hat with the stars on it, and flag bandanas.For patterns, I wanted to avoid anything too busy or overly patterned. I wanted a nice clean look. There were a lot of girls for the session and I felt that too many patterns was going to be distracting for the eye. There would be too much to process so I wanted solid colors so the focus was on each individual rather than a bunch of outfits. Simple and casual with the colors making the statement rather than the patterns. Old Navy is always a good place to start for summer tees, tanks, and shorts for this sort of theme as is Forever 21 and Aeropostale.We shot along the San Antonio River in the beautiful historic King William district just south of downtown San Antonio. It’s a fantastic place to shoot all year long but especially now with everything being so green and lush. We did two outfits for each girl and really focused on the group shoots as this was our first team photo session. I love how the finished product came out. Every girl had their own style and it fit perfectly with the others even though they were all different. Some of my favorites from the session are shown here. This was my first time doing this type of theme and I am really looking forward to next year."It def looks like they were having fun! I like the combination of classy and casual...it seems to fit well together here! Thanks so much for joining us, Rob!Stay Stylish!Megan