a portrait of the drag racer as a young woman

A couple weeks ago I tried something new:

senior portrait photography

Jodi's little cousin Emily - who though she looks all sweet can whip anyone's butt on the racetracks and should probably just plan on being the next Danica Patrick - graciously asked me to do the honors of shooting her portraits and I was beyond thrilled to do so.

After a few weddings and having lost track of how many events I've shot in the last year, this could have been a piece of cake ((which I mean, look at this girl, she's adorable... my job was basically done for me)) but being just shy of a decade away from getting my own portraits done, I still remembered just how monumentally important senior photos are for a girl. 

((I still cringe thinking about how mine turned out... I wasn't too happy with myself at 17 and the last thing I wanted was to have those things canonized for the rest of my life and handed out to 2,000 other high school students - DestructiveOverlordOfSelfEsteem: 1, TeenageLauren: -14billion))

But like I said... Emily ((and the incredible grounds at Red Ridge Farms)) made my job easy. Look at the kid: she's stunning.

She was, however, a little nervous about being in front of the camera so her mom, Kelsey, was behind me acting like a total goof so we could get the perfect shot ((not in a Sears Portrait Studio "Look at the birdie!" kind of way but more in a taking flying leaps and thoroughly embarrassing her teenager kind of way - it worked perfectly)). Apparently Emily has a habit of doing a "fake smile" so mom was taking no chances of capturing anything but full-on authentic Emily.

Mission accomplished. 

((and now for a billion photos because I can't choose just a few))

((you're used to this by now, right?))

Thank you so much, Emily, for trusting me with your photos!