A Sunrise Senior Session

I’ve had a LOT of maternity, birth and newborn sessions this summer so this sunrise senior session with my cousin-in-love, Haley, was extra fun! Senior sessions are a little more free flowing and since there’s only one person to direct, that can give us lots of room to play around! Originally we had planned to meet in the evening, but due to the terrible air quality that we had at the end of July, we had no choice but to reschedule. Now neither her nor I are particularly “morning people”, however, we both met dark and early before the sun rise at 5:30am because with both of our busy schedules, this was the only window that really remained open! I will say though, any time I’ve scheduled a sunrise session, I feel like both me and my clients are rewarded with the most beautiful light and this morning was no different.

The fun part of shooting in the morning is that instead of running out of light (which is the element that I absolutely need to do my job and to do it well) I am only getting more light! Golden hour ushers us into the day instead of serving as a warning as it does in the evening. In fact, sunrise sessions mean that I can feel less rushed and actually have more time to shoot. Haley’s senior session was a jam packed three hour shoot (including drive time). We started at a new-to-me location in Bayport, MN that I have been saving for a sunrise session and then ventured back over the border to WI to shoot at the Bugatti building in North Hudson. We made a pit stop at a small offshoot of Willow River State Park and then circled back to Stillwater, MN to grab a coffee at Nina’s before wrapping up with the historic downtown Stillwater bridge.

This may be one of my favorite ways to start a work day, if you ask me. We had lots of fun, had plenty of time to play around and Haley was a trooper with all my prompting. It felt like a full day by 9am as I anticipated given the early wake-up call, so I absolutely penciled in a nap for that afternoon. Thanks to Haley, I’m now really looking forward to any other seniors that would be up for an adventurous and fun senior session!