I shot portraits for the Homeschool Prom. Now, before you start the homeschooler jokes, you should know two things: First, only those who have been homeschooled may make fun of homeschoolers. Secondly, yes, it was pretty weird.

I haven’t been to a prom in about 10 years, so I went there expecting one thing, and found out that kids are way cooler now than I was then. Now, of course some things haven’t changed. Homeschoolers still can’t form lines and are pretty much useless when it comes to figuring out what to do in a cafeteria, but as a whole, we’re pretty rad now. It’s taken long enough.

Speaking of cool, this is Sammi and Simond. They were, with exception to my brother and his beautiful date, the coolest couple there.

Shooting a prom was a challenge to me because I am so used to having a couple or an individual for an extended period of time to pose and create the photo, this was so fast and furious, it was tough to not fall into the canned poses. With the help of my sister Phoebe, and my future-sister-in-law Kelsey, we never did the same pose twice the entire night. That was really important to me. The point of having a portrait taken is to capture the essence and personality of the person or people being photographed. That’s hard to do when you’ve only got 3 minutes and a line waiting.

Nerd alert: Shot outside the Harrison Opera House, where the prom was held, using a Nikon D700 on a tripod with a Nikkor 20-35mm f/2.8 at 20mm. Lit with an Alien Bee B1600 shooting through a beauty dish. Another Alien Bee is lighting the front of the building. I love dramatic shadows with evening gowns.

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