Sunday Media / Portraits
Senior portrait photography for the year right before everything changes
Two photographs come out of one afternoon. One follows your school’s rules down to the pixel and ends up in the yearbook. The other one has your car in it, your hands, your actual laugh, and it is the one you will still be looking at in twenty years.
Based in Guelph, ON. Shooting across Southern Ontario. Every fee, including travel, insurance and any permit costs, is discussed and agreed in writing before anything becomes binding.
Placeholder image. Swap this for your own senior portrait work before the page goes live.
The last photo of who you were before everything got real.
Open your camera roll and scroll back three years. There is a version of you in there you cannot quite get back to, and the only reason you can see that person at all is that somebody happened to be holding a phone on an ordinary Tuesday.
Final year is the last stretch where the current version of you exists in one place. Nothing dramatic happens. It is just that in eighteen months you will be somewhere else, around different people, introducing yourself in a slightly different way, and the person who walks out of that building in June quietly becomes somebody you talk about in the past tense.
That is what a senior portrait is for. Not only the little square in the yearbook, although we will hit your school’s specification exactly and there is a whole section below on how to get that right. The point is the other frames. The ones with your car in them, your jersey, your hands, the exact haircut you had that year, and the laugh your friends would recognise from across a parking lot.
Nobody takes these photographs by accident. Every other milestone arrives with a photographer built into it. Weddings have one. Convocation has one. The last year of high school has somebody’s mother in the driveway at eight in the morning holding a phone, which is lovely, and which is not the same thing.
This is a guide, not a pitch. Everything below is what we would tell you over a coffee whether you hire us or your cousin with a good camera. Take it, use it, and get the photographs made while there is still time.
Thirty minutes to two and a half hours
Sessions run anywhere from 30 to 150 minutes depending on the package you choose. The short end is one location, one outfit, the yearbook frame and a clean set of portraits. The long end is two or three locations, up to three outfits, the things you bring with you, and enough time in the middle for you to stop performing and start being photographed.
Two jobs, one afternoon
The yearbook frame has rules and the rest of the session has none. So we shoot the school specification first, in the first ten minutes, while your hair is still exactly the way you left the house. Then the rules go away and we spend the remaining time making photographs that look like you rather than like a form being filled in.
Made to print, not just to post
Files come back print ready at full resolution. The yearbook file is exported separately to whatever your school asks for, and the gallery version is sized for a frame on a wall. One of these ends up on a grandparent’s fridge within a week. That is a promise, not a guess.
Where do people actually shoot these?
A senior portrait has a requirement almost no other portrait session has. It has to look like a specific person in a specific year, and at seventeen a lot of who you are is made of places. The parking lot. The field. The stretch of downtown you walk on a Friday. Choosing a location for this session is closer to choosing a set for a short film about you than it is to picking a pretty background.
Most of what you need sits within twenty minutes of Guelph, and the honest answer for most people is two locations rather than one: somewhere with clean light for the yearbook frame and the classic portraits, then somewhere with meaning in it for everything else. Below are the seven that come up most across Southern Ontario, what each one gives you, and the permission you need before you turn up.
One filter to apply before anything else. Anywhere that belongs to an institution, which includes your own school, the university grounds and every conservation area, has a written policy on photography. Ask in week one rather than week five, because the answer is almost always yes and it almost always requires a form.
Your own school
The front steps, the field, the gym doors, the stretch of brick by the bike racksAlmost nobody thinks of this first, and it is the location with the most meaning in it by a distance. In four years you will not remember what the arboretum looked like. You will remember the specific set of doors you walked through every morning at ten past eight, and there is exactly one window of time in your life when standing in front of them makes sense.
Schools are usually happy to say yes and almost always need it in writing. Email the main office, not a teacher, and ask for permission for a personal photography session outside instructional hours. Say the date, the time, roughly how long, and that you will stay outside the building. Weekends and the hour after dismissal are the easy asks. During the school day with students around is the hard one, and the answer there is usually no for reasons that have nothing to do with you.
Ninety minutes before sunset on the shaded side of the building, or a fully overcast day at any hour.
Email the office. Ask about weekends and after hours. Get the yes in writing and bring it with you.
Team kit, band, the jacket, anything tied to what you actually did there for four years.
Portable classrooms, chain link, parking signage, and other students in the background who did not consent to being there.
Downtown and brick
Downtown Guelph, Elora, Fergus, St Jacobs, Galt, any main street with old stone on itThis is the look most people arrive already wanting, and Southern Ontario is unusually good at it. Old limestone, painted brick, iron fire escapes, a red door somebody repainted in the eighties. Texture behind a face does most of the work of making a portrait feel considered, and downtown gives you eight different backgrounds inside one city block, so outfit changes cost you nothing in travel.
The two problems are people and light. Sidewalks are busy from about eleven until six, and a narrow street of tall buildings can be in hard shade on one side and blown out on the other. Sunday mornings are the quiet secret. So is the last hour before sunset, when the low sun comes straight down the street and lights the whole block like a corridor.
The last hour before sunset down the length of the street, or open shade under an awning at any time.
Public sidewalk needs none. Standing inside a shop doorway or a private courtyard means asking the owner.
The editorial outfit, the leather jacket, anything that would look overdressed in a field.
Parked cars, sandwich boards, patio crowds, and coloured light bouncing off a red wall onto your face.
Arboretum and gardens
The University of Guelph Arboretum, Riverside Park, Guelph Lake, Rockwood, any mature treed parkThe most forgiving location on this list and the reason it is worth knowing about even if it is not your first choice. Under a mature canopy the light is soft in every direction, there is no bad angle, and the background is a wall of green that flatters every skin tone and every outfit. If the day turns out harsh and bright, this is where a session gets rescued.
It is also where you get the classic portraits without any styling effort at all. The trade off is that it looks like everybody else’s session unless you work at it, so we use the paths, benches, gates and stone walls rather than standing you in the middle of a lawn. Check the rules before you book a date. University grounds and conservation areas both distinguish between a family walking around with a camera and a booked photography session, and both usually want notice.
Two hours before sunset with the sun behind the trees, or any overcast afternoon.
Check the grounds policy. Some sites want a booking or a permit for a scheduled portrait session.
The soft outfit, the dress, the grandparents’ favourite frame, and every close portrait.
Dappled light through leaves at midday, mosquitoes near water in July, and dog walkers in frame.
Field and country road
Wellington County, Puslinch, Ariss, Erin, Grand Valley, any quiet concession roadIf one photograph from this session ends up printed large and hung on a wall, this is usually where it came from. Nothing behind you but grass and sky, low sun coming through from behind, and a background that is genuinely empty so the entire frame is about the person standing in it. Long grass at chest height in late August does something to a portrait that no studio can imitate.
One rule that is not negotiable. Farmland is somebody’s income. We ask the owner, we never walk standing crop, and we stay on the headland or the roadside. A cut hay field in September, asked for politely, is the best senior portrait location in this county and it costs nothing but a phone call. The other thing to plan is parking, because a concession road with no shoulder is a hazard, not a venue.
The last forty minutes before sunset, shooting into the sun through the grass. Nothing else compares.
Ask the landowner every time. Roadside allowance is public, the field behind the fence is not.
The wide frame, the walking shot, the car, and anything you want printed at wall size.
Ticks in long grass, wind with nothing to stop it, mud at the gate, and no washroom for miles.
River, gorge and bridge
The Speed River, Elora Gorge, Rockwood, Everton, Belwood, the old rail bridgesWater and stone give you scale, and scale is the one thing a portrait of a single person usually lacks. Standing on a limestone ledge with a gorge behind you produces a frame that reads as an event rather than a headshot, and the reflected light bouncing up off moving water is genuinely beautiful on a face at the end of the day.
This is the location with the most logistics attached. Conservation areas run by the Grand River Conservation Authority charge admission, close for the season, and have their own rules about commercial photography, so check the site before you commit to a date. Footing is the other consideration. Wet limestone is slippery, the good spots involve stairs, and none of this works in the shoes you actually want to be photographed in. Bring both pairs.
Late afternoon, with the sun above the far rim so the water lights you from below.
Conservation areas charge entry and may require a photography permit. Check the season dates too.
The dramatic frame, the one that does not look like anybody else’s, and moody weather days.
Wet rock, stairs, deep shade in the gorge floor by late afternoon, and gates that close earlier than you expect.
Home and the driveway
The porch, the front steps, the garage door, the kitchen window, the car in the drivewayThe quietly best option and the one nobody puts on a mood board. This is the address on every form you have ever filled in, the driveway you learned to drive in, and the room where all of it happened. In fifteen years it will be somebody else’s house, and a photograph of you on those steps will be worth more than a beautiful frame taken somewhere anonymous.
It is easy to shoot well. We work in open shade beside the house or on the porch, we photograph you with the car if the car matters, and we move the recycling and the hose out of frame first. It also costs nothing, needs no permission, and it means the whole family can wander out for two frames at the end without anybody having to drive anywhere.
Open shade on whichever side of the house the sun is not on, or the hour before sunset in the driveway.
None needed. It is your driveway. Warn the neighbours if we are going to be on the street for a while.
The car, the dog, the parents joining for two frames, and the honest quiet portrait.
Bins, hose reels, a neighbour’s bright vinyl siding, and hard shade cast by your own roofline.
The studio
Plain backdrop, controlled light, no weather and no strangersMost schools want a plain background, even light and no distractions in the yearbook frame, which is exactly what a studio is for. Shooting that file indoors takes ten minutes and removes every variable at once. No wind, no cloud, no passer by, no sun going behind a building halfway through. If your school specification is strict, or if the shoot lands in February, this is the reliable answer.
It is also the best place for anything you want to look deliberate: a musical instrument, a uniform, hands, a close portrait with nothing in the background competing for attention. Plenty of families do a short studio block for the school file and the formal frames, then go outside for everything else. That combination gives you both photographs without gambling either of them on the forecast.
Whatever we build. Soft and even for the school file, harder and shaped for the editorial frames.
None. Tell us the school specification in advance and we will set the backdrop and crop to match it.
The yearbook file, instruments, uniforms, glasses, and anyone who would rather not be watched.
Nothing much, which is the entire point. Bring every outfit, because changing takes seconds here.
How to choose, without overthinking it
Pick two, not five
Two locations inside a ten minute drive of each other is the sweet spot. Five locations means half the session is spent in a car and every outfit gets ten rushed minutes instead of twenty good ones.
One clean, one meaningful
Somewhere with easy light for the yearbook frame and the classic portraits, then somewhere that actually means something to you. That pairing covers every photograph this session needs to produce.
Ask for permission in week one
Schools, university grounds and conservation areas all say yes far more often than people expect. They just want notice. Sorting it early costs one email and saves the whole date.
Visit at the hour you booked
Not at lunch. Light moves. The wall that glows at seven is in flat shade at four, and the street that is empty on a Sunday morning is full of patio tables on a Friday.
Have a rain plan on day one
Decide the backup when you book, not when the radar turns green. A studio block, a covered downtown doorway, or a canopy in the arboretum. Then weather is a change of plan rather than a crisis.
Check the boring things
Parking, washrooms, somewhere to change, how far you have to walk in the shoes, and what time the gate closes. All of it decides how the last twenty minutes feel.
Our photographers already know these spots. They know which stretch of downtown Guelph is quiet on a Sunday morning, which conservation gates close early in October, where the light lands in the arboretum at half past six in September, and which country roads have somewhere safe to leave a car. Tell us the two places that mean something to you and we will tell you what time to be there. We are also building a full Photoshoot Locations guide for Southern Ontario, with maps, parking notes, permit details and the best hour for each spot.
One photograph on this page has rules
Every other frame from your session is a matter of taste. The yearbook square is not. It goes into a printed book alongside a couple of hundred other faces, and the person laying that book out needs every file to behave the same way. That is why schools publish a specification, and it is why a beautiful portrait can still be rejected in October by somebody you have never met.
The single most useful thing on this whole page is this. Get your school’s specification in writing before you book the shoot, not after. Ask the yearbook advisor or the main office in the first two weeks of September. Most schools have a one page sheet ready to hand over and most students never ask for it.
Every school writes its own, so treat the list below as what to expect rather than gospel. But the shape of the requirements is remarkably consistent, and once you have seen one you can read any of them.
What almost every specification asks for
- Vertical orientation. Landscape files get rejected without being looked at.
- Head and shoulders, roughly mid chest up, with both shoulders inside the frame.
- A plain, light, non distracting background. This is the requirement that catches people out on location.
- Eyes level with the camera, head straight, face fully visible and evenly lit.
- Colour rather than black and white, because the book is printed in colour and mixed files look broken.
- No hats, no sunglasses, no props, no pets and nobody else in the frame.
- A high resolution JPEG in sRGB, at whatever pixel size and aspect ratio the sheet specifies.
- A file name in the exact pattern they give you, often a surname, a first name and a student number.
Six questions for the yearbook advisor
- What is the submission deadline, and is there a late window after it.
- What exact pixel dimensions, aspect ratio and file format do you want.
- How do I send it. Email, a portal, a shared drive, or a memory stick to the office.
- Are outside photographers accepted, or is there a contracted studio only policy.
- Is there a rule on retouching, and does that include removing blemishes.
- Can I see last year’s book so I know what the crop actually looks like on the page.
Get the sheet in September
The office or the yearbook advisor. One email, two sentences. Ask for the photo specification and the deadline in writing, then send it to whoever is photographing you. Everything downstream of this is easy once you have it.
Check whether outside photographers are allowed
Some schools contract a studio and only accept files from them. Many accept anything that meets the specification. A few allow both and print whichever arrives first. Find out before you spend anything, because it changes what this session is for.
Shoot that frame first, not last
Ten minutes, at the start, while the hair is exactly the way it left the house and before anybody has walked through long grass. We shoot it against a plain background with even light, vertical, at the crop the sheet asks for, plus two spares with a different expression.
Look at it on the day, on a real screen
Before we move on. Glasses glare, a collar sitting crooked, a strand of hair across an eye, an expression that is technically a smile and does not feel like you. All of that is a thirty second fix on the day and impossible to fix in November.
Get the file exported to their numbers
Your school file comes out of the edit separately from the gallery version: the specified pixel size, the specified ratio, sRGB, named exactly as instructed. Ask for it as its own download so you are not cropping a full resolution file yourself at eleven at night.
Submit it early and get confirmation
Send it well before the deadline and ask somebody to reply confirming it opened and it is the right size. A file that silently failed to upload looks identical to a file that arrived, right up until the book is printed.
The yearbook frame is not the photograph you are doing this for. It is the one you cannot afford to get wrong.
Ten minutes at the start of the session buys the file the school needs and takes the pressure off everything after it. Once that frame is safely made, the rest of the afternoon has no rules at all, and that is where the photographs you will still care about in twenty years get made.
A yearbook that arrives in June is laid out and sent to a printer long before that. Depending on the school, portrait submissions can close anywhere from late October to the end of January, and the date is not usually announced loudly. Every year somebody books a beautiful session in April and finds out the page went to print in February. Ask for the date in September, put it in your phone, and work backwards from it.
The objects are the part that makes it yours
Here is the difference between a nice portrait of a teenager and a portrait of you at eighteen. A nice portrait has good light and a clean background. Yours has the thing you spent four years doing sitting in the frame next to you, and anybody who knows you can tell it is you from across a room without seeing your face.
So bring the objects. Not props, and not a themed set. The actual things: the instrument with the scratch on it, the cleats you have worn out, the car you saved for, the dog who has been in every family photograph since grade seven. Photographs of people holding the thing they love have a completely different temperature than photographs of people standing with their hands at their sides.
Two practical notes. Tell your photographer beforehand so we can plan a location that suits the object, because a drum kit and a limestone gorge are not compatible. And keep the total to three or four things, because past that the session becomes an inventory rather than a portrait.
Kit, jersey, stick, board, bag
Team kit photographs best somewhere that matches it: the field, the gym doors, the arena parking lot, the driveway net. Bring the jersey even if you also want the nice outfit, because in ten years the jersey is the one your teammates will send around. Worn equipment beats new equipment every time. The scuffs are the story.
Instruments, brushes, a camera, a sketchbook
An instrument in your hands changes your posture instantly, which is why these frames almost never look stiff. Play it during the session rather than holding it. Paint on the hands, a sketchbook open to real pages and a camera strap around your neck all do the same job: they give you something to do that is not being photographed.
The first one, however it looks
Wash it, do not detail it. A first car is meant to look like a first car, and in fifteen years the dent and the mismatched wheel are the entire point. Bring it to somewhere with room to shoot from a distance: a field lane, an empty lot, the driveway at the end of the day. Keys in hand, door open, leaning on the hood.
Bring the animal, bring a handler
Dogs make people relax faster than any instruction we could give, so we are always in favour. Bring somebody who is not being photographed to hold the lead, bring treats, and expect twenty minutes for six good frames. Put the dog block in the middle of the session, never at the start and never at the end when everyone is tired.
Tools, an apron, a laptop, a welding mask
If you spent final year in a shop class, a kitchen, a garage or a co op placement, bring the evidence. These are some of the strongest frames we make and almost nobody thinks of them. The tools of a trade in the hands of somebody who is seventeen and good at it is a photograph with a whole future implied in it.
The letter, the jacket, the number
An acceptance letter, an offer, a team jacket with the year on it, the jersey number, a hard won badge. Small, flat objects photograph best held at chest height in good light, or laid down and shot from above as a detail frame that sits between portraits in the gallery.
What does not earn its place
- Anything you bought for the photoshoot. Objects work because they are already yours.
- Chalkboards with the year written on them. They date the photograph in the worst possible way.
- Balloons, letter boards and giant cardboard numbers. Same reason.
- Anything borrowed that you have never held before. It shows in the hands immediately.
- Alcohol, vapes and anything you would not want a university admissions officer to see.
- More than four objects total. Past that the session runs out of time and every frame gets shortchanged.
Parents, siblings, the best friend
Almost every family adds a few frames with parents and siblings at the end, and almost every family is glad they did. Fifteen minutes, at the finish, once you are comfortable and the light is at its best. Tell us in advance so we hold the time rather than squeezing it in.
Best friends are worth mentioning separately. A joint session with the person you have been beside since grade nine produces photographs neither of you will get any other way, and it costs both of you nothing but agreeing on a date. Ask us how it works and we will set it up properly rather than trying to fit two people into one person’s hour.
Final year, in the order it happens
Senior portraits have a calendar problem that no other session has. There is a hard deadline you do not control, a light window that closes in October, and a person who is simultaneously writing applications, playing a final season and trying to have a last year. Sequencing it badly is the most common reason these photographs never get made at all.
Here is the running order that works, built around one principle: the school file is a deadline and the real portraits are a season. Get the first one out of the way early and the second one can happen whenever the light is good.
Summer before, in July and August
The easiest possible time to book. No homework, no season, long evenings, and light that runs until nearly nine at the end of June. The one drawback is that you are photographing the person who has not started final year yet, and some people would rather the photographs be of who they became. Both are valid.
First two weeks of September, get the sheet
Before anything else. Ask the office or the yearbook advisor for the photo specification and the submission deadline. This one email decides your whole timeline, and it is the step almost everybody skips.
Late September to mid October, the best window
If there is a right answer, this is it. The sun stays low and warm all afternoon instead of only at the very end, colour peaks across Southern Ontario in roughly the second and third week of October, and it lands comfortably ahead of most yearbook deadlines. These dates go first. Book six to eight weeks out.
Submit the school file, then forget about it
Send it as soon as the edit lands, get a confirmation reply, and cross it off. Everything after this point is for you rather than for a printer, which changes how the rest of the year feels.
November to February, the quiet season
Underbooked and better than its reputation. Bare trees, low winter sun all day long, and first snow on a still afternoon is one of the best backdrops of the year. A studio block covers you when the weather does not, and dates are easy to get because nobody asks for them.
March to May, cap and gown and prom
A separate set of photographs, and too late for the book. Gown portraits, prom, the last day, the crowd in the parking lot. Worth doing on top of a fall session rather than instead of one, because these are about the ending and the fall ones are about the person.
June, the frames nobody plans
The morning of the last exam. The walk out of the building. The car park at four in the afternoon with everybody sitting on their hoods. Ten minutes, no styling, no outfit change. These end up mattering more than anybody expects them to.
If it is already November and nothing is booked, you have not missed anything that matters. The school deadline may be tight, so check that first and ask whether there is a late window. Everything else on this page still works in December, in February and in April. The photographs are of a person, not of a season, and a portrait made on a grey Tuesday in January while it is still true is worth infinitely more than a beautiful one you never got around to.
Four seasons, four completely different portraits
Unlike most sessions on this website, you get to choose the season here, and the choice changes the photographs more than the location does. Southern Ontario gives you four genuinely different looks in the space of one school year, and none of them is wrong.
Here is what each one hands you and what it takes away, including the one everybody books and the one almost nobody does.
Spring
April to early JuneToo late for the yearbook and perfect for everything else. Blossom lands around the middle of May and lasts roughly ten days, the grass turns that specific new green, and the whole province looks relieved. It is also the season of the ending: gowns, prom, the last exam, the walk out of the building. Photographs made now are about leaving rather than about being there.
It is the least reliable weather we get. Wind is constant, the ground stays wet well into May, and a forecast three days out means very little. Book with a backup in mind and treat a grey day as a gift rather than a setback, because overcast light is beautiful on a face and spring gives you plenty of it.
Blossom, new green, wet pavement, and the specific light of a clearing sky.
Cap and gown, prom portraits, the last day, and anything about the ending.
Mud, wind, blackflies in the last week of May, and exam season eating the calendar.
A studio or covered backup, and shoes you can change out of at the car.
Summer
Mid June to early SeptemberThe easiest season to schedule and the one with a trap in it. Nobody has homework, everybody is free, and golden hour runs until nearly nine at the end of June. Long grass is at its best in August, and a field at eight in the evening is about as good as a portrait background gets in this province.
The trap is the time of day. Because everyone is free all afternoon, most summer sessions get booked for two or three in the afternoon, which is the harshest light of the entire year. Squinting, hard shadows under the eyes, and a sky with no colour in it. The fix costs nothing: book for the last two hours of daylight and let the sun do half the work.
Long grass, warm skin, bare arms, and a sky that goes orange for forty minutes.
The field frames, the car, the dog, and anybody who does not want a coat in the photograph.
Overhead sun at three, mosquitoes near water at dusk, sunburn, and heat on a shirt collar.
A late start that feels wrong and looks right. Half past seven in July is the sweet spot.
Fall
Mid September to late OctoberThe best season for this and it is not close. The sun sits low and warm from about three in the afternoon onwards, so the usable window widens instead of narrowing and you are not chasing a forty minute slot at the end of the day. Colour peaks across Southern Ontario in roughly the second and third week of October. Every location on this page is at its best, and it all lands ahead of most yearbook deadlines.
It is also the season when this session feels most true, because you are in it. School has started, the last year is real, and the photographs come out of that rather than out of a summer holiday. The only cost is the calendar. These dates book out first, so six to eight weeks of notice is not being cautious, it is the normal amount.
Turning leaves, low gold light for hours, knitwear, and a jacket that finally makes sense.
Everything. The school file, the classics, the objects, and the frames you will print.
Sunset near half past six by mid October, cold hands, and every good date being taken.
Booking six to eight weeks out and holding a second date in case of rain.
Winter
November to MarchThe most underbooked season and quietly one of the best. Fresh snow is a clean white backdrop the size of a county and a giant reflector throwing soft light straight up into a face, which is why winter portraits so often look better lit than summer ones. Bare trees give you graphic backgrounds instead of green mush, and red cheeks on a cold afternoon are not a flaw, they are the photograph.
Golden hour lands near quarter past four in December, so the whole thing happens after school and everyone is warm again by six. We shoot winter sessions in short bursts: ten or fifteen minutes outside, back to the car to warm up, out again. Coats stay on for most of it. A studio block on the same day covers the school file and the formal frames so nothing depends on the forecast.
Clean white, bare branches, breath in the air, and light bouncing up off the snow.
Anyone who missed fall, anyone who wants a portrait nobody else in the year will have.
Red hands inside ten minutes, ice underfoot, salt on boots, and a four o’clock sunset in December.
Short bursts, a warm car, gloves that come off fast, and a studio block as the anchor.
Nobody is going to ask you to pose
This is the part everybody is quietly worried about, so here is the honest version. Almost nobody your age has been photographed properly before. Selfies do not count, because you were in control of the angle and you could delete it. Standing in front of somebody else’s camera with your arms in the air feels absurd for the first ten minutes and there is no way around that except through it.
So we do not pose you. We give you something to do, then photograph what happens next. Walking somewhere, leaning on something, adjusting a sleeve, laughing at something stupid one of us said. Every frame below started as an instruction that had nothing to do with how to hold your face.
The first ten minutes will feel stiff and that is completely normal. Those frames are a warm up and they are not the ones we keep. Scroll on, and the three rows below will move with you.
Placeholder frames. Replace with your own senior portrait work before launch.
The ones we actually use
- Walk away from me toward that tree, then turn around on three.
- Tell me the worst class you took this year and why, in detail.
- Put your hands in your pockets, then take one out. That is the whole adjustment.
- Look off to the left at nothing, then back at me slowly.
- Say out loud where you think you will be living in two years.
- Push your hair back the way you actually do it, not the way you think looks good.
- Shift your weight onto your back foot and drop the shoulder nearest me.
- Think of the person you are going to send this photograph to first.
Six small things that fix almost everything
- Chin slightly forward and down. It feels wrong and it removes every problem under the jaw.
- Weight on the back foot, front knee soft. Standing square to a camera is what makes people look like a passport photo.
- Space between the arms and the body. A gap at the elbow is the difference between relaxed and rigid.
- Hands need a job. A pocket, a sleeve, a strap, a bag, a jacket collar. Loose hands look nervous because they are.
- Breathe out before the frame. Held breath reads as tension in the shoulders every single time.
- Smile with the eyes or do not smile at all. A mouth smile with still eyes is the one thing that never looks like you.
If you have a side you prefer, a scar you would rather keep out of frame, acne you are self conscious about, braces coming off in three weeks, or a smile you have never liked, say it in the first two minutes. It is not vanity and nobody will make it a thing. It changes which side we work from and how we light you, and it is far easier to handle at the start than to fix afterwards. This is also true of the opposite: if there is something about yourself you actually like, tell us that too. Most people never do, and it is the single most useful sentence you can give a photographer.
Two outfits, doing two completely different jobs
Most sessions here give you room for two to three outfits, and the mistake is treating all of them as variations on the same idea. They are not. One outfit exists to satisfy a printed book and a grandparent. The others exist to look like you at eighteen. Trying to make one outfit do both jobs is why so many senior portraits look slightly wrong to everybody involved.
Outfit one is the clean one. Solid colour, decent fit, a collar or a neckline that photographs well, nothing with writing on it. This is the yearbook file and the frame that gets printed and given away. It does not have to be formal and it should not be a costume, but it does have to survive being cropped to head and shoulders.
Outfit two is yours. Whatever you would actually wear on a good day, including the jacket you never take off and the boots your mother dislikes. This is the outfit that will make you laugh in fifteen years, and it is the one that makes the gallery feel like a person rather than a school record.
Outfit three, if you have the time, is the specific one: team kit, band uniform, an apron, a dress you have nowhere else to wear. Coordinate the palette across all of them so the gallery hangs together, and think about the wall, because one of these is going up in your parents’ house whether you approve it or not.
For the ladies
- One solid colour top with a simple neckline for the school file. Jewel tones, cream, white, olive and charcoal all photograph well against almost any background.
- Then whatever you actually wear. Denim and a good knit is more you than a dress you borrowed, and it will read that way on camera.
- Texture beats pattern: ribbed knit, linen, corduroy, satin, suede. Tight repeating prints shimmer and pull the eye away from your face.
- Sleeves are your friend for a head and shoulders crop. Strapless tops can read as no top at all once the frame is cut at the chest.
- Check the fit sitting down and with your arms up. Half the session happens on steps, walls and grass.
- Two pairs of shoes. The good ones for the frames, and something you can walk a gravel path in.
- Do your own makeup the way you do it, slightly stronger than daily. A stranger’s version of your face is the fastest way to dislike a photograph.
- Nails are in more frames than you expect, because your hands end up near your face. Sort them or keep them bare.
For the gentlemen
- A plain shirt with a collar, in a solid mid tone, for the school file. Not white on a bright day, and not black on a dark background.
- Then the real outfit. Hoodie, jacket, tee and dark denim. The version of you that walks out of the house on a Saturday.
- Fit at the shoulder is the only fit that matters in a head and shoulders crop. Everything below the chest is invisible in that frame.
- One layer you can take off. It doubles your looks and covers you when the temperature drops after sunset.
- Haircut five to seven days before, never the day before. A fresh cut photographs sharp and slightly severe for about four days.
- Tidy the beard line yourself, or leave it entirely. Half done is the only version that shows.
- Iron the shirt. Cameras find creases that mirrors politely ignore.
- Clean shoes. You will be photographed full length at least twice and it is always the shoes.
What to skip
- Big logos and slogans. They date the photograph to one exact year and pull the eye off your face.
- Neon and hot fluorescents. They bounce coloured light onto your chin and neck.
- Thin stripes, small checks and tight repeating patterns. They shimmer on camera and print badly.
- Anything you bought that week and have not worn. New clothes look like a costume because they move wrong.
- Sunglasses on your face, and hats if your school specification bans them.
- Heavy fake tan, or a first time spray tan inside a week of the session.
- Brand new shoes. Sessions cover more ground than people expect.
How to actually pack the bag
Lay all of it out the night before, on the floor, complete with shoes and whatever you are wearing on your wrists. If any outfit is missing a piece, you will find out now rather than in a car park. Photograph the layout on your phone and send it to us. We will tell you which one should be first and whether anything is going to fight the location.
Hang everything in the car rather than folding it, bring a bag for the pieces you have taken off, and pick somewhere with a real place to change if you are doing three looks. Changing behind a car door is a rite of passage but it costs you ten minutes and a certain amount of dignity.
Take whichever list is useful and ignore the rest. Some of the best senior portraits we have ever made were somebody in a hoodie and jeans standing in a driveway in November. Wear the thing you feel most like yourself in, keep one clean option in the bag for the school file, and everything else is detail.
The hour you book matters more than the place you choose
If you take one thing from this page other than the yearbook specification, take this. A mediocre location in beautiful light beats a beautiful location in bad light every single time, and it is not close. The time on the booking is the most consequential decision in the whole process, and it is usually the one made last, around whoever needs a lift.
One number to hold onto: for outdoor portraits, the two hours before sunset are the whole game. Everything inside that band works. Here is what each part of the day actually gives you, including the two that most people think are bad and are not.
Morning
The first two hours after sunrise, and the reason to consider itMorning light is the same physics as golden hour running in reverse, and it comes with something evening does not: empty locations. Downtown Guelph at eight on a Sunday belongs to you. The arboretum has nobody in it. School grounds are clear. If your first choice is a place that gets busy, morning is the shortcut nobody takes.
The obvious catch is that it involves being awake, styled and cheerful at seven in the morning during a school year, which is a genuine ask. There is also a small technical difference. Morning light is cooler and cleaner than evening light, which flatters some skin tones beautifully and makes others look slightly washed. If the portrait you have in your head is warm and golden, book the evening instead.
Busy downtown streets, school grounds, and anyone who genuinely functions early.
Clean, cool and quiet. Editorial rather than nostalgic.
Dew on grass, cold hands, and a face that has been awake for forty minutes.
Your location is impossible at any other hour, or evenings are gone to a sports schedule.
Midday
Eleven until three, the hour everybody books and nobody shouldThis is the worst light of the day for a face and it is the slot most sessions get booked into, because it is the one where everybody is free. The sun is directly overhead, which puts hard shadows in the eye sockets and under the nose, and it makes people squint, which changes the shape of a face in a way no editing fixes.
It is workable, and there is a version of it that is good. We move into open shade, which means the shaded side of a building, under a canopy, or inside a doorway with the sky as the light source. Shade at midday is soft, even and completely usable. What does not work is standing in direct sun on open ground at one in the afternoon, and if that is the only slot available then a studio block is the better answer.
Open shade, covered walkways, the studio, and sessions built around a school timetable.
Bright and neutral. Works well for clean, formal frames and the school file.
Squinting, shadows under the eyes, and dappled light through leaves, which is worse than full sun.
Shade, a north facing wall, or moving the whole thing indoors and controlling it properly.
Overcast
The grey day everybody wants to rescheduleDo not reschedule. A solid grey sky is a softbox the size of the horizon, and it is the most forgiving portrait light that exists. No squinting, no hard shadows, even skin, and every direction works equally well, which means we can shoot anywhere on the location instead of chasing one good angle. Overcast is the reason a session on a dull Tuesday often comes back better than one on a bright Saturday.
Two things to know. The window is much longer, so a grey day can be shot at two in the afternoon just as well as at six, which is useful when the calendar is tight. And it is quieter in tone, so the frames come back moodier and more editorial than golden hour ones. If you want warm and glowing, a grey day will not give you that. If you want a photograph of a face, it is the best light on this list.
Close portraits, the school file, glasses, and anybody worried about how they photograph.
Calm, even and slightly cinematic. Colours read deep rather than bright.
A flat white sky, so we keep it out of frame or use it deliberately.
The window is all day. Grey weather is the easiest kind of day to reschedule into, not out of.
Golden hour
The last ninety minutes before sunset. Book this oneThe sun drops low enough to come at you sideways instead of downward, and everything improves at once. Skin warms up, hair lights up from behind, long grass glows, and the shadows lengthen into something worth having in frame. This is the light in almost every senior portrait you have saved to a mood board, and there is no substitute for it.
It moves fast, which is the only thing to plan around. In late June the good light runs from about half past seven until nine. By the middle of October it is finished by seven, and in December it is over by half past four. Tell us the date and we will tell you the exact hour to be standing in the field, and we will start the session earlier than that so the last outfit is the one that gets the best of it.
Fields, long grass, the car, the wide frames, and every photograph you plan to print.
Warm, nostalgic and slightly unreal. The look most people are picturing.
How quickly it goes, a treeline that cuts it short, and mosquitoes near water in summer.
Starting well before it, so the outfit you care most about lands inside the window.
Blue hour
The twenty five minutes after the sun has goneAlmost everybody packs up when the sun disappears, and they leave the most distinctive light of the day sitting on the table. For roughly twenty five minutes afterwards the sky is a deep even blue, streetlights and shop windows come on, and the balance between the two produces frames that look nothing like anybody else’s session.
It only works downtown or somewhere with light of its own, because in an open field blue hour is just darkness with a nice colour. This is where the last outfit earns its place: neon, a lit doorway, a wet street, headlights. It is the natural end point of an evening session and it costs you nothing except staying twenty minutes longer than you planned.
Downtown, storefronts, streetlights, and the one frame that surprises everybody.
Cinematic and grown up. The opposite in temperature to golden hour.
How short it is, and how cold it gets the moment the sun is down in October.
Ending the session here rather than starting it. Keep one outfit back for it.
After dark
Full night, and a completely different jobOnce the sky has gone, natural light photography is over and this becomes a lighting job. That is not a problem, it is a choice. We bring lights and build the frame deliberately: a face lit against a dark street, headlights behind you, a lit sign, breath visible in a January car park. These are the most stylised photographs in any senior gallery and they are the ones people ask about.
Two honest caveats. It takes longer per frame than daylight, so it belongs at the end of a session rather than being the whole of one. And it is not the look for the yearbook file or for the frame your grandmother wants. Treat after dark as an addition to a daylight session, tell us in advance so we bring the right kit, and you get something genuinely different out of the same evening.
Editorial frames, the car with the lights on, winter breath, and anyone who wants drama.
Deliberate and stylised. Nothing about it is accidental, which is the point.
Time per frame, cold, and locations that feel different after dark than they did at six.
In advance, so the lights come with us rather than staying in the studio.
Book the hour, then pick the place. Doing it the other way round is why so many sessions fight the sun.
Sunset in Southern Ontario moves by about four hours between June and December, so the same session starts at seven in July and at three in the afternoon in December. Tell us the month and we will tell you the exact time to meet, and which location will still have light on it when we get there.
The person behind the camera decides whether you look like yourself
Technical ability is table stakes at this point. Almost anybody advertising portraits can expose a frame correctly and put it in focus. What separates a senior portrait you love from one you tolerate is whether the person holding the camera can get a seventeen year old who has never been photographed properly to stop performing inside the first fifteen minutes. That is a people skill, not a camera skill, and it does not show up in a highlights grid.
So look at their work in full. Not eight hero frames on a feed, an entire senior gallery from start to finish. A highlights reel proves somebody can produce one good frame out of an hour. A full gallery proves the warm up frames, the awkward ones, the objects, the family additions and the last outfit in failing light all hold up, which is the thing you are actually paying for.
Then check two specific things that matter only on this session. Ask whether they can deliver a file to your school’s exact specification, and ask what their retouching policy is. Senior portraits are the one session where over editing does real harm. Removing a temporary blemish is fine. Reshaping a jaw, smoothing skin into plastic or narrowing a nose is not, and a photograph of a slightly different person is worth nothing in fifteen years. Say out loud what you are and are not comfortable with, and expect a straight answer back.
One more thing worth saying plainly. If you are the parent reading this and the person being photographed is not enthusiastic about it, that is normal and it is worth handling before the date rather than on it. Let them pick one location and one outfit. Let them bring a friend. Twenty minutes of ownership turns a session they are enduring into one they are part of, and it shows in every frame.
At Sunday Media you are working with a small team of seasoned photographers, which is deliberate. Small means the person you speak to is the person who turns up, they have already read your school’s specification sheet before the day, and they have stood on enough Southern Ontario field edges to know where the light will be at seven o’clock in October before anybody gets in a car.
Four things and we are ready
Your school’s photo specification sheet, the two locations that mean something to you, a photo of the outfits laid out, and a list of anything you are bringing. That is everything we need to arrive already knowing the plan.
Anything we should be careful with
A side you prefer, braces, acne, a scar, a height difference you are self conscious about, anxiety about being looked at, a family situation that makes the group frames complicated. Say it early. It changes how we work and nobody else ever needs to know we were told.
The questions worth asking
- Can I see a full senior gallery from start to finish, not a highlights grid.
- Can you deliver a file to my school’s exact specification and file naming.
- What is your retouching policy, and what will you not do to my face.
- How many outfits and locations does the time I am booking actually allow.
- What happens if it rains, and is there an indoor option on the same day.
- When do sneak peeks arrive and when does the full gallery arrive.
The day before
Almost everything that makes a session feel rushed was decided the day before, and most of it is small. Half an hour of preparation buys you an afternoon where the only thing left to do is turn up and be photographed. Tick these off, or hand the list to whoever is driving.
The day before
The day of
Eat a real meal, leave earlier than you think you need to, and give yourself the first ten minutes to feel awkward without deciding it means anything. Here is the whole list.
Session day checklist
You did it. Now the good part.
It is done, the awkward first ten minutes turned out not to matter, and there is grass on the good shoes. Almost everybody says the same thing walking back to the car: that was far less painful than expected. Go and eat something.
Then keep an eye on your email and whichever channel we have been messaging on. Your photographer will be in touch, and the first thing to arrive is always the fun one.
Sneak peeks
A small handful of edited frames sent straight to you. Enough to know how it went, enough to change a profile picture, and enough to stop the group chat asking. The rest is worth waiting for.
The school file
Your yearbook frame is exported separately to the specification you gave us: the right pixel size, the right ratio, sRGB, named exactly as the school asked. It arrives as its own download so you can forward it and be finished. Submit it early and get a reply confirming it opened.
The full gallery
The complete edited set, delivered to your private gallery on our website, at full resolution and print ready. Exact timing varies with the package you booked and the season, and your photographer will tell you the date to expect.
How to open your photos
Your gallery is private and it lives on our website. Everything you need is in the delivery message: a link, and an access code that looks something like this.
Please do not share your access code with anyone.
It is the only thing standing between your photographs and whoever it gets forwarded to, and on this session that matters, because photographs of a person under eighteen should not be circulating anywhere you did not decide to put them. If you want family to see the gallery, tell us and we will arrange proper sharing. If you think the code has gone somewhere it should not have, message us and we will reset it the same day.
Fun tutorial: take our easy to use gallery for a spin before your own photos arrive. It is built in house, and the code above is a working demo key. Tap the access code to copy it, then use it on the Your Gallery page.
Go to our website
Open sundaymedia.ca on any device. Phone is fine for looking, a laptop is better for downloading.
Open the menu and choose My Gallery
It is in the main navigation at the top of every page.
Type in your access code
Exactly as it was sent, capitals included. That opens your session and nobody else’s.
Download, request edits, or order an album
Inside the gallery you can download the full resolution files, ask for edits on specific frames, and request a printed album made from the set. If the school file is missing or a download will not open, message us and we will sort it out.
Whatever you decide, get these made while they are still true.
Use this page even if you never speak to us. And if you would like us there, send the school specification sheet and the month you are thinking of, and we will handle the hour, the locations and the plan for the weather.
Every fee is discussed before payment. Travel, insurance and any permit or admission costs are agreed in writing before the binding contract, so nothing on your invoice is ever a surprise.
Senior PortraitsSenior PortraitsNice one. Want this list to go?
You just checked your first box. We can hand you the whole list as a file, so it lives on your phone instead of in a browser tab you will lose by Thursday.