All-Things-Floral Summer Senior Portraits | Kate | Linn-Mar High School

All-Things-Floral Summer Senior Portraits with Kate

Penningroth Barn | Cedar River Garden Center | Pleasant Creek State Park

Kate is another return sibling this year - i did her sister, Ellie’s senior pictures in the sunflowers a few years ago! (Her blog here.) So of course I was SO excited to take this gorgeous girls’ senior pictures. When sitting down with her and her mom to chat about what she had in mind for her senior pictures, she didn’t really know besides she for SURE wanted flowers. And her favorite color is pink, so if we could find pink flowers, that would be the greatest! We picked a date and I did NOT see pink flowers anywhere leading up to her date. Sure, there were light purple, which would have to do. I scoped out locations for hours. And then, of course it was supposed to be windy and rainy on her date so we rescheduled for a few weeks later, after their family vacation.

A few days before, I re-scoped my locations. We had been getting SO much rain before her shoot, one of my water spots was flooded out and one of my flower spots I had wanted to take her was all dead. BUT the park still had a ton of these light purple flowers. Phew! AND there were some spots starting to pop up white and yellow flowers, which is awesome! It’s not often I get a flower mix! And AGAIN we needed to reschedule. Overcast and rain and rain and rain. And more rain.

Finally on the third reschedule date, we made it happen. We started at Aurora Blush with Meaghan on hair and Lindsey on makeup. We chatted and talked outfits while Kate’s mom made a Starbuck’s run, per Kate’s request. And then it was off to our first location, Penningroth Barn’s bridge!

But little did we know that there would be HOARDS, MASSES, SWARMS of mosquitos. I feel like I’m being dramatic. Ok, maybe slightly, but I think Kate and her mom would agree. Ive never seen so many in my life. We made our way back to the bridge, started in the brief bit of forrest to get to the bridge and that’s when they all swarmed us. We RAN out of there. Kate’s mom ran to get the bug spray because we weren’t about to let this deter us from the cool bridge pictures, but also, we weren’t going to be eaten alive on purpose. While we waited, we swatted as many as we could. And when I tell you I could not keep up with swatting them, I couldn’t. I didn’t have enough hands, there were so many. And I’m still scratching those bug bites today. We sprayed down and headed back in. We knew it would still be bad. We hurried up, made the best of our time, but probably honestly only spent 4 minutes here and decided it was not worth it. Time to move on!

We made a pit-stop at the set of stairs that I’ve used a few times, just to get a few more in this outfit in case the bridge ones didn’t turn out. And I definitely like how these turned out!!

We didn’t get many in this outfit, but unfortunately we had to get moving to stay on our schedule. Next stop was the greenhouse and it closed at 6:00 p.m. (and we were set to arrive after 5:30). As we were about 10 minutes into our travel, I get a call from Kate’s mom saying that she thinks they left the jewelry at the salon. So I call Meaghan, but she’s already left, so she reaches out to the girl that was still there. She finds it and I arrange to meet Kate’s mom, load Kate and all her photoshoot outfits in my car and meet her mom on location, so her mom can go pick up the rest of the jewelry! Can you tell our day just was feeling purely chaotic at this point?!

Kate and I get to the greenhouse and we both were loving the vibes here. Florals, hanging greenery, and just a bit more of a “springy” vibe, which is what Kate had wanted originally for senior pictures. We were loving it and we lost track of time! I looked at the time at 5:58 and we rushed out! They are SO nice at this greenhouse and didn’t try to rush us out at all, when they had full rights to do so. Such a beautiful space!

Then it was down the road to Pleasant Creek Park. We started roadside to utilize the shade for a bit, and more casual vibes.

Then it was on to the flower field. I had picked a spot that had trees behind it and I thoooought that we’d have quite a bit of shade at this time. I was incorrect. It was HOT in that flower field. Kate humored me for a while, but we had a little extra time so we headed back to our cars for some cool down.

I thought in the mean time while we waited for the sun to go down a little bit, we could do some laying down shots in the shorter flowers around the corner of the road (and cool off in our cars at the same time), so we headed there. I loved the vibes and lighting I was seeing, so I decided to just finish up the flower pictures in this location. It was nice to do something different!

Then we did another outfit change and did our golden hour photos in the grass right next to us! I sooo love some golden hour photos.

Then the last stop of the day was back to the front of the park, on the water! SO dang pretty!!!!

Kate was brave and we attempted to get into the water for some. It did not work out - haha! It was too slippery and she was a little afraid to move… or breath I think! So we headed out, but in typical-Lehia-fashion, I can’t just be done. So we did a quick stop at the docks to wrap up the night. Because I knew we weren’t going to get the bridge photos we had wanted to in the first half of the photoshoot, I thought these would help mix up the aesthetics a little bit. And they turned out so dang cute too!

Your calendar likely fills up as fast as mine does and it’s SO easy to forget to schedule photos! If you are graduating in 2025/2026 (or a parent of an upcoming graduate) - reach out with any questions or to start planning!! Check out my Senior Gallery or contact me for more info!

A Pastel-Summer Aesthetic Senior Photoshoot | Livi | Center Point-Urbana High School

A Pastel-Summer Aesthetic Senior Photoshoot with Livi

Culver’s Greenhouse | Uptown Marion | Wanatee Park

When Livi’s mom reached out to schedule her senior pictures, I couldn’t believe she was a senior already!! I had photographed her sister’s senior pictures a few year ago (her blog is here) and had only met Livi in passing when she was helping Madi choose her favorite pictures. When I met Livi for her consultation, she just had 2 requests: a field of flowers and for her pictures to NOT look identical to her sisters. But here’s the kicker, she loved many of her sisters locations and styles. So my challenge was to find locations with similar vibes, but not the same, and give Livi her own unique session! You can check out both Madi and Livi’s blog and decide if how we did ;)

We started Livi’s day with hair (with the wonderful Ingrid) and makeup (with the amazing, Lindsey, who let us use her house to get ready)! And honorable mention to our favorite spray tan place, Bare Tones, for hooking Livi up with a beautiful glow for her session!!

Livi LOVED how her hair and makeup turned out!! Next stop: Culvers Greenhouse! This is an idea we chatted about at her consultation and she loved the idea so we gave it a go. I think these ended up being her favorite images of the lot!!

It was super hot for Livi’s photoshoot and the inside of a greenhouse isn’t lacking humidity - phewy! We had to take several breaks to make sure Livi didn’t start getting over-heated and sweaty. But we loved her white outfit here and pops of colors from the flowers.

Our next stop was uptown Marion where we’d meet her sister who brought her puppy for some pictures!! THESE were SO hard to narrow down!!

Didn’t this sweet pup do SO GOOD!!!?

After puppy-pics, we did an outfit change and explored some new part of Marion that I haven’t been to before! I love this dress on her! Although it was windy this day and her sleeves and dress weren’t cooperating easily, but you could never tell! And we sure as heck weren’t going to complain about the wind we were getting because it was the only thing saving us on this HOT day!

We did a quick outfit change again before we headed to the other side of the main road for the more “urban” or “grunge” areas of Marion. (Ok, it’s not really grungy at all, but I can’t think of a better word - hah!)

I really loved this color on Livi and especially loved it with the brick! She’s so dang cute!!

Another one of Livi’s requests was a willow tree. WOW! These are hard to come by post-derecho (in a public space, with a good backdrop behind it). But a friend told me about this one the morning of our shoot and I rearranged our whole photoshoot layout to make this one happen!

Remember that wind I was talking about earlier?! THIS is the point that we were starting to get a little sick of it. LOL! It kept blowing the willow tree branches everywhere, across Livi’s face as we tried to take her photo, her hair across her face. Livi’s mom definitely got put to work holding onto branches and fixing Livi’s hair as we attempted to get the cutest pictures! You couldn’t even tell, could ya?!

According to my calculations, we were running out of daylight since the sun sets earlier in the part of Wanatee Park where we were headed for flower pictures. Spoiler alert: my calculations were wrong. But luckily I had miscalculated because the smoke from the Canadian fires started to roll in and blocked the sun and sunset for the remainder of Livi’s session. I was bummed, but she didn’t seem to care at all!! We got there just in time and I LOVED this purple dress in the purple flowers!

Ironically, the lack of sunset is exactly what happened at her sister’s senior pictures, too! It has been super sunny all day and then the clouds rolled in at the end of her session. But still so perfect!

Your calendar likely fills up as fast as mine does and it’s SO easy to forget to schedule photos! If you are graduating in 2024 (or a parent of an upcoming graduate) - reach out with any questions or to start planning!! Check out my Senior Gallery or contact me for more info!

Unique City Night Lights Senior Portraits | Emily | Jefferson High School

Unique City Night Lights Senior Portraits with Emily

Culvers Greenhouse | Pleasant Creek Park | Downtown Cedar Rapids

Where do I even start with a blog about Emily’s session?! I had made a post on Facebook about opening up two new August dates after my vacation plans had changed and Emily’s mom reached out immediately. They were on vacation, so communication was tricky but they for sure wanted to book my last open date and we made it happen! And I’m SO glad they did! I actually know some of Emily’s family members because I’ve photographed her aunt and uncle’s exciting events over the past few years (engagement, wedding, maternity, newborn and baby milestone pictures) so it was so fun to get to meet more of the family! When they were back from vacation, we met for a consultation and I learned that Emily has a creative side and had some non-traditional ideas for her pictures: she wanted to use a greenhouse and wanted nighttime pictures with the city lights downtown. The greenhouse has been a popular request this year, but I have never done nighttime senior pictures before - I was immediately excited… and let’s be honest, nervous.

I had an idea on how we were going to pull it off, but wasn’t sure if it would get us the results we both had in mind. A few days before Emily’s photoshoot, I went and scoped out the downtown Cedar Rapids area at night to see what locations I could find with the most lights and sent her some pictures and found some she loved.

Fast forward to photoshoot day - we had Nicole at Onyx Salon doing Emily’s hair and makeup and had a blast just chatting! And then we were off to Culver’s Greenhouse (with their permission, of course!)

It was HOT in there, but it was so fun getting to try some new things and get Emily warmed up.

We changed outfits and our next stop was downtown Cedar Rapids for some more modern-looking city pictures AND pictures with her puppy, Isla!! We met with Emily’s dad and got ADORABLE pictures with her sweet pup who was verrryyyyy pregnant at the time. We moved to our second spot and it was way too sunny so we used another area close by and had fun trying out new ideas.

We wrapped up, changed outfits and headed out to Pleasant Creek State Park. I picked this location because it had a lot of things Emily wanted: willow trees, water and long grass. I’ve been here before but it turned out better than I imagined! We started in the shady road area, and Emily decided to throw on her sunglasses for a few AND use their truck for some pictures, too! SUPER cute and fun!

Then we changed outfits, and waded through the weeds and flowers to get the best lighting with the willow tree. I am OBSESSED with this light! She was a natural in front of the camera, too!

As the sun set, we headed further into the park to catch that amazing light in the long grass. And again, I was obsessed! I LOVED the light from this session so much, and Emily made my job easy.

And then we rushed back to water area, got a few on shore and then attempted to get IN the water. I had completely forgot that she had told me she actually wanted to get IN!! So we carefully tip-toed into the water and decided it would be safer to just sit down in it! hah!! So fun!

Then the sun had set and we still had the last part of the session left. But we WANTED it dark, so no more chasing the sunlight for us. We headed back to downtown Cedar Rapids, we met in the first location and got out my wayyyyyy too big 86” umbrella and lighting combo (but it’s all I’ve got). We definitely got some strange looks but that’s to be expected. And a huge shout out to Emily’s mom for carrying that huge thing around all night. We had planned to only take 30 minutes or so… but it took a lot of trial and error. We walked around, tried some funky things. And found a spot that almost impossible to light with an 86” umbrella but it was worth it! We LOVED the results and ended up wrapping up at 11pm!!! Needless to say, we were ALL tired!

Your calendar likely fills up as fast as mine does and it’s SO easy to forget to schedule photos! If you are graduating in 2023 or 2024 (or a parent of an upcoming graduate) - reach out with any questions or to start planning!! Check out my Senior Gallery or contact me for more info!

Greenhouse Summer Senior Photoshoot | Kenna | Kennedy High School

Summery Greenhouse Senior Pictures with Kenna

Culvers Greenhouse | Downtown Cedar Rapids | Wanatee Park

Wayyyyy back in the winter, Kenna’s mom reached out about senior pictures. I had started getting inquiries for senior pictures SO early compared to normal and I was impressed!! Kenna and her family were referred to me from a friend and past client of mine, which I always love to hear. We had talked about sunflowers, more of a modern urban look and a greenhouse so we set a date for August (when their friend’s sunflower patch was supposed to bloom) and then stayed in touch until our first in-person meeting.

When we met up, the sunflower idea had been veto-ed but everything else was a “go!” And what a small world it is, because when talking to Kenna about her spray tan, and professional hair/makeup I had set up for her (part of my senior package) she knew the spray tan artist (Katrina at Bare Tones) AND the hairstylist (Aubree at Moxie Salon) already! She had yet to meet her makeup artist, Krysta (Make Me Up) but I KNEW she’d be obsessed with her makeup. Spoiler alert - she was!

We started our day at Moxie Salon for hair and makeup, and then headed to some cute spots around downtown Cedar Rapids for a clean, modern urban look.

(Enjoy some behind-the-scenes pictures, courtesy of Kenna’s mom and bestie)

I LOVE how this outfit looked in this library location!

Next, we hit up Culver’s Greenhouse (with their permission, of course) - which I haven’t been to in FOREVER, so I was a tad nervous about how that would go. The lighting was bright and trickier than I thought it was going to be but Kenna was patient and we LOVED how they turned out!!

I’m not going to lie- this close up was semi-accidental!! I was standing WAY to close for the shot I was trying to get, but snapped one anyway and it ended up being one of their FAVES!

Laying down on these empty tables was pretty much an after-thought. We had taken all of the photos we were wanting to, were walking out and I decided to give it a go! I saw them empty as we walked in but thought that Kenna would feel weird getting up there in a dress in a public space. They joked about using them and I told them my idea and they were down for it! I KNEW I’d love these!!

Our last stop for the night was the park for some nature shots and the wildflower field I had scoped out. We had a few outfits to do here, which was perfect because I have a LOT of spots I love at this park! Walking into our first spot, the grass was wayyyyyyy longer than it normally is. It was a trek, but it was definitely worth it! And extra-worth it to find flowers back there!

Next spot was the middle of the tree-lined road - a senior fave. Aren’t these shots the cutest!?

It was a beautiful day. The sun shining the whole day, until RIGHT as we headed to the flower field. Sunny flower pictures are my JAM and I was a little bummed, but Kenna assured me she was still loving the images and after I agreed - I loved them too! And they have such a magazine-model-or-something vibe to them, too!

Doesn’t she look darling in a hat, too? Kenna’s summer session turned out so pretty and ended with a few TikTok creations in the sunset. Does a senior session get much better than that?

Your calendar likely fills up as fast as mine does and it’s SO easy to forget to schedule photos! If you are graduating in 2023 or 2024 (or a parent of an upcoming graduate) - reach out with any questions or to start planning!! Check out my Senior Gallery or contact me for more info!