Lebanon Senior Photos | Documenting the Year
There is something really fun about getting to photograph a senior more than once, mostly because senior year is a whole year and not one very organized two-hour block where we somehow need to squeeze in every outfit, every location, every hobby, every season, and a cap and gown for good measure. The kid you send off to school in August is somehow standing in a cap and gown a few months later, and even though the changes can be subtle, there is always a little bit of growing up that happens in between. Gracie’s senior year is such a good example of that. We started her senior photos in the summer with soft greens and downtown Zionsville, met again in the winter for something completely different in the studio, and then finished in April where we were always headed: Lebanon High School, cap and gown on, graduation right around the corner.
Summer in Zionsville: Lions Park to Downtown
For Gracie’s first session, she wanted a little nature and a little town, which gave us the perfect excuse to do both without making the evening feel like a cross-county field trip. We started at Zionsville Lions Park, where we had leafy paths, plenty of green, and the rope swing over Eagle Creek. It gave us a relaxed place to start and let Gracie settle into the session before we headed downtown. That settling-in time matters more than people think, because most seniors are not showing up ready to work a camera like they have a modeling contract tucked into their back pocket. Usually there is a little bit of “what do I do with my hands,” some laughing at themselves, and a few minutes of getting used to me saying, “Okay, that was cute, now do it again but don’t look at me.”
Once we moved into downtown Zionsville, the whole session shifted. The brick, storefronts, sidewalks, and little pockets of evening light gave us something completely different without needing another day or a massive location change. That is one of my favorite things about planning senior sessions this way. You do not need six places to get variety. You just need a couple of locations that actually bring something different to the gallery. Gracie’s mom, Erin, was there through all of it too, helping with the little details, cheering her on, and making the whole evening feel easy.
I am very pro-parent-coming-to-senior-pictures, by the way. You do not need to direct the session from ten feet behind me or shout posing suggestions over my shoulder, but having Mom there to notice the flipped necklace, grab the extra pair of shoes, catch the hair tie on the wrist, and make her kid laugh is honestly part of the fun. For seniors coming from Lebanon, I also love that we are not boxed into only photographing in Lebanon. Your high school is part of your senior year, but it does not have to dictate the entire look of your senior pictures. If you want nature, downtown, flowers, architecture, studio, your family’s property, or somewhere you just really love, we can build the session around that instead of forcing every senior into the same location because it is “where senior pictures happen.”
Winter Studio: Color, Comfort, Confidence
When winter rolled around, we changed everything and took Gracie’s second session into the studio. Instead of trying to make the studio feel like a continuation of summer, we leaned all the way into the fact that it could be completely different. We used an ultramarine seamless for one set, switched to bone for something cleaner and more classic, and spent some time in the egg chair because somehow that chair makes people forget for a minute that they are supposed to know what to do with their body in front of a camera.
That is one of the things I love most about spreading senior photos across more than one session. The second session does not have to be Summer Session: Part Two. Gracie already had the greens, the downtown shots, and the outdoor variety, so there was no reason to recreate any of that indoors. The studio gave us a totally different side of her senior gallery with cleaner backgrounds, controlled light, different outfits, and a little more room to play around. It is especially good for seniors who love fashion, want something a little more polished, or simply like the idea of photos where the focus is completely on them and not on what the wind, bugs, humidity, or random people walking through the background have decided to do that day.
I also love seeing the difference between the first session and the later ones. Sometimes it is confidence. Sometimes it is just that being photographed does not feel quite as weird anymore. Sometimes senior year itself has started to feel more real. Whatever it is, there is usually a little shift, and that is exactly the kind of thing you miss when every version of senior year gets packed into one evening.
Cap and Gown in April: The Finish Line
Then somehow it was April, which is usually the point where every parent is saying some version of, “I have no idea how we got here already,” while also juggling approximately forty-seven graduation-related things at once. For Gracie, we finished the year with a short cap and gown session at Lebanon High School. These sessions do not need to be complicated. We want the cap, the gown, the tassel, a few good portraits around the school, and definitely the giant grin that shows up when it really hits them that they are almost done.
Photographing a senior at their actual high school feels different from doing the whole senior session there, and that is exactly why I love saving it for the end. Lebanon High School was not necessarily the location we would have chosen for Gracie’s entire senior gallery, but for cap and gown photos it suddenly meant something different. This is where she spent four years. This is where the early mornings, friends, games, classes, ordinary routines, and probably at least a few very long school days happened. You do not always realize how attached you are to a place while you are walking into it every morning, but once graduation gets close, the same building you have seen a thousand times starts to feel a little different.
That is what I want cap and gown photos to hold onto. They are not another giant senior session and they do not need to be. They are just a little punctuation mark at the end of the year that says, we made it.
Why an “It’s Your Year” Plan Works
You absolutely do not need three sessions to have great senior pictures. A single session can give you tons of variety and be more than enough for a lot of seniors. But if your senior has a long wishlist, wants multiple seasons, loves both studio and outdoors, or just has ideas that do not belong shoved into the same two-hour block, spreading the photos across the year makes a lot of sense.
The wishlist usually starts innocent enough. A few outdoor photos, maybe downtown, maybe a studio set, maybe something with sports, definitely cap and gown, maybe the dog, maybe fall. Then before anybody knows it, Mom has a spreadsheet and everyone is tired. That is why I love being able to separate things out and let each session actually feel like itself. Gracie’s summer senior pictures got to feel like summer. Her winter studio session got to be its own thing. Her cap and gown photos got to happen when graduation was actually close enough to feel real.
When all of those photos live together, you get more than one nice picture for a graduation announcement. You get to watch the year happen, and I think that is the part that matters most. As much as senior pictures belong to the senior right now, I know who is going to be pulling these out twenty years from now. Mom. And by then, the thing you remember will not be whether the outfit was perfectly styled or whether someone’s hair behaved that night. You are going to remember who they were right before everything changed.
The Heart Narrative | Lebanon Senior Photographer
Senior: Gracie, Lebanon High School
Locations: Zionsville Lions Park and Downtown Zionsville
Studio: The Heart Narrative home studio, Central Indiana
Finale: Cap and gown at Lebanon High School, April
Now booking Class of 2026 senior picture sessions in Lebanon, Zionsville, Westfield, Carmel, and across Central Indiana. If you want a year that feels like you in every season, the It’s Your Year plan covers outdoor, studio, and cap and gown. Reach out through my contact form, and we will map it together.
