Spring Senior Photos

Wondering when and where you should have your graduating senior pictures? One of my favorite places is at the capitol building in Salt Lake City, Utah. About the first week of April the cherry blossoms come out and line a gravel trail around the capitol building. It's like a tunnel of blossoms are truly beautiful. Spring time is a perfect time for senior pictures because the weather is usually better, it's warming up. Of course in Utah there can be more rain in the spring, but generally the weather is more mild for outdoor photos.

What to Wear

Seniors can choose about anything they want to wear since they are having photos taken by themselves. I would recommend they wear something they love. It can be their favorite jeans and shirt, a pretty dress, a school uniform, school sweater, or a combination of these things. I would pick something more classic than trendy, but really it's up to you. You might want to avoid big logos, unless you want to celebrate the school logo. Wear something comfortable, something you want to remember high school for, and something you love.

This senior liked hats and sunglasses so we did some with those. She's a casual person and this shows some of her personality. So you could bring hats you like to wear. Wide brim hats go well with dresses.

Bringing Props

Some senior sessions have had fun props in the photos. You could bring a musical instrument, ball (or something to do your sport), or anything that you want to have in your photo. During 2020 I had seniors wearing a mask to show what we all wore during covid. So it's your choice what you want to have with you in your senior photos.

You can always have some photos with the prop and some without it. The fun thing with senior portraits is you can have lots of variety in your photos because it's just you in the picture.

Time of day for photos

Everyone likes to come to the capitol building an hour before sunset on the weekend. It's really, really busy. Crowds of people. You have to photoshop people out of every shot. I'd recommend coming in the morning about an hour before sunrise and before the crowds hit. During the afternoon the light could be too harsh even with the trees' shade. So come before sunrise or come during sunset on a weekday. Traffic can be busy and you might have a hard time finding parking close to the capitol so watch for rush hour traffic right down town.

If it's cloudy you can have photos taken about anytime during the day. For this senior session it was an afternoon about 4 and it was cloudy so the light worked well. There were still plenty of people around and most of the shots are more close up but it all worked out well.

Of course you could use this location for family, bridal, maternity, and other portrait sessions too. It's a beautiful location that can be perfect if you time it right when there are less people.