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by Raegan. Raegan is a senior at Amador Valley High School. She enjoys thrifting and all elements of styling. I often look at my closet, overflowing with clothes, and think: "I have nothing to wear." But a great way to combat this problem is to take a staple item and style it in different ways. Take the t-shirt, for example  T-shirts are cute, comfortable, and easy to wear. You probably have a ton of them; I sure do! T-shirts are super versatile...so lets take a shirt out of your t-shirt hoarding pile and style it different ways. I grabbed this black "coke" shirt from Forever 21. Here are a bunch of different ways to wear it. Look 1: Out & About
 Look 2: Classy but Sassy
Take the same black shirt and pair it with a fitted skirt with a cute ruffle, and a pair of suede flat and all of a sudden you've taken a casual look up a notch. Depending on your job, you could wear this to work, and it would be great for going out to dinner at the end of the day. Again I kept my makeup and hair pretty natural with this outfit. A pale pink lip makes sense when you are wearing shoes that are in the same tones.  Look 3: Night Out
Finally, a fun hairstyle for this look is a half up top-knot. The key to this look is that the knot isn't too perfect-- messy is good here, and be sure to wave the bottom part that's left down.  Don't be afraid to style your t-shirt in tons of different ways. Fashion is all about trying new things and exploring. Go find your unique style!
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I've always wanted to shoot at the fair- the bright colors, the swirly rides...all of it makes for a great backdrop for pictures. Finally, this year I invited my Team 19 girls to join me for an afternoon photoshoot. So. Much. Fun. The styling was red, white & blue, with red lips as a must. And, as someone who never wears red lips, I was quite surprised to find the adage is true: there is a red for everyone!                      Yes, the fair is pretty much the opportunity to pay an admission fee to get professionally heckled, but as long as it's not 1,000 degrees when you go, you're sure to have a good time!
And if you're curious - Team 19 is this year's group of seniors who join me throughout the spring of their junior year and fall of their senior year for stylized photoshoots. Go back in the blog to www.samanthagrantphotography.com/blog/cherry-blossoms to check out our last group shoot together. The next one up is top secret... If you are in the class of 2020 and are interested in joining next year's team, drop me a line! In case you weren't aware, these days the way to ask someone to be your date to the prom is a bit of a to-do. It's called the Promposal, and often they can be quite elaborate...  This is Mason. About a week ago I got this DM from him, out of the blue: "I'm not sure if you know, but I'm Mollie's boyfriend..."⠀  Long story short, Mason knew that Mollie and I had a shoot scheduled and wanted to know if he could do his promposal before we began. I was, of course, super-psyched. You know me and prom...⠀  So the plan was to get to the venue 15 minutes early and set up the balloons. But it turned out to be super windy. We realized that he needed to tape the balloons together...just as we saw her drive by. We jumped into the bushes. I ran to her car to create a diversion so he would have enough time to fix them. By the time Mollie and I came around the bend everything was pretty much perfect.  As you can imagine, she said yes.  Thanks so much, Mason, for inviting me to join in on your super fun promposal!!!
 Abriana is one of those amazing athletes that got to enjoy an entire senior year free of the stress of college acceptance. And I'd love to say "Lucky!!" except that luck had very little to do with it.
 What did have something to do with it are grit and determination, both of which came in handy on this shoot. Abriana braved through rain and pretty chilly temperatures to pull off these beautiful shots.
Abriana has been team captain for her swim team for both junior and senior year because, well, she's just that kind of person. The younger swimmers (the "littles") call her "Mom" which, naturally, her own mom finds pretty amusing.  I kind of love this cell phone picture from the end of the shoot: creative problem solving at its finest! This was at the tail end of the shoot, the chilliest part before heading home. "I want to go to Starbucks and get a hot cocoa," Abriana said, "...and put my hands in it!" Cracked. Me. Up. Abriana, I had a fabulous time with you. Hopefully we'll find a time in between spring meets to shoot a cap & gown mini session but if not have a fabulous time down in LA next year!!!
At our Galentine's shoot Team 19 had fun playing around with some heart props, making valentines, and hanging out while listening to music. Oh yeah, we also took some pictures...and pictures of taking pictures... Happy Valentine's/Galentine's Day!
After a whirlwind couple of weeks, with a record number of applications, I'm proud to announce the thirteen members of Team 19! These lovely young ladies will be representing Samantha Grant Photography over the coming year and will be featured in a number of stylized shoots. Stay tuned to see great things from this fantastic group of local students!
  When we were planning her photoshoot Bella mentioned to me that she would love to incorporate flowers. This presented a bit of a challenge, given that it was early November, but I suggested that we start out at Alden Lane Nursery because they pretty much always have something in bloom. I love shooting at Alden Lane; the people there are *so nice.* They always tell me that I'm free to move anything around for the shot, and go out their way to accommodate photography. Sure enough, for Bella's photoshoot they had plenty of flowers and were crazy nice, as always.
This trimester Bella is taking a sci fi lit class where they not only get to read the Hobbit but also get to watch all the Star Wars movies. "It must be really hard to get into that class!" I exclaimed. "I mean, wouldn't everybody want to take it?" But she said she just signed up for it, no problem. One of her other classes is an internship at Kaiser, which sounds pretty perfect since she intends to major in nursing at Ole Miss.
After a bit at Alden Lane we headed over to Shadow Cliffs to catch the sunset.   Between her four classes she's done with school at 2pm (sweet!). But Bella's still pretty busy; she works at Bent Creek Winery helping out with the back room stuff and she also leads a bible study group for 7th grade girls at Cornerstone Fellowship.
During her free time Bella plays the guitar and and enjoys reading and writing poetry. I'm so happy that she brought her guitar to her photoshoot-- I feel like the images of her playing really capture the heart of who she is.   I'm so excited to see you in the spring, Bella, with all of your Ole Miss stuff for your mini shoot! It's going to be a ton of fun!
 For Sophia's photoshoot we did our pre-session consultation, like always, and she sketched out a few ideas for her outfits. But I have to say that I had no idea (based on what she described) how cute her looks would turn out. But you'll see...In the mean time, let me actually tell you about Sophia.
Sophia volunteers at Sage Veterinary Hospital because she'd like to be a vet. "The vets there are super nice," she explained. Total roll models. They've actually allowed her to do observations in the operating room. "How is that?" I asked. "It sounds like it could be intense?"  "The first time I nearly passed out," she admitted. But after that it was fine. Her plan is to go to either U of O or OSU and major in general science before going to vet school.
Sophia was on the cheerleading team this fall but is super excited to have more free time now that it's over. She's got time to go to basketball games and is contemplating getting a job in retail.  Sophia's mom, Danette, dubbed this tree "the fake tree" because, she explained, "the texture of it looked too perfectly rough to be real." I will forever think of it as The Fake Tree. So this was a complete fluke: I asked Sophia to lay her head down on her arms on a table for one of the shots. And her mom Danette exclaimed, "Hang on a second! We have a similar shot from when she was a little kid!" So I took the shot, and later that night Danette texted me this lovely picture that they think was taken around when Sophia was in 4th grade. Amazing, right?  Sophia: then  Sophia: now! This got me thinking-- are there any shots that YOU would love to recreate? What a fun concept...count me in!
 In case you live in the Tri-Valley and don't already know who Madi is, allow me to enlighten you. Madi is a level 10 gymnast, which I guess is one step before an Olympic level. When she was 14 Madi was offered a full ride to Oregon State, and since she did a verbal commit then, she's known where she was going to college since she was in 8th grade. Consider my mind boggled.  Now in order to make this all happen Madi, who goes to HS in Pleasanton, commutes to her gym in the peninsula 4 days a week and practices 5 hours per day. Pleasanton USD was kind enough to allow her a class schedule that lets her to head out a bit early for this.  So I knew all this about Madi before our photoshoot, and I was really wondering what a person would be like with that kind of drive and dedication. Was she going to stare me down with steely intensity? Was it going to be all about focus, details, minutes on the clock?  Not at all. Madi drove up with her mom, we talked about outfits, we talked about classes...apart from a few shots in her leos, Madi's senior session was just like anybody else. Actually, I take that back. Madi is both totally casual and pretty silly so her session included more peace signs than I typically take.  Madi's cap & gown mini in the spring is going to be awesome because we're trying to time it for when her sister Lacy is home to get the two of them together: Lacy is already on the gymnastics team at OSU and Madi is super excited to join her in the fall. I can't wait to see you two together!
Grant's photoshoot involved quite a lot of two things that I don't often get a ton of: 1) a huge variety of hilarious outtakes and 2) embarrassing stories about him as a kid as told by his mom throughout the photoshoot.   The best story was about Grant in 3rd grade. Apparently he had a tough teacher and a long patch of bad behavior in class. Finally his mom, Mindy, got to the point where when Grant got a good report home from the teacher she gave him a banana split....for breakfast. "There's worse things, than a banana split for breakfast, right? I mean, there's fruit in there at least" she concluded. I concur.
Grant is on the track team. His main event is the hurtles, but he'll probably also do the 4x400.  We were talking about flexibility because I wanted to have him sitting in some of the shots. He said that because it's the off-season he's not super flexible right now. But during the season they stretch for like 45 minutes a day (!) and he improves a ton.
Grant's dad was an FBI agent, so that begged the question. "Are you going to apply?" I asked? He answered with a resounding "No." He explained that when starting out you can actually make more money in the Livermore PD than as an FBI agent. And that it takes several years of rising through the ranks to finally make a decent salary. You also can't hold any other part time jobs while you work there in order to supplement your income. "They own you" is the consensus. Interesting.
Speaking of owning... Grant is the owner of a Cap & Gown mini session in the spring so I'll be posting more pictures of him then and we'll get to find out where he'll be next year. Can't wait to have you in front of my lens again Grant! |
© Samantha Grant Photography 2021