Make Them Yours: Senior Portraits with Your Sport, Instrument, or Passion

The senior portraits that land the hardest are the ones that show who you actually are — not just what you look like in nice clothes.

That's why I push every senior I work with to bring something meaningful to their session. Your sport. Your instrument. Your art. Your uniform. Whatever you spend your time on when nobody's asking you to.

Collage of high school senior portraits featuring athletes from West Michigan — including baseball, tennis, softball, dance, golf, volleyball, rock climbing, wakeboarding, lacrosse, and fencing — photographed by Glerum Photography in Grand Rapids, MI

Athletes

Bring your uniform, your equipment, your field. I've photographed seniors with hockey gear on outdoor rinks, baseball players in empty stadiums, runners on quiet trails, dancers mid-leap. These images capture something that a studio portrait never will — the version of you that your teammates and coaches know.

Collage of high school senior portraits featuring musicians from West Michigan — including French horn, violin, drums, cello, guitar, trumpet, and ukulele — photographed by Glerum Photography in Grand Rapids, MI

Musicians

Guitars, violins, drum sticks, sheet music. A senior with their instrument is a senior telling the truth about how they spent high school. Some of my favorite recent senior images involve musicians in unexpected places — a cellist in an alley, a guitarist on a bridge.

A collage of West Michigan senior portraits showcasing arts and hobbies: painting at an outdoor easel, working at a pottery wheel, posing by a graffiti mural, holding art books, and reading a favorite novel.

Artists and Creators

If you paint, draw, sew, weld, build, write, or make anything with your hands — bring that into your session. Your work is part of your identity, and it belongs in your portraits.

A collage of West Michigan senior portraits celebrating performing arts: a black-and-white theater portrait, a dancer leaping beside a brick building, students posing on historic theater stages, and a nighttime city street portrait.

Performers

Theater seniors, dancers, singers — the stage itself can be your backdrop. Some of my most memorable senior images have been taken on empty stages, in costume, under theater lights.

A collage of West Michigan senior portraits showcasing unique passions: a junkyard artist, welding sparks, wakeboarding, robotics engineering by a stream, fishing from a truck bed, riding a horse at sunset, and posing by a small airplane.

Your "Thing"

Not everything has to be official. Do you restore cars? Keep bees? Skate? Cosplay? Fish? The more personal, the better. These details are what make a senior session feel like yours.

Your senior portraits are your one chance to document who you were at this moment — not a generic teenager, but you. Bring the details that matter. This kind of personalization is at the heart of my senior portrait sessions.

Want to build a session around what you love? Let's talk about it.

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How to Choose a Senior Portrait Photographer in Grand Rapids