Senior Portraits for Grand Rapids Area High
If you’re a senior at a Grand Rapids-area high school, one of the first things I ask is simple: what does your school actually mean to you, and what’s part of your day-to-day there? I’ve photographed seniors from high schools all over West Michigan, and the sessions that turn out best are the ones built around what’s already true about a student and their school — not a generic backdrop. Here’s a look at four of the communities I shoot in most, and what a session built around your school can look like.
Forest Hills (Central, Northern, and Eastern)
Forest Hills is one of the West Michigan communities I love photographing seniors from, including students at Forest Hills Central, Forest Hills Northern, and Forest Hills Eastern. A lot of the seniors I photograph from Forest Hills want part of their session to happen where their high school years actually happened — the football field under Friday night lights, the tennis courts, the track, the band room, the theater stage, wherever your sport, activity, or passion lives. We can build all or part of a session right at Central, Northern, or Eastern — most schools just need a quick heads-up, and I’m happy to help coordinate access. Downtown Grand Rapids is only a few minutes away too, so it’s easy to pair a school-venue look with a downtown look in the same afternoon.
One of my favorite Forest Hills sessions was with a senior named Boston, who wanted his lifted FJ Cruiser, downtown Grand Rapids, and a pickleball court all in one shoot. If you want a sense of how a session can reflect what a senior actually loves, take a look at Trucks, Black Ties, and Pickleball.
East Grand Rapids
East Grand Rapids is another community I love photographing seniors from, including students at East Grand Rapids High School. The same idea applies here — the football field, the pool, the track, the band room, the theater stage, or wherever your sport, activity, or passion lives at EGR. Downtown Grand Rapids is only a few minutes from East Grand Rapids too, so it’s easy to pair a session at your school with a downtown look in the same afternoon — brick, murals, and city energy on one side, and the place that shaped your senior year on the other.
Grandville
Grandville seniors are close enough to Lake Michigan that a lakeshore-and-city combination session is an easy, natural fit, and Grandville High School itself is always an option if your senior year happened on campus. A recent Grandville session with a senior named Evan started with golden hour on the Lake Michigan shoreline — dune grass, an old wooden breakwater, and an inflatable unicorn float — before wrapping up with a completely different, more urban look in downtown Grand Rapids. Take a look at Golden Hour and a Unicorn Float to see how two locations in one evening can give you two genuinely different moods.
Grand Haven
If you’re a senior in Grand Haven, including students at Grand Haven High School, you already know what makes this town special: Washington Street’s colorful storefronts, the pier catwalk stretching out over the channel, and a beach that turns gold as the sun drops toward the lake. I’ve photographed seniors here for years, and Grand Haven remains one of my favorite towns to shoot in West Michigan.
Downtown Grand Haven does a lot of the work for you. Washington Street’s mix of pastel storefronts and old wooden doorways means you can move a few feet in any direction and get a completely different frame — relaxed, colorful, and never posed-looking. When the light starts to turn gold, we head out toward the channel to the pier catwalk, a steel-and-concrete walkway that’s one of the most distinctive locations in West Michigan. From there it’s a short walk to Grand Haven State Park, where dune grass and open water give you the kind of big, sweeping senior portraits that don’t look like anyone else’s.
Pairing a relaxed downtown look with a golden-hour water look gives your session real range. A recent example: Two Looks, One Location, a Grand Haven senior session that paired downtown storefronts with the pier catwalk at sunset.
Ready to Book Your Session?
Every senior’s session looks different because every senior — and every school — is different. If you’re a senior at one of these schools, or anywhere else in West Michigan, I’d love to hear about your senior year and help build a session around what makes it yours.