Seattle Senior Photo Session at Seattle Center and Kerry Park

I got an email in early October from asking about my availability to do a senior photo session sometime between November 17 and November 201.  The woman who was writing me was named April, and she and her husband Allen and their high-school senior son Drake were planning to make a trip to Seattle during that time.  They live in Billings, Montana and are big Seahawk fans, and every year they try to get to Seattle to see at least one game.  This was their Seahawk weekend this year, and while in town they wanted to have Drake’s senior photos taken.

Knowing all too well how unpredictable our weather is in mid-November I warned April that there was a good chance that the weather would not cooperate, and that we could get rained out.  Also, due to the time year the daylight hours in Seattle are quite short, with the sun setting not long after 4PM.  So I suggested that we not set a firm date at that point, but keep watching the weather as their travel date got closer and plan the photo session accordingly.  We could set a tentative date for early in their stay in Seattle, and if the weather was terrible early on we could reschedule for a day or two later, in the hopes that we’d get at least one decent day.

As the date of their trip got closer the weather was not looking very good, with predictions of rain almost every day.  But knowing how inaccurate the local forecasters are more than a day or two in advance, I wasn’t too worried yet.  And sure enough, once they were in town the forecast changed again and now it looked like November 20 would be cloudy but dry.  This would work out very well, as the Seahawks were playing that night (Monday Night Football), so if we could do an early afternoon session we should have good light an plenty of time for photos before they needed to get ready for the game.

We arranged to meet at the base of the Space Needle, which I figured would be a pretty easy spot to find even for someone who had never been to Seattle before.  The plan was to meet at noon, which should give us the best shot at good light.  And somewhat shockingly, when we met at the Space Needle not only was it not raining, there was actually quite a bit of blue sky!  We started walking around the Center, looking for good backdrops.  The sun was making brief appearances and it was really some pretty decent conditions for photos, certainly much better than what I had feared might happen.

Even though Allen, April and Drake had been in Seattle several times before, they had never been to Seattle Center so I took them on a quick tour as we continued to take photos.  One of my favorite spots for photos at the Center is at the fountain in the middle of the Center, and I was happy to discover that even though it was quite late in the year the fountain was working.

After we finished our walk around the center we climbed into our cars and headed up Queen Anne Hill to Kerry Park.  As we reached the park I could see what looked like a rainstorm approaching from the south, so we sped up the photos a bit to try to get all the shots we wanted before the rain arrived.  The storm moved pretty quickly though, and within ~10 minutes we were first getting spit on and soon after it was coming down pretty hard.  Typical fall in Seattle; and hour earlier it had been mostly sunny, and now it was not only wet but it had gotten VERY dark, it felt like it was almost sunset instead of early afternoon.  But we managed to take the photos that Drake wanted, as well as a few family shots with the backdrop of the Space Needle and Seattle downtown.

Here are a few shots from the session, I hope you enjoy them!