Tomás Williamson

This year, my senior year in college, was the first time I decided to do graduation photos. As someone who has primarily worked in sports photography, shifting my mindset to portrait work was something that, candidly, I was nervous about doing.

I was nervous for the same reason that taking wedding photos would make me uneasy. Being tasked with capturing a major moment in someone’s life is a big deal! I was nervous that I wouldn’t provide quality work to my friends, and even further, take money from them for work that wasn’t up to the standard I set for myself.

Thankfully, I was making a far bigger deal out of this than it really needed. Relying on the foundations of photography, and on my subjects, I turned a venture that I was initially very hesitant to undertake into a phenomenal learning experience and some really fun images.

Here are some of the key things I learned during Graduation Season 2023:

1. Always be ready to shoot
   • On a picturesque campus, like Virginia Tech, you never know when or where the light might strike perfectly. Staying on the lookout for locations beyond the normal spots that everyone takes their grad pictures really helped me to provide images to my friends that might stand out from the monotonous wall of images that everyone else was posting.
2. Take advantage of your subject’s personality
   • All of my friends have big personalities. One of my primary goals with these photos was to let their individuality shine; that means posing with balloons, blowing up cans of Root Beer, or showing off your championship ring. Letting the photos be guided by my subject’s personality allowed me to deliver them images that didn’t just represent a moment in their lives, but who they are at that moment.
3. Know your weaknesses (and how to make up for them)
   • Something I’m not great at is knowing how to pose people. I can describe a few poses that I know, but coming into the season, I was really not good at giving my subjects direction for how to stand in frame. So, whenever she could make it, my lovely girlfriend Jackie would come with me and help me communicate how the subjects can stand. She helped me make sure all of the subject’s accessories (clothing, hair, makeup, etc.) were in the right place. She helped me make up for my lack of knowledge, and also showed me how I can effectively pose people so in the future I can manage on my own.
4. Overshoot!
   • This one is pretty simple, and something that I have a habit of doing already. Shoot too much. It’s far easier to get rid of images that don’t look great, than to wish you had captured an unexpected moment. Additionally, there are a lot of times I went into editing thinking that some compositions didn’t work (or vice-versa) and found the opposite. Having options gave me more control over the final deliverables to my subject.
5. Say yes as much as you can.
   • My photos were a service I gave to my friends, but it also allowed me the opportunity to practice my portraiture skills in a bunch of different settings. So when I was out on a shoot, I made it a goal of mine to say yes to as many different ideas that the subject might have. Different locations, different poses, angles, etc. were all opportunities for me to try something new.
     

It was a pleasure to capture these moments for my friends, and I was able to learn a lot that I can bring with me. Cheers to next season!

Top 25 Images from Grad Season!